DEPARTMENTS

Editor’s Creel 6

Fishing For A Compliment 10

Reader’s Lines 12

Gear Review 14
Rafting Essentials

Fishing News 22
Part 1 of 3

Fish Alaska Services Guide 76
Advertiser Index 78
Fish Recipe 80
Henry’s Crawfish Pie

The Final Drift 82
My First Salmon

Publisher's Note:  Use our resources to plan your trip

Among all groups there is at least one unifying thread—to have a safe and fruitful fishing trip. To this end, the Jan/Feb issue of Fish Alaska magazine—Trip Planner 2—has been designed to help you better conceive your own fishing trips to Alaska and is jammed full of the service providers that you will need to complete your vacation. Pick up the phone and call any of these advertisers and we think your Alaska fishing trip will be that much better, since their local knowledge has been earned through many years of hard work. It is also important to recognize that the advertiser’s support is essential in bringing you the information on the pages of Fish Alaska magazine. This is our call out to you to support them.

We look forward to seeing those readers in the Northwest at the O’Loughlin Trade Shows, the Washington Sportsmen’s Show in Puyallup from January 21 to January 25, and the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show in Portland, Oregon, from February 4 to February 8. It will be our first time in attendance at these shows, and we hope to meet many of our readers and their fishing buddies.

Over the next few snowy, frozen months, we can vicariously keep our lines wet by tuning into Stihl’s North to Alaska hosted by Larry Csonka on the Outdoor Life Network. Programs start January 3 and air weekly until late June. Catch programs on Fish Alaska supporters Whaler’s Cove Lodge (part 1 January 24 and part 2 March 13), Redoubt Mountain Lodge January 31, Wooden Wheel Lodge February 21 and Bentalit Lodge March 20. We hope to fish with Larry a few times this summer that will result in both programs and articles in Fish Alaska magazine.

—Marcus Weiner and Melissa Norris
Publishers