For a small, but dedicated and stalwart, group of anglers in the Great Land, October heralds the best angling of the year. Crowds have diminished and the frantic pace of summer has cooled, as has the temperature. Most of the salmon have completed their spawning mission, and while the riverbanks are lined with carcasses, the water is mostly cleared of them. Diminishing daylight, frosty mornings and the anticipation of the season’s first snow has the trout and the avid trout angler on a crash course.

There’s nothing like an Alaska rainbow that is thriving, forged into a football shape through the summer’s banquet of salmon eggs and flesh. These fish fight with great intensity and all too often the largest of the species will find a way to break leaders, spit hooks or even snap rods. Perhaps these fish resonate so clearly with Alaskans as they display many of the same characteristics—hardened through exposure to the harshest of elements, built on salmon and displaying a strong heart and fierce will.

From the pre-spawn conditions of March and April to the end of the year feeding frenzy of October, we’ve watched their transformation from long, slender, acrobatic dancers to thick-shouldered slabs, bearing resemblance to steroid-enhanced NFL linebackers. We’ve seen them in all colors from the green/yellow/pink of the Katmai rainbow to the more standard silver, grays, greens and reds of the Kenai fish to the chrome lake fish of the Naknek. Combing the Mat-Su Valley streams yields more leopard fish, with seemingly endless combinations of hues and spots. It seems that rainbow trout, like humans, come in all shapes and sizes, with no two fish being alike.

There are few places on earth that rival Alaska when it comes to the ability of its lakes and rivers to produce quantities of large rainbow trout. Once you’ve had the chance to fish some of these apex locations, then your definition of scale and fish counts will be skewed in perpetuity. When I began fishing for trout in Alaska, anything over 12 inches resulted in delight. The mark has doubled in the last 15 years, and I am nothing more than an adequate angler. When you speak to fishing guides in locations like King Salmon, trout under 30 inches are barely in the discussion.

And the number of locations to provide two-foot trout is astounding. Places like the Arolik, Kanektok, Kisaralik, Togiak, and Goodnews to the west pump out two-footers as if ADF&G were stocking them. In the famed Bristol Bay region—encompassing the fertile grounds of Katmai and Iliamna—the streams that include two-foot trout are almost too many to name. Marquee locations like Moraine, American, Iliamna, Copper, Battle, Funnel, Brooks, and Talarik begin a list that ends up sounding like the rainbow trout locale equivalent of the 1992 NBA Dream Team. And that’s without listing Bird, Magic and Jordan.

To complete any trout angler’s bucket list in Alaska, one must fish the Kenai, Naknek and Kvichak. No other locations in the state offer such opportunity to catch monster rainbows. Fish in the 30-inch class are very possible, as the never-ending stream of photos to come across my desk continues to confirm. It may be dark, cold, rainy and altogether miserable this fall as we head down the Seward Highway dragging the company Clackacraft drift boat, but a last chance at one of these miracle fish will keep us throwing flies long past the point of being numb. It’s the best time of the year.

- Marcus Weiner, Publisher