The fishing season is upon us
I flew into my best collecting site south of town last week and a couple of bear hunters told me they had caught grayling in this beaver pond. I had been over to it in the past but didn't think it would hold fish. Wrong. I walked over yesterday and stood on the beaver dam and had a good time catching some nice fish. They were mostly small but a couple in the 13"-14" range came by, which I really didn't expect; this bigger one would be a good grayling anywhere in Alaska. To get here these fish have to swim against the current up at least 30miles of small creeks that feed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks. You can tell too; they aren't very strong at this point. I had to get them back into the water quickly after a quick picture. This pond is not as big as it looks in this stitched picture. It can't be more than about 400ft across at most - actually, it measures 250ft to the far shore on Google Earth. I may have to tote my small rubber raft out there so I can exercise a fly rod on them. It was 80+ deg here yesterday. I had a sunshine headache by the time I walked out of there back to the plane.
|