As someone with certain, speckled predilections, who fishes the fly almost exclusively, it’s nearly natural to conclude, after time, that any definition of angling must include the word ‘hackle,’ and ‘Marabou,’ and preferably, some pictures of trout. I grew up on a river—Montana’s Bighorn—and there forged the longest-lasting relationship of my life, with thirteen miles of prairie stream and the rainbows and browns that call it home. Even if a solid percentage of this favor were couched in mere nostalgia, to say I prefer flowing water is like pretending Shakespeare only kind of enjoyed working with words.

At some point, of course, this kind of single-mindedness can trend towards something like monotony. Once the idea of fishing becomes synonymous with an image of emerging caddis, there is very little left but to specialize further, give over more completely to certain strains of the genus Oncorhynchus, until eventually you own six different fly rods of the same weight and length. Blinkered, I think, is the better term, and the danger.

Angling was magic when I was a kid, and a big part of that, I’m now sure, lay in the fact that I never knew what—if anything—I’d catch.

Alaska, as you might expect, breathed new life into my overall outlook—moving from bugs to beads and big, ugly streamers, for big, beautiful trout, seems to have that effect. And then I spent one early August afternoon casting Clousers at a rock point in Castle Bay.

Before that day, spent hauling in sea bass at near-commercial rates, I hadn’t thought much of the state’s many saltwater species, except of course when sitting down to lunch at Simon & Seafort’s. While halibut, lingcod and rockfish are extremely popular offshore targets in Alaska, the sport fishing is overwhelmingly accomplished with heavy gear. I’d done it many times, at least two or three charters per summer, and while I enjoyed the experience immensely, there was no developing threat to my trout-centric world. However, learning there was an alternative to five-pound weights—one that didn’t include an empty fish box—certainly piqued my interest. I started to study, and then I went fishing.

What I discovered with the 12-weight I bought for tarpon was that halibut actually make a superb target for the fly, especially in the spring when schools of flatfish can be found in shallower confines with some level of predictability. A voracious predator, they move into near-shore areas across Alaska in May and June, staging to intercept outbound schools of salmon smolt. Timing must be impeccable, but when right, it’s not unheard of to find halibut in less than ten feet of water.

Using an 8-weight, my standard tool for chum, sockeye, silvers and Alaska’s famous fall trout, I began hanging out over rock piles and underwater pinnacles, drifting past kelp beds and wash rocks, and there learned about rockfish, abundant in many coastal waters—and most importantly, often found in the upper regions of the water column. With this type of fishing, obviously, also come lessons in variety.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports that there are currently about 32 known species of rockfish to be found in the Gulf of Alaska, though most will never be seen by anglers, as just over a dozen can commonly be encountered in near-shore shelf areas less than 100 fathoms deep. And of these, five or six make up the bulk of the rockfish typically caught by Alaska fly anglers.

Probably the most common target is the black rockfish (Sebastes melanops), mentioned above and frequently refered to as sea bass or black bass. It’s not uncommon to find schools of black rockfish flopping all over the surface when grouped in active feeding concentrations, which is just what I ran into way out on the Alaska Peninsula. Yellowtail, dusky, and blue rockfish can also frequently be found in the top 30 feet of water and make up the rest of the near-surface-feeding pelagic rockfish commonly found in Alaska waters. Copper, quillback, and China rockfish are the most common bottom-dwelling rockfish that stick to the shallower regions near coastlines, usually 30 to 60 feet of water, and can thus be targeted by the fly angler. On rare occasions, or if anglers can get deeper than that, canary, Boccaccio, silvergray, and yelloweye rockfish (or red snapper) can be targeted.

Along the way, meeting these new fish, I necessarily learned new techniques: most notably, how to achieve a vertical sink or swing in the salt. After roll casting the line, saltwater anglers will stack two or three mends on top of the fly to get it down deep. Once the line straightens below, varying speeds of retrieves are employed, with the rod tip always pointed at the water, where damn near anything might be lying in wait.

For the first time in years, I felt like a kid again. Even cooler, the various manners in which I could put hackle to use continued to be a regular facet of life. Here I was, surrounded by some of the most stunning coastal scenery in North America, far away from even the idea of a crowd, and once again caught up with an old mystery.

Fishing, in my latest definition, is just a vast conspiracy to make a person happy.