Alaska, August 2008: The Prelude

I feel somewhat remiss about the fact that I have yet to report the details of my adventure to Alaska this past August. It was the angling trip of a lifetime. Five species of salmon, rainbow trout, greyling, dolly varden, pike, and lake trout were all in abundance everyday, all day, for seven glorious days.

Perhaps I have been intimidated by the idea of trying to capture the stories of every great fish, every great flight, or every great friend I made on this trip. Or, perhaps I was just lazy and didn't make the time to sit down and verbalize all of the thoughts and memories I have filed away in my head. At this point, however, it doesn't really matter. I have decided to try to capture, in words, my experience in a fly angler's nirvana.

Instead of banging all of this out in one sitting, I have decided it's necessary to categorize my stories. Be it by fish, by fishery, or by fly pattern, the Alaska chapters will take shape as I recall the fish-dreams that remain in my head months after returning from the bush. The fear I felt setting foot for the first time onto a float plane; the unrest of watching brown bears off in the distance never knowing what I'd do if one decided to take an interest in me or the struggling salmon on the end of my fly line; the profoundness of stepping into a glacial river with millions of spawning salmon that had traveled hundreads of miles without food in search of their birthplace just so they can continue the bloodline; the solitude of realizing that no other human footprints dressed the banks of river I was about to fish. It was a land both wild and unknown to anything I had ever experienced.

I'm certainly not going to pretend like I roughed it for the days I spent in the wilds of the Alaskan wilderness. I'm no Chris McCandless and I won't pretend to be. Contrarily, my adventure "Into the Wild" was due in large part to friends, lodge staff, and excellent fishing guides who spent countless hours organizing and planning a five-star fishing adventure that would leave me questioning how those who braved it alone survived without shelter, satelite phones, GPS, planes, and the comfort of gourmet meals and great wine to revive the spirit at the end of each day.

What is soon to follow are the pictures, videos, and stories of my time at Tikchik Narrows Lodge in Southwest Alaska. It's truly an angler's paradise.