October/November 2020

Description

October/November 2020
Off the Beaten Path

Departments

Traveler 6
Creel 8
Gear Bag 10
Fishing for a Compliment 12
Salmon Sense 14
Fly 18
Boats 20
Saltwater 28
Stillwater 30
Conservation 32
Online 60
Recipe 62
Advertiser Index 65
Final Drift 66

Features
World-Record Fun
by Paul Atkins 38
Ice fishing through four- to eight feet of ice in northwest Alaska is not something you’d want to do for stocked trout. However, the northwest part of the state is home to sheefish, which can tip the scales at as much as 50 pounds! Hooking one of these beasts through the ice is something you can’t do anywhere else in the United States. Paul Atkins shares his experience, including the catch-and-release of a new Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame world record.

So Many Streams, So Little Time
by Joe Jackson 46
414 miles of road dubiously dubbed a “highway,” the Dalton Highway, or “Haul Road” as it is often referred to, offers some of the most lightly fished Arctic grayling, Arctic char, Dolly Varden, lake trout and northern pike anywhere on the Alaska road system. Stretching from just north of Fairbanks north to Deadhorse at Prudhoe Bay, you could spend a lifetime trying to fish it all. If you’re appropriately prepared, you’ll experience great fishing and very little competition.

Against the Grain
by Andrew Cremata 52
Open-water lake trout and fishing deep with downriggers are conventional wisdom, but lakers in Alaska aren’t always feeding deep. Andrew Cremata explains that sometimes going against the grain by fishing shallow has its time and place, conventional wisdom be damned.

Fishing on Bristol Bay’s Public Lands
by Mary Catharine Martin 56
Driven by the world’s most prolific runs of sockeye salmon, the Bristol Bay region is one of the best examples of an intact, pristine, productive group of watersheds left in North America. Those sockeye provide food for humans around the world, but more importantly to some, they fuel the ecosystem and world-class sportfishing available in the region. If we protect it, all of the Bristol Bay watersheds could be available as they are today for many generations to come.

SPECIAL SECTION: 
2020 Holiday Gift Guide Part 1
by Fish Alaska staff 34
Our editors contribute ideas for gifts for anglers and sportsmen as the holiday season approaches. We’ll suggest more items in 
Part 2 in the December issue.

COVER / Erik Salitan, owner of Talarik Creek Lodge, with a gargantuan lake trout from Lake Iliamna. © Talarik Creek Lodge.