Cast and Blast Alaska

Alaska is always described in superlatives, and for good reason. For the sportsman, there's simply no place like it on earth, and every time I go to Alaska it's a whole new adventure. My latest discovery is a place called Cold Bay, way down at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula. Just across False Pass-where the waters of the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean first mingle-is Unimak Island, the easternmost island in the Aleutian chain.

During World War II, Cold Bay's population swelled to over 60,000. Today, however, there are but 70 hardy souls. With its 10,480-foot runway, Cold Bay airport will accommodate anything that flies this side of a space shuttle-including the Reeve Aleutian Airways 727 that whisked us in from Anchorage in less than two hours.

The climate here is rather balmy by Alaska standards, with air temperatures ranging from the 20s in winter to the 60s in summer. But this is no place to bring the family: the beaches are black sand; the wind blows 20 to 40 knots year 'round; and the weather can change from sun to rain (or sleet, or snow) in a heart beat. So why bother? Two reasons, actually: extraordinary fishing for silver salmon, steelhead and Dolly Varden trout . . . and the best bird hunting I've ever seen.

I was invited-along with friends Peter Melendy, Dan Smith and Brian Ward-to sample Cold Bay's smorgasbord of fishing and waterfowling opportunities by Charlie Summerville, the owner of Alaska Trophy Adventures. I've fished with Charlie many times over the years, and the little sucker just keeps getting better! He's got a nose for finding the best fishing Alaska has to offer, and Cold Bay is his crowning achievement.

A major advantage of Cold Bay proper is its road system, which affords drive-up access to countless miles of remarkable fishing. Many creeks are accessible from the beach well up into their high-country head waters. Access like this would create unbearable fishing pressure in most places, but not here. Amazingly, fishermen have yet to discover the Cold Bay area. In seven days of fishing a 150-mile stretch of the Peninsula and islands above and below Cold Bay, we encountered only one other fisherman-and he was a bear hunter armed with spinning gear just looking for dinner!

Silver Salmon
Of the five species of Pacific salmon, silvers are tops in my book. When hooked, they spend as much time in the air as in the water, especially when they're fresh from the salt. And while we found plenty of silvers almost everywhere we fished, none were any fresher than the hundred thousand or so we discovered in a place called Volcano Bay, a stone's throw from the Pacific surf.

This river flows down the slope of a huge volcano, then empties into tidal flats several miles wide. About half the size of Rhode Island, virtually the entire bay is wadeable. Countless chrome silvers come in on every tide and cruise the shallow water, finning around in pods of 100 fish or more. This is all sight casting to tailing fish-flats fishing, Alaska style-and it was a rare moment indeed when at least three or four of us weren't fast to fish at the same time.

Brian Ward came equipped with a lifetime supply of silly looking, green-and-yellow deerhair divers tied by the British firm of Turrall Flies. And he paid dearly for it. "Oh, right Brian, just clip off the weed guard and it turns into a killer silver salmon pattern!" Peter taunted. "Yeah, we can't wait to read the headlines," I added. "Limey Bass Bug Kicks Butt on Aleutian Silver Flats."

We all got a big chuckle at Brian's expense, but as we soon learned, he who laughs last laughs best. Call it unbridled optimism, call it uncanny prescience . . . hell, call it dumb luck, but the silvers went for that damned thing like hatchery trout during a food-pellet hatch. It would no sooner hit the water than three or four fish would be all over it. Figure that one out!
The only way into Volcano Bay is by plane-small plane, that is, for the Volcano Bay International Airport also serves as the beach. A nice, wide beach. The kind of beach you can land on and still be alive when everything stops moving. Alaska Trophy Adventures has an outcamp snuggled in behind the barrier dunes on the shore of the bay, and its Cold Bay package includes two days of fishing and an overnight here in silver salmon heaven.

Steelhead
Alaska Trophy Adventures also maintains an outcamp on the Aleutian River, a place any clean-living steelheader would point to if asked to describe his concept of heaven. Very few people know of this magnificent run of wild steelies, and in order to keep it that way we're using the pseudonym "Aleutian River."

A major attraction for me in this Aleutian Island adventure was the prospect of landing a 40-pound steelhead, like the one shown in the accompanying photos taken on the Aleutian River last season. Alas, La Niña's fickle weather put the schedule off somewhat, and we arrived before the 40-pounders, but the 20-pounders went a long way toward attenuating my disappointment.
The Aleutian River outcamp is equipped with with boats, motors, guides, great food, and all the bears you can handle. An overnight here (with two days of fishing) is included in the standard package, but you're free to stay at the Aleutian River outcamp the whole week if you like.

In our travels around the lower Peninsula and Unimak Island we came across a lot of juvenile steelhead, evidence of any number of "undocumented" steelhead runs in the Cold Bay area. Nobody knows much about these runs or what they amount to later in the season, but Charlie is now hard at work scouting them out.

Dolly Varden Trout
Or is that Dolly Varden char? In fact, Dollys are members of the genus Salvelinus, making them char and not trout. Often confused with its first cousin, the arctic char, the two species look so much alike that even biologists have trouble telling them apart. Dollys spawn and overwinter in rivers (whereas arctic char do both in lakes), and since most of the rivers we fished did not originate from lakes, it's a good bet we were catching Dollys. Not that we cared one bit.
Dollys take much of their nourishment in the form of salmon eggs, and when we were there in early October the streambeds were choked with eggs from recently-concluded chum salmon runs. These beautiful, aggressive, egg gobblers can grow to arm's length in size, and they were so prolific that it was-quite literally-a fish on every cast.

Even though you may find yourself under-gunned on the larger fish, light, sensitive rods are necessary to detect a Dolly's subtle take. If you're late on the hookup, the egg is going to wind up way down in the gullet, greatly reducing the likelihood of a happy ending. After this happened to us a couple of times we re-rigged with bead eggs stop-knotted six inches back from a bare egg hook at the end of the tippet. When the fish took the harmless bead, line tension planted the egg hook squarely in its jaw.

The only unpleasant aspect of our otherwise-delightful day of trouting was the climb out. In the middle of a 300-foot-deep gorge, Charlie pronounced the day's festivities at an end. Wearing felt-soled wading shoes, it took me 20 minutes to ascend the wet, tundra-covered, 60-degree slope, where any slip would mean a "butt luge" ride all the way to the jagged rocks at the bottom. I learned two valuable lessons here: (1) Bring the heavy, cleat-soled wading shoes; and (2) When you give a guy a ration of crap about his silly-looking British bass bugs, he's going tell everybody he knows how long it took you to climb a little hill!

Ptarmigan Hunting
Being a grouse hunter at heart, I was particularly fond of our time on the ptarmigan "moors" around Cold Bay. In their brown summer plumage, ptarmigan look a lot like grouse, but by October they're about half way through their transformation to pure white. They flush and fly like quail, usually staying low and arcing off to one side, and given their contrasting colors they aren't hard to hit.

Humping the tundra in search of ptarmigan can be a lot like work-it's wet, miserable stuff to walk on, and in many places it's comprised of endless two-foot-high hillocks. In a couple of hours of hunting the ptarmigan moors you won't change elevation by more than ten feet, but you'll climb half a mile to get there!
We had some great ptarmigan action, especially when hunting over Al Spalinger's blond lab. A retired Alaska Fish & Game Department fisheries biologist, and an avid bird hunter, Al owns the Izembek Lodge in downtown Cold Bay. The lodge, which very comfortably accommodates a party of six, is the "base camp" for Alaska Trophy Adventures' Cold Bay operation.

Waterfowling
Eel grass is to waterfowl as worms are to fish, and with the world's largest eel grass beds-45,000 acres worth-Izembek Lagoon plays temporary home each fall to millions of lesser Canada geese, brant (black geese), emperor geese, eiders, pintails, spoonbills and other arctic waterfowl pausing here to feed and rest on their way south from summer nesting grounds. Izembek National Wildlife Refuge manager, Rick Poetter, estimated that nearly 500,000 ducks and geese were in residence when we were there.

The best shooting occurs during the two hours on either side of the high tide, as water covers the shallow eel grass beds, forcing the birds to move around. Our party split up to cover more of the lagoon-Dan and Peter hunted from the mainland with Al Spalinger and his blond lab; Brian and I took the boat out to Two Box Island with our faithful retrievers, uhh . . . guides, Charlie and Rob.

The shooting was fast and furious, and the birds were so thick at times it was difficult to choose targets. In what has to be the most productive shot of my life, three brant fell to a single round of 3-1/2" 12-gauge Bismuth, causing me to inadvertently exceed the daily bag limit by a full 50%. True to its name, in the short time it took us to limit out on Two Box Island I was well into my second box of shells.It's tough to describe this experience in mere words, so let me just leave it like this: I never even imagined that waterfowl hunting could be this good!

When you're ready for the ultimate big boys' vacation, do yourself a favor and make it a Cold Bay Cast & Blast. You can even design your own itinerary. If you'd rather pass on the bird hunting, feel free to spend the whole week fishing. If you just don't care about 40-pound steelhead (!), you can extend your stay on the silver flats, or put in some extra time with your shotgun on Izembek Lagoon.

Week-long trips start at $3,400 per person. The whole nine yards (which is what we did) goes for $4,500. For more information, contact Capt. Charles Summerville III, Alaska Trophy Adventures, P.O. Box 31, King Salmon, AK 99613; Tel: (252-923-9939)