The Karluk River campsite sparkled as the early October's morning sun played along the receding edge of a heavy overnight frost. We had flown from Kodiak to a seaplane landing area below Karluk Lake and floated into camp on the previous after-noon, a Saturday, under a low ceiling and chill drizzle. Mountains that from the perspective of yesterday's flight had appeared only as wrinkles on the island's gray-brown face stood in sharp relief against a faultless sky. The monotonous gray mottle separated into tans, gold, and even some green, and yesterday's drab browns had mellowed to subtle tones of red. For Dale Thompson, Ron Yates, and me our first full day on the river was off to a glorious start.
The other two members of our party, John McCullough and guide Dave Pingree, had been in camp for more than a week hosting an Austrian angler friend of John's. Fishing had been only fair they reported, but Dave had seen and Otto, the Austrian friend, had caught lots of steelhead in the lower river as they floated down to the Karluk Lagoon pick up site. Those fish were heading toward us, promising excellent steelhead fishing for our week on the stream. And, John pointed out, there were still some silvers (coho) a few red salmon, and tons of Dolly Varden in the area. Laden with this information, at least two layers of superfluous clothing, and a wolfed-down, only partially digested breakfast, we set out to wreak finny havoc.
John led Ron downstream to one of his favorite spots, while Dave, Dale, and I pushed upstream; the two D's to a silver salmon hangout; me to a long rock- studded run where Ron and I had enjoyed some furious steelhead action on the previous evening.
"Furious?" you question. Well, let me digress with a confession and explanation. It will help you understand the word choice. I've been a fly fisherman for more than forty years; I've pursued steelhead (not to the exclusion of other species for reasons you're about to hear) from the Great Lakes to northern California and Oregon with remarkably mediocre results for nearly half those years. Friends, many of them the former variety, have laugh- ingly likened me to Poe's big crow quoting, "Nevermore," after each ego- crushing, frustrating, harrowing, marrow-gelling cold, and most often, fishless foray to the storied steelhead waters of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York. I fared better on the west coast but just marginally. That's why my quest has been nonexclusive: I can catch other fish. During the "furious" action of that afternoon, I nearly doubled my lifetime catch of quality steelhead. How else can I describe it? Furious!
Dave and Dale were at the hangout for no more than the length of that digression, when a whoop affirmed Dave's claims for the spot. Dale had a fish on-—an aerobatic, fresh-from-the-salt silver. The salmon burst from the water twice so quickly that I swore it was in the air on a second leap while there was still a hole in the water from the first. After this startling maneuver, Dale said the fish must have decided to hightail it back to Shelikoff's Straits encumbering its flight with as little river water as possible. The D's were a little short of lift-off but definitely up on plane as they disappeared round the bend in spuming pursuit.
I continued my trek to the head of the run-—less than a quarter mile above the silver salmon hangout-—then slipped into the river and waded across. In two and a half hours working through the run, I hooked and released, or lost seven or eight steelhead, an equal number of Dolly Vardens sporting their most colorful spawning finery, and two of the turbo-charged silver salmon.
Because the run ended a little more than 300 yards above camp and because I was curious about the rest of the crew, I stopped at the tents to pick up my camera and a snack to bolt down while I looked for my colleagues. Two wide bends and three quarters of a mile later, I found them-—all three of them. Dale sat on the bank enjoying the warm sunshine and an apple; Dave stood coaching while John and Ron fished and nattered, a practice they've nearly perfected over the course of a friendship that began in high school.
I watched for a time, chatted, then waded a sociable, though comfortably quiet distance downstream hoping for another fish or two before I traded rod for camera. After a couple of casts and a missed strike, I heard a louder than usual "Yo Ho!" and turned to see the natterers in a double hookup. Too good a photo opportunity to miss, so back I slogged.
Ron's steelhead, a bright twenty-five- or twenty-six-inch male, ran upstream about thirty yards, jumped twice; then yielding to pressure and current, he returned to the pocket where Ron had hooked him to slug it out at close quarters. John's fish had another agenda altogether. After a line- singing tight circuit of the same pocket, it sprinted away directly downstream like Donovan Bailey leaving the blocks in a 100 meter dash, hit the tape (in this event a bath-tub-sized pocket) where he celebrated by hiding his head under a rock. No victory lap here. When several attempts to ease the racer's head from under the rock had failed, John and Dave worked their way down to find a smallish steelhead—-twenty-two-inches, tops-—endowed, they declared, with a thirty-inch "attitude."
Dave released "Little Big Man", and as they waded toward us, John shouted, "Hey, Ron, what happened to your fish—-looked like a good buck—-you lose it?"
To which Ron replied with something more than a trace of sarcasm in his voice, "No, John, I didn't lose it. I had to let my silver missile get away while Dave helped you land your cute little pellet."
"So you lost it."
"No, I caught the fish—-a large male steelhead—-and then it got away while I held him in the slow water here so Dave could help with your apparently foul-hooked fingerling."
"Did you touch the fish?"
"With my hand? No, but he was so close that he kept bumping into my waders."
"Doesn't count then. You can only count the ones you touch."
"Cripes! You mean this is like counting coup? You've got to touch the enemy?"
"Yep!"
"With our hands or should we use a ceremonial coup stick?"
Ron's sarcasm was palpable by now.
"Either way, provided you've got a coup stick." John is a man not easily nonplussed.
"Yo, Dale! Would you look in my bag over there and bring me that magnum ceremonial steelhead coup stick? Oh! And get a toothpick for John."
Thus began—-with some literary license and a lot of censorship—-a daily ritual. Each evening as we relaxed toward dinner, John would ask, "How many did you catch today?" The responses, predictably, came couched in quantities of coup: "I counted coup on nine steelhead today." or "I couped seven steel-head and a seagull." You get the picture—-very mature stuff from a group of not-quite-sixty-year-olds. But Dave kept tally and a chart of results for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, so the numbers were accurate despite their fractious delivery.
That this coup counting and tallying made me uncomfortable requires some explanation, and, yes, another digression. Necessary, but digression, nonetheless.
I have observed over the years that anglers are a superstitious breed. We have our lucky hats, tackle, rigs, flies, even routines. We are convinced that when we wear, use, or follow them, we are more likely to catch fish than when we don't. Time and experience compound and complicate these superstitions: our lucky bonefish cap hangs above the lucky striper cap and below the trout hat; our lucky tarpon flies occupy a special box, and we always have breakfast at the Roscoe Diner when we fish the Beaverkill.
If this isn't complex enough already, add to these "lucky" factors a few universal "don'ts", the things we don't do so we will catch fish: Don't carry a camera, a net, a stringer or creel. Stir in your own idiosyncratic collection—-never step into a trout stream left foot first, tie flies with thirteen wraps of anything, shave on the first morning of a fishing trip, ad insanitum—-and you'll get a sense of how complicated this becomes after more than forty years of good days and bad with a lot of "in- betweens" that serve to confuse the issue more. "I brought the camera and caught a few fish, managed to stay dry, and didn't break anything. Hmmm! What does that mean? Would I have caught more fish without the camera? Or does it mean that the camera really isn't the jinx I thought it was?"
You realize by now that we fisherfolk can become hopelessly overwhelmed, our behavior (not to mention our attire and palates) rigidly constrained by superstition.
What wonderful irony if I could say the nature of this phenomenon revealed itself to me as I sat on the bank of a favorite stream—-New York's Beaver Kill, the Madison in Montana, or Michigan's enchanting Au Sable—-waders yet damp from the chill waters of a customary and productive run contemplating why my usually lucky Henryville, olive elk hair caddis, or sulphur dun had failed me that day.
It didn't and I can't. It came, instead, during one of my quadrennial fits of simplification. Too many fly boxes with too many flies, redundant spools of tippet, my favorite old thermometer and the new one that works, the nostalgic Wheatley that holds only a few ragged, severely masticated flies because the little spring loaded compartment covers tend to eject flurries of freshly tied, sprightly patterns at each of their frequent but always unexpected pop- ups, and more—-nearly three quarters of it in my vest because "I always carry it." or because "It brings me luck."
Just about there I thought, "Maybe I don't carry a camera or a net simply because the weight and bulk when added to my traditional, lucky burden make me uncomfortable. As a result, I don't fish with customary concentration or maybe I just don't enjoy the fishing as much. Either way, real simplification requires shedding the superstitions that lead to this insidious complexity. "Fortunately, I don't have thoughts like this often; when I do they lead to headaches and depression.
Now, however, I allowed neither headache nor depression to stand in my way. I shed all my superstitions and all their talismans-—lucky or unlucky. Except, that is, for one "simple" superstition. A few years ago I began a conscious effort not to count my catch for reasons philosophical, practical, aesthetic, and spiritual. "Heavy stuff," you're thinking, "I hope he doesn't explain it." Relax. He won't. He'll just say that the practice has led to habit; the habit, to greater enjoyment, and my streamcraft has improved.
Do I catch more fish? How can I know that? Would my counting the catch on a particular day result in my catching fewer fish than if I hadn't counted them?
Paradoxical, isn't it? And it preludes lucky or unlucky as derivatives of the number of fish caught. Experience in the regimen has led me to regard this as just a "simple" superstition: Don't count; have more fun. Count; have less.
So, yes, the coup counting made me uneasy, but I learned to live with the discomfort because I couldn't imagine having more fun or catching more steelhead. Paraphrasing Tina Turner, I thought, "What has luck got to do with it?" More than I imagined, but we'll get to that later.
Monday arrived in a package identical to Sunday's: cold, clear, frosty morning warming toward the mid-40's by early afternoon, scant wind, lots of fish. It was a day that allowed us to establish a sustainable rhythm, one that gave us time to observe, take pictures, and simply appreciate—-the river, the fish, and the experience. The next three days were perfectly minted copies of the first two—-with one exception: the fishing progressed from exceptional to sensational while we improved from capable to competent, even to confident. Catching fish, lots of good fish, will do that for you. There's much to recommend confidence—-so long as we don't allow it to stray beyond reality's fuzzy frontier. Ours breached that ethereal border, I think, when some wag—-nameless for obvious reasons-—declared at a dinner recap, "We're kickin' butt and counting serious coup on the Karluk."
These Karluk River steelhead were good fish-—fresh, strong, vigorous. I've never seen an ugly steelhead although I have had brief encounters with a few that I said awfully ugly things about. Because you already know of my lackluster career chasing Oncorhynchmus mykiss, it is probably more telling for you to note that I've never read a description of an ugly one. The Karluk strain maintains the tradition—-beautifully. Most of the fish we took in the first three days were cast in sterling silver from a single set of forms. Solid, nearly cylindrical in cross section, vibrant, and graceful, they were gleaming twenty-eight inch rockets armed for launch. Nearly all of them were males. Later in the week fish with more color and some hens moved in; these steelhead ran thirty to thirty-two inches, looking less like rockets and more like artillery shells. John and I took our best fish during this period-—his, thirty-four inches measured against the disputed tape; mine, thirty-three and one-half against the validated one. (I haven't stopped counting inches—-yet.)
As the weather, the river, and the fish treated us well so did the country. We enjoyed spectacular vistas, visits from curious black-tail deer, and closeup looks at Kodiak's incredible foxes. Many that we saw weighed twenty- five to thirty pounds, and Dave told us of a fifty pounder he'd bagged the previous year. Raptors—-eagles, hawks, falcons—-soared overhead. And we spotted from comfortable distances several of Kodiak's most famous citizens, The Big Brown Bears.
When we arrived at camp, The Bears and steelhead sat front row center in the theaters of our minds. Dale, Ron and I essentially held Dave captive while we grilled him about The Bears. We might see a bear or two, he said, but nearly all of them had moved up the slopes and away from the river now that the salmon run had slowed to less than a trickle. Then he added, "Make plenty of noise when you're on the bank; avoid thick tangles of brush; and don't leave any food around anywhere. Remember, we are the only predators these bears have. They will avoid us so long as they know where we are—-unless we carelessly present ourselves as a food source."
We were comforted some by Dave's information and committed zealously to his advice. The Big Bears are exhilarating when observed from a proper distance.
On Friday, the thus far benign weather changed. We awoke to find a scurf of snow instead of frost, temperatures in the low thirties, and a gusty southeast wind. A formidable high pressure system born in the Arctic was moving our way causing a dramatic shift. We fished through the day in a progression of sparse wet snow, light rain, more sparse wet snow, sleet, and light dry snow while the wind described a 180 degree arc. By late after-noon blasts from the northwest bore seriously colder air, and conditions raced through downright uncomfortable to nasty and miserable.
Miserable for us, that is. The steelhead revelled in it. At least I imagined they were revelling, because in the three hours—-4 to 7 p.m.—-what had been sensational angling turned incredible. The pain of old frostbite injury, bionic knees, arthritis, and good sense had sidelined and pressed Ron, John, Dale and Dave respectively back to the shelter and warmth of the tents; I stayed out and witnessed the outrageous. For those three hours I experienced no period of more than three minutes when I wasn't playing, landing, or releasing a steelhead.
Honest anglers (I hear there are some.) often point to the importance of "being there." Although my close acquaintance with truth in matters piscatorial has been challenged more than a few times, you can trust me here. I simply was there, and I was still the guy who had been adjudged, at best, mediocre by these magnificent fish, the steelhead. That afternoon, however, they graced me, led me to believe I was at once Captain Marvel, Superman, and the Green Hornet incarnate. (Two asides: First: "not-quite-sixty" but my inventory of fantasy heroes indicates it ain't far away. Second: a trip to Michigan later that fall to fish for the Au Sable's splendid steelhead served notice that I had progressed a bit beyond mediocre as a steelheader—-though far from my fantasies incarnate. Under difficult clear water conditions and sunny skies, I finally met with success on a stream and fish that challenged and humbled (gentler, kinder euphemisms for frustrated and humiliated) me for years.
I hadn't suddenly become a master steelhead angler. I hadn't experienced an unparalled run of fortune because I chose to wear my "lucky" warm, wool Yankee cap that day. I was essentially the angler I had been: an angler doing the right things-—because he had learned to do them from friends, other anglers, savvy guides, and experience-—in the right place at the right time. Being there. Counting coup.
A hypothermia-enhanced clumsy release put an end to the fishing and the hook of Dave's Dredger pattern into an already sorely cold finger. I hustled back to camp, ostensibly, to have said hook removed and, more honestly, to bask proudly in the glow of the day's success. I landed a lot of steelhead that day, counted them, and suffered the righteous consequences, I thought, in the guise of a #2 streamer hook through my index finger.
We awoke on Saturday morning, departure day, in a frosty cold, noisy tent to learn that the high pressure system stood off to the northwest in perfect position for its clockwise flow of frigid air to barrel directly up our river. Great timing, we thought. Fate had smiled on us. We had only to float down the river to the lagoon, meet our plane, and get the hell out of there before the cold clamped down in earnest.
Fate had, indeed, done something on us, but that something was not a smile. The low water level, which had pushed fish into the deeper runs and brought steelhead up from downstream holding areas in search of fresher water, impeded the progress of our raft. The wind blew steadily at twenty-five to thirty miles an hour and frequently accelerated to nearly forty in gusts that not only impeded but reversed our descent. The float down river to the lagoon became, in its most literal and figurative senses, a drag. Because drag we did for much of those twelve miles.
Of course, we arrived at the lagoon late. The three and a half to four hour trip had taken six. Anxieties surged until Dave cheerfully observed, "We haven't missed the plane. The pilot would approach from up river to make certain we weren't stuck back there." Four of us exchanged relieved smiles. Then he added, "Besides I don't believe they can take off from Kodiak or land here in these conditions." Smiles disappeared with a synchronous audible snap.
Ron, who was the first to recover, said, "So what do we do? Wait here to see if he comes in?"
"Here" was at the mouth of the river, and it wasn't such a bad spot. The Department of Fish and Game maintained a cabin for teams that manned retractable weirs and counted the numbers of salmon making their way up river. The cabin, though spartan at best, would provide shelter from the irritable, biting wind.
"No," Dave replied, "we've got to push on out to the pick-up point so we'll be ready if he does make it. If he doesn't show, we can come back here for the night."
"Where is the pick-up point?" I asked without really wanting to know.
"See that first big arm out there, the one where the hill tumbles right down into the water?" Dave pointed to the prominent feature a mile and a half up the lagoon.
"Yeah. I was afraid of that. How do we get there? There's no way we can paddle this raft into the teeth of the wind."
"We'll just walk the raft along the shore until we reach the lee of the arm; then we'll paddle."
And so we walked with the high tide presenting few opportunities for secure or even reasonable footing until we reached the protected lee; from there we paddled to the point, a small flat that offered only minor relief from the wind. The debris from earlier parties, safely departed, lent a minor sense of security to the place until we noticed shards of neoprene, canvas, tin cans, bubble wrap, and other unidentifiable, but definitely inorganic, materials festooning the several bear scats around the area.
Under Dave's guidance, we unloaded, disassembled, deflated, and folded the raft for departure. We could have used it, he said, to ferry us to the cabin if we had to stay overnight, but we'd face dragging it back to the pick-up point in the morning. Besides, the ice build-up at the mouth of the river was moving at a pace that might make the enterprise impossible by then. After we'd done the raft, everyone sat about organizing gear and duffle bags to provide some shelter from the wind and cold. Then we waited.
At 4:30 we conceded. The plane wasn't coming, and we needed to reshuffle necessary gear, bags, and food for the night into portable dimensions for the trudge back to the cabin. The prospect of the long hike honed our perceptions of "necessary" to a keen edge-—sleeping bag, clean underwear and socks, medications (not-quite-sixty), flashlight, and a portion of the foodstuffs. Dave added his rifle and shortwave radio to the inventory. We stacked the remaining bags and gear beside a small wind-worn tree for the night. At 5:00 we set off, and forty minutes later we reached the cabin.
Although the accommodations lacked most amenities, the few offered outdistanced the alternative—-sleeping on the not so secure bear-scatted flat—-by a substantial margin. A margin that widened when Dave located and installed a partially filled propane tank.
We enjoyed an unexpected hot meal and lodgings at least a few degrees warmer and decidedly less windy than the environment. And after dinner Dave introduced us to the banya, a hovel so roughly built that I assumed it was a storm shelter or food cache. In reality, the banya was a godsend, a hybrid sauna,/steam/bath where we thoroughly warmed and cleansed our bodies, washed matted hair, reintroduced razors to scruffy faces, and from which we emerged splendidly scrubbed, shaven, and scented. We were ready to face tomorrow with renewed spirits.
Tomorrow, meanwhile, was preparing for those renewed spirits. We awoke to a wind howling louder than it had the day before, rattling the cabin's planking as vigorously as it had then slapped our tents. The arctic air mass borne on the shoulders of the now due-northerly wind had slashed several degrees from the ambient temperature resulting in a cruel windchill factor. We ate a glum breakfast and considered our options.
Neither took long. There wasn't much breakfast, and our options were two. We could assume that if the plane wouldn't fly yesterday, it certainly couldn't today; we should just stay in the cabin. Conversely, the weather might have relented in Kodiak allowing the plane to fly; we should hike back out to the pick-up spot. A group comprised of a young guide four weeks away from home, two Air Force Generals, an executive-cum-Air Force Captain and me will always choose to do something over doing nothing. We did.
Although the morning's low tide provided more shore to walk on, going out was no easier than it had been the day before because ice, jumbled by the rising and falling tides, extended all the way to our pick-up point. We progressed slowly with the group stringing out and then contracting as we adjusted loads, knocked caked snow and ice from our boots, and simply rested. Dave was out in front setting a strong pace and pulling away from us until we saw him stop for a moment and crouch. He shielded his eyes with his hand apparently for better vision, and then he stood again, ran forward a few yards, and stopped to uncase his rifle.
"Shit! A bear," John growled, and we all took off at a run toward Dave and the probable bear. (None of us had seen it, but Dave's actions clearly indicated bear.) In the months following the trip, a recurring dream snapped me awake from deep slumber when I read this headline in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:
Four Lower Forty-Eighters Charge Big Bruin
Bruin 4, Forty-Eighters 0
What would be have done if the unseen bear were charging toward us with the same abandon? A question that shall remain without answer because when Dave fired two warning shots well over the grizzly's head, he scuttled up the hill above our bags and gear affording us a symbolic (possibly) and fleeting (certainly) glimpse of his impressive, shaggy posterior. At least the charge had brought us close enough to see it.
He hadn't scuttled away prematurely, however. Gear, tackle, waders, clothing, raft, and bags ripped, shredded, chewed, mauled, and strewn over the hill confirmed that he had worked the night shift and sabotaged us. Now we faced not only the wind and cold but salvage and clean up operations as well. I won't burden you with details of the destruction. It's enough to know that it was less than total but serious. The bear had done his work well.
We salvaged and cleaned up, then huddled behind reduced piles of gear in an effort to keep warm and away from the discouraging, unabated wind.
Except for our housekeeping and reorganization efforts, the day was a replay of the previous one. We waited; the wind blew; we gruddled (That's what you do when you grumble and you huddle.); no plane came; at 4:30 we conceded and prepared for the trudge to the cabin. This time, however, we decided to make destruction more challenging for the bear. We dispersed the remaining gear along the brow of the hill, then trekked back to the cabin, where we passed the night in moods more subdued but otherwise in much the same manner as we had the night before.
We awoke to another frigid morning and a noticeably diminished wind, Dave was confident the planes would fly and that he folks at Uyak Air would take advantage of the morning's lull, so we packed quickly and ate a mobile breakfast as we hiked back to the point. Drawing near we saw that the leading edge of the ice lay nearly a quarter mile beyond the intended pick-up spot. We'd have to move all our gear and, now, considerable garbage farther up the lagoon. We could handle that, if, indeed, there was any gear.
Prospects weren't great. The bear had worked the night shift again; all our bags lay at the bottom of the hill on the broken and jumbled ice. The dispersement plan had failed we thought-—until we reached the scene. The bags had been mugged only slightly; nothing more was really damaged. We speculated that as the bear disturbed them, the bags rolled down from the brow of the hill and away from his attention. Of course, the bear may have known nothing of interest remained after his first ransacking, but a job is a job, so he just rolled the bags down the hill because that's how bears earn a living.
No matter. No salvage duty that day.
We hauled everything nearly a half mile out, sought shelter from the gathering wind, and with all senses alert waited for the plane. At 10:30 we heard the drone of an engine; excitement crackled until Dave said, "That's an in-line not a radial engine. Must be the mail plane heading for Karluk village." We had grown fond of Dave, and had learned to trust his instincts, knowledge and advice, but a part of me believes only the presence of the rifle saved him from a collective malevolence after this announcement. Soon enough, however, the plane soared into view.
It wasn't ours.
Before we had settled back in and tuned our senses again to the alert channel, Dave cocked his head in a listening attitude, then dryly declared, "Now that's a radial." A few moments later two aircraft approaching from upriver confirmed his proclamation.
Getting us and our gear and garbage on the planes and back to Koniag required the assistance and the boat of a young Karluk resident and some shuttling here and there, but for me the drama ended and the curtain descended when Dave said, "Now that's a radial."
As we climbed away from the lagoon turning in an arc from northwest to northeast, the river came into view off the right wing. Ron and I looked at it in silence for a moment, then he turned to me and asked, "So, what do you think? Who counted coup on whom?"
I only smiled in response but said to myself, "Never count coup. It's unlucky!" RWOL
© Copyright 1997- , Anglers of the Au Sable, Inc. All rights reserved. Last modified: February 4, 2002
