As any good adventure should, it begins with the simple anticipation of a new experience. It is not our first trip to Yakutat to ply the food-rich waters of Yakutat Bay, nor is it our maiden voyage to the Situk to wrestle with chrome-bright, hard charging spring steelies. However it will be our first experience on the Akwe River to fish for sea-run and resident cutthroat trout, rainbow, and steelhead trout, and it will leave all with many lasting memories.

It is another Fish Alaska magazine adventure of epic proportions. Joining me are my co-publisher Marcus Weiner, husband and ops manager Wayne Norris, friend and fishing fanatic Brian Woobank, and retired NFL kicker Gary Anderson. Others in the party include Ed Hoppas of ACS, Rob Skinner of Capital Chevrolet in Juneau, and Rich Jerger from Northrim Bank in Anchorage. We will do a combination of salt and freshwater fishing—focused on halibut and king salmon in the saltwater and steelhead and cutthroat trout in freshwater. Brian stays at Yakutat Lodge; Wayne, Marcus, Gary, and myself stay at Glacier Bear Lodge, and Ed, Rob, and Rich stay at Leonard’s Landing Lodge.Our trip will consist of day floats down the Situk arranged by Leonard’s Landing and Glacier Bear, as well as a lot of self-guided hike-in angling, two full-day saltwater charters provided by Sea Raven Charters, and a fabulous full-day fly-out to the Akwe River provided by Alsek Air and HIC Tours.

The Akwe Fly-Out

A 20-minute coastal flight in an Alsek Air Cessna 185 drops us on a dirt landing strip along the beach. “Hippy John” of HIC Tours and friend and fellow guide Icker meet us with an Argo and 4-wheeler for the mile journey along the beach to the launch spot for the riverboats. Immediately we recognize the beauty and remoteness of this wild river, and began to mount a growing appreciation of what it took to get the essential gear to the river. A 30-minute jet boat ride puts us on the uppermost stretch that we will fish.

Along the way, we see droves of birds and plenty of unspoiled wilderness. As soon as the fishing begins and while the guys (Marcus, Wayne and Gary) are rigging up fly gear, I catch my first cutthroat trout on light spinning gear and a #0 Mepps Aglia spinner. The guys hit the water and all three immediately begin to catch cutts in the 12 to 16-inch range. Almost any fly will work and the guys lean towards Woolly Buggers, Red-butted Skunks, bead head streamers, Egg-sucking Leeches and flesh flies with some flash in them. The flies are dead-drifted down the river with floating line and several small split shot. They are not able to seduce a fish with dry flies.

We fish this hole—a 30-foot riffle that dumps into a deep pool—for three hours and land about 75 trout. For most, this would be an exceptional day, but it is only noon and the plane isn’t coming back for six hours. Moving downriver, the next hole is also very productive and an hour produces about 50 fish. We explore a few more holes with moderate success before settling in on the “Glory Hole” for the last two hours. Wayne and Marcus fish their way down to us, while Gary and I catch one fish after the next from a nice hole that seems to hold limitless fish. It is the outcome of a clear creek feeding the Akwe and the six-foot deep hole runs for about 30 feet, all of which seems to hold fish. By the time Marcus works his way down, he has caught 15 fish in a 100-yard stretch, while we have each landed at least that many from the same hole. I retire to the gravel bank to watch Gary, Wayne, and Marcus with double and triple hook-ups most of the time. There is very little time in the next hour when someone isn’t playing a wild cutthroat, rainbow, or steelhead trout. In all, a conservative number of 200 fish are landed on this fine day, 3 of 4 are cutts, 1 in 5 rainbows, and 1 in 10 is a steelhead. HIC Tours is authorized to operate in the Tongass National Forest and it’s the careful management of the resource that keeps the Akwe such a pristine jewel. We’d like to thank Hippy John for guiding us to a wonderful day fishing for wild trout and look forward to fishing with him for salmon on the Akwe.

Yakutat Bay

Captain Geoff Widdows of Sea Raven Charters graciously hosted two full days of saltwater fishing for kings and halibut. On day one, Wayne, Marcus, and Gary joined Geoff on his 27-foot Sea Sport. Weather conditions were pretty tough, with big rollers to 10 feet. The big up-and-down motion made it difficult for the guys to keep bait near the bottom for halibut, but Wayne managed to bring two halibut—one at 70 pounds and one just over 100 pounds—to the surface. Gary and Marcus landed many rockfish and several small lingcod. As a year-round resident of Yakutat, Geoff is quite knowledgeable on the area and was fun to spend the day with. He provided quality fishing gear, bait, good coffee, and an excellent salmon dip.

Day two proved to be imminently more fishy, with many large halibut up to 200-pounds landed. Fishing for lingcod and rockfish was also very productive with the largest ling estimated at 40 pounds. At the time we were there, the season for lingcod was not yet open, so all lingcod caught were released. King salmon fishing had been dynamite the few weeks prior, but the fish had appeared to move out of the bay, and some jigging with Point Wilson Darts did not yield any salmon.

The Situk River

Water conditions were low and clear making the Situk’s steelhead additionally spooky. On the evening of our arrival, we all went to 9-mile bridge in hopes of landing a steelhead. This is where we saw the water conditions and the nature of this year’s steelhead. Gary managed to hook a couple of fish right under the bridge but landed neither of them. Brian, Ed, and Rob headed downstream and found some fish while Marcus and Rich went upstream in search of pods of holding steelhead. We fished for a few hours before returning to Leonard’s Landing for a tasty dinner, and while no one landed a fish, we were all excited about the next two days to come.

I joined Bob Johnson of Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Brian to fish with Mike, a guide contracted by Glacier Bear Lodge. We had a great time on the float but were unable to land any fish. We caught up with Marcus, Gary, and Wayne, who had hiked in from the mouth of the river after fishing the day on the saltwater with Sea Raven Charters. Shortly after we found them fishing a hole about three miles from the mouth, Ed, Rich, and Rob fishing with guide Michelle from Leonard’s Landing Lodge came into sight. They had a good day, landing seven fish between them.

While all in the same hole, we hooked 10 fish and landed one. The key seemed to be reducing your tippet down to 6-pound or less, and fluorocarbon seemed to work the best. This made it difficult to land a fish that averaged 10 pounds in a tree-laden river like the Situk. Any larger tippet would spook the fish. We used a variety of Glo Bugs and Gary’s seemed to work best—tied sparsely with white and orange as to almost seem opaque in the water.

The remainder of our spare time saw runs to the Situk to try our luck at landing a tough fighting fish in difficult conditions. It’s these times when I realize that fishing isn’t always about catching, and the fish that are the hardest to catch usually offer the sweetest rewards. It will bring me and many others returning to the Situk River each year to form the ever-growing Yak Pack

Melissa Norris is a publisher of Fish Alaska magazine. She can be reached at fishalaska@acsalaska.net