Rapids Camp Lodge BLOG

 It's that time of the year again!  Seasoned guides and pilots itch with anticipation.  What do we have to look forward to?  The season opener on the Naknek.  Wolf packs of gigantic rainbow trout hungrily chasing countless numbers of salmon smolt down the Naknek River, right past the lodge.  The millions of mature salmon returning to the fresh waters of Bristol Bay.  The madness that ensues when they begin dropping their roe.  Rainbows, char, grayling, all competing for the stray egg, each trying to gain as much weight as possible before the long cold winter.  Our lumbering brown friends who tolerate us fishing next to them.  The Harley Davidsonesque sound of Beavers, warming their oil on the dock in the morning.  The roar that signals we are off to another dream destination.  There are many things that we have to look forward to in Alaska, but most of all, we look forward to sharing all of these things with our guests.  If you're booked already, good on ya, we look forward to wetting a line with you.  If you're not, give us a call, we still have a few spots in July and September available.

Thanks to you and everybody else for the great trip to the lodge. We had dynamite fishing, including a day on Moraine that was as good as it gets. In six days of fishing, we had four days where we essentially didn't see another fisherman. The hike-in streams (Little Ku and Chargash) were everything I hoped I shot over 1100 photos.

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Few places on earth have the massive biomass surge each year as Bristol Bay and the Alaska Peninsula. What exists there is a rare thing. Millions, literally millions of pounds of protein swim directly onto land to fertilize this entire region. With readily accessible nitrogen pumping into the system - it is no wonder there are so many huge Rainbow Trout, Char, and other species. One of the problems with this kind of numbers is we cannot visualize them in our minds. Flying over the rivers of Bristol Bay is to see the end result of this phenomena.

Rapids Camp Matching Funds Challenge to Protect Bristol Bay

I’ve known Jerry Shults for several years.  The first time I met Jerry in person was at the Newark, NJ airport in the winter of 2007.  We were both headed to the Fly Fishing Show in Somerset.  He found out that I was just beginning to attend these events around the country to raise awareness about a potential threat to the world’s most productive wild salmon fishery (and the trout fishing’s not bad either!).  

When talking about Bristol Bay rainbows there has been a lot of lip service put to chasing big rainbows and how the fisherman of this world decide what, where and how is best to chase them. I am not going to get into the arguments but the small streams of Bristol Bay Alaska have to be populated by some of the largest and most numerous specimens. All tied to the cycle of the salmon.

Some of the best trout bites in Alaska happen when the switch flips over to flesh being a large part of the fishes fall diet. So what the hell does this mean to the fisherman.

A story

A few years ago a writer from a magazine was staying with us at the lodge. He had come to do a Katmai Park/Bristol Bay Rainbow Trout story. I had guided a group including him back in 1996 at another lodge. We had stayed in touch over the years and I was pleased to finally fish again with the guy who holds a quirky wry sense of humor.

It was the second day and we had wanted to fly up to Funnel Creek, situated on the upper Moraine. Certainly a fabled place and worth visiting.

It was a beautiful flight from the lodge near King Salmon to the Northeast end of the lake. Though we saw traffic on the Moraine, the Funnel was too damn busy. Now is when our philosophy shows itself. Our pilot “ Well? Lets go over the hill “. It is early for this other river but I am always up for fishing, not waiting for water. We had a guest with us, young guy and he was in capable hands with Elijah our guide. While flying over we saw that the entire lower river was empty of fisherman. Clear water and had sockeyes milling around, surely, rainbows around, maybe a bunch of them.