A trip laden with obstacles but we kicked its ass....
This trip was supposed to be done two weeks ago with my buddy flying in from North Pole AK to fish the Kenai river with me in Southcentral AK. After having two weeks of stellar warm weather we couldn't wait to fish open water in more tolerable weather. Of course the weekend that he was supposed to arrive the weather was going to be well below freezing rendering it unfishable. Flight rescheduled for the next week.
The weather cooperated well the entire week building up to the weekend and the weekend was shaping up to be a great one. I picked up my buddy from the airport early Saturday morning and meet up at a gas station with another friend with his drift boat. Loaded up on Gas station breakfast and coffee and we were on the road.
The plan was to put the drift boat in in the middle river at Skilak lake. Usually this lake is frozen and you can push a drift boat until you hit the river mouth at the other side of the lake. With such a warm winter we have had this entire season we were expecting to see an open lake. Nope, it was frozen over. Frozen over yes, but not the type of solid ice you would like to walk out on. We saw some tracks of somebody who decided to do the same thing and followed them into the middle lake (200 + feet of water). We stopped when we noticed a large hole of open water and also for the fact that the lake wabbled eevry time we walked. Sketchy was the word of the day. We didnt quit but pushed the drift boat closer to the bank and continued onward to the open river mouth. The entire way the ice visibly cracked at our feet. Pucker facter was in full affect. As we neared the river mouth we decided to launch the drift boat bobsled style. Each of us had one leg in the boat and the other leg with cleated wading boats pusing off the ice. At the last minute we all got in as the drift boat slid off the ice shelf and into the river mouth. What a relief. All I could think of while pushing the drift boat to the mouth was that we would have one hell of a story to tell if we pulled this off. Well yes we pulled it off but thats the last time I will do that. Maybe, and thats a big maybe I would do it again on safer ice conditions.
The rest of the drift was awesome. Beautiful scenery, eagles all over like pigeons and some decent fish was had. We lost some really large fish but thats how it goes sometimes.
Finally approaching our take out we see that that too is frozen over but looking more like a glacier than flat ice. We kicked its ass too. Check out the pictures.
This is one trip I won't forget about for some time. We didn't catch PB fish but darn, what a cool fun trip. The weather is looking good again this weekend, back at it again but not walking across that ice this time.
Enjoy the pics
Pushing the drift boat on sketchy ice
Closer to the bank this time.
Mouth full
Flawless bow
Scenery, never gets old
The rides
The take out, whats even funnier is that a jet boat was taking out before us. We helped them trailer it up. Alaska, what winter will have flyfishers do....
