Like The First Day of Snow.

In early July, the Crumpster and I team-guided a group of four guys, all of whom had barely picked up a fly rod in their lives. We went to "Brooks". You may know of Brooks River in Katmai National Park as the famous place where you see the bears on the waterfall catching salmon. You've seen the pictures:



Brooks can at times be tough for the beginning angler. Due to pressure from other anglers and pressure from bears, the Brooks rainbows can be a touch pickier. So I was slightly skeptical that the day would be amazing.

At Brooks, the bear viewing and fishing is so popular that they employ many rangers to protect the tourists and fishermen. Overzealous at times with their jobs, the rangers will often hold you at bay from crossing bridges or walking trails because a bear is 50 yards away. Granted, they haven't had any serious attacks from bears, so I guess what they are doing works. But all the while a bit frustrating for guide and clients as the rangers ask you to patiently wait for bears at times for over an hour.

This particular day at Brooks held us up for about twenty minutes waiting for a bear 50 yards away to move to 65 yards...we waited our turn behind many tourists and then followed in behind everyone crossing the main bridge. Approaching the water I spotted several nice trout over 20 inches at the gate of the bridge. Looking past those trout my stomach began flipping around as I realized that just beyond those bright beautiful rainbows were several hundred silvery salmon swimming upstream. It felt like the first day of snow...giddy childish excitement. Sputtering out words and pointing I nearly jumped up and down alerting anyone in range to this miraculous event. The Sockeye Are Running!

Flooded with emotion I thought of the journey of these salmon and how far they have come. The cornerstone of the ecological system of Bristol Bay has arrived once again and we can be assured that there will be many big fat trout this summer and fall to catch, bears to keep us on our toes, eagles to fascinate us, and much more wildlife due to the abundance of sockeye present feeding the circle of life. Welcome back Sockeye.

Here are some photos from our sockeye season:

Guide Extraordinaire MJMK with a much smaller sockeye than mine.

Everyone loves sockeye.

The sockeye line up.

Rogue Angel Amy with her first sockeye.

And Rogue Angel Amy cooking us up a shore lunch with her freshly caught sockeyes.