Chatanika River
Date: 6/5/2008Fish Caught: 1
Location: Chatanika River
Weather Condition: Slightly Stained Water - 70s and Cloudy
It had been a few days since I had been out and I needed to get out. My dad was at work and the girls we all playing with their cousins. The morning was hot and sunny. As I was passing by the Chena river in town it looked pretty clear as there was not too much rain lately to cloud up the water. So I figured I would gas up the rental van and head out to the Chatanika River just north of Fairbanks. The drive was the same it has always been in the times we lived in Alaska. Large permafrost heaves that could send a car into the sticks.
Once I got out to the lodge I went to my regular pull off about 200 yards past the campground. I saw that things had changed there and was now gated off. I went back towards the campground and found the put a different road it that went around the gravel pit they put in about 8 years back. After finding my way to the forest service bridge I put on my gear and headed upstream. For about a mile of river I worked the banks and all the regular hole with nothing moving. I got up to the large hole in the bend where you have to cross the river and figured something would be moving in there. But working it for some time nothing moved. I started to work further upstream and the next deeper hole while letting my line drift I was untangling my fly line when a small grayling took the fly. It was not hooked well being off guard, and was lost quickly. Then a cast and drift to the same place I hooked a slightly larger one and got him in for the photo.
That was the only fish that felt like being on the web that day I guess because I continued to fish that hole and others but again nothing was moving and I think it was too early in the year. They just needed some more time to move in.
