Taking off on a furious internet searching tangent inspired by a post on the fishingminnesota.com forum, I discovered an Alaska fishing "lodge" near the little Eskimo village of Aniak, Alaska. Midnight Sun Trophy Pike Adventures has a houseboat on the Innoko River, which has 50-inch-plus Pike all over the place. It appears it would be like my Pike fishing trip outside of Calgary with Josh Nugent, except I would have to add an average of 15 inches or so.
That trip was about as much fun as I've ever had fishing. It was on a 1.5 mile backeddy that drains into the Bow river. Now, the Bow river is considered one of the top five trout rivers in the world and I had never been to Calgary. Even though I grew up fishing for trout, the thought of catching 25" rainbow all day still didn't excite me. Luckily, the main river was blown out with silt, so I didn't have to feel guilty blowing the Bow off and upsetting all the trout people I talk to in Oregon. It was in early May and the Pike season didn't open for another week in Alberta, so the guide had to get creative. It turns out he is one of only a few non-First Nations folks able to fish this section of the Bow on the Siksika Nation.
Josh drove me over an hour east from Calgary, starting at 9:00 AM. He backed his Clackacraft driftboat directly down the bank into what looked like a small lake. We got in and he rowed my ass around while I casted. I saw nothing for the first 90 minutes or so. He was getting nervous that I didn't believe there were any fish in there and he hadn't been there since the previous year to keep tabs on the action. Then they started hitting. And hitting. I caught about 40 fish over the course of the day and missed at least twice that many. After a while, I was trying *not* to catch fish that were too small. The water was clear enough that I could sight cast some of the time, and watch them follow the fly. I had one fish follow for at least two minutes beside the boat before I got it to bite. I probably should have taken that one out of the gene pool. The next day, we sized up and I landed about half as many, but they were at least twice as heavy, on average. I think a couple were pretty close to 40". I even tried conventional gear for a little while, but flies were far more effective.
Unfortunately, this trip made me overconfident about catching Muskies and Pike on flies for my next trip to Minnesota. A Muskie actually hit my popper on Lake Rebecca, but that's the only action I got. I almost enticed one to hit in the shallows on Mantrap, but I probably woulda gotten it to bite if I had used a twitch like a Kill'r Eel instead. I didn't even bring my fly rod for the next trip to MN. Too frustrating to cast out of a small boat, anyway.
So now Calgary seems like a poor substitute for the Innoko. I need some rich family members to appear and start feeling really generous. Failing that, I'll just have to save my pennies.
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