Page 1 ‘Silvers in the Great Land’
It was not to be however, as the rough weather continued into a second day and we were forced to head in after a couple of hours. That afternoon several of us drove to a point overlooking a wide beach. It was littered with washed up timber and buoys and ocean trash thrown up the rioting sea. The cliffs were crumbling and it became clear why so many trees lay about on the Situk: in a cross-sectional view there seemed to be only about four or five feet of top soil before a gray substrate cut off all traction for the roots. I remembered that this is glacier country: Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in North America, and Malaspina Glacier are both in the immediate area and attract a steady tourist trade.
 The author with his first fish from the river |
 The silvers began to hit in the sunshine |
We followed a set of bear prints across the graphite colored sand to the mouth of the Lost River. Though we fished hard as we walked up the river and along it’s confluence with Tahweh Creek the fish sulked in the muddy water. A pair of sea lions discreetly worked the river with us and they didn’t seem to be having much luck either. Back at the lodge we were pleased to hear that Chuck and Mr. B had saved the honor of the group by catching a nice fish from the Old Man Hole. This is the very final section of the Situk before it meets the Bay, and its coveted easy access and good fishing is reserved for anglers over 60.
Stick that Rainbow where the Sun Don’t Shine
Our last day ocean fishing turned calm and mostly sunny, not that it improved the fishes’ mood. Despite diligent salmon-head jigging for halibut and hours of trolling the coastline for salmon, all we turned up was a single undersized lingcod. Idaho Neil momentarily broke out of his beery fish-less depression to call out he’d seen a killer whale, and I saw it too-off in the distance, a lone black fin curved into the waves and was gone. Just at the time we had to head in a rain shower popped up a classic rainbow. It seemed to end directly in front of us, flattening out on the gray water. I’d love to be able to report we took a hard turn and trolled over the spot where the rainbow hit the sea, and like that great scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when McMurphy takes the inmates out on the boat, all fishing hell broke loose and half a dozen salmon rods were bucking in their holders and the reels were zee-zeeing … but we tried, and it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.
 The Ocean Charter |
 Chuck hooks up to a shark |
Enter the Bears
On our final day in Yakutat, Mr. B, Chuck, and I floated the Situk with Jack, a guide from the lodge. He was probably in his mid sixties and he took a decent amount of time to do most things, but you didn’t need to be around him very long to know in your bones he was a skilled and knowledgeable fisherman. With an electric trolling motor fixed to the bow of the boat, we puttered off downriver with Jack expertly side drifting us around the tricky deadfalls. We had been first on the river (at his encouragement) and his plan was to stay ahead of the other guides and motor straight to a particular hole about halfway down river.
We’d been drifting for about forty minutes and were coming silently around a narrow bend. Before we could correct our course, not that there was really anywhere else to go, we came quickly alongside an adult grizzly sitting on a gravel beach about 20 feet to our left. It didn’t panic as they usually do here; it just looked up from whatever it was picking at on the gravel and rotated its massive head to follow us as we went by. It watched us until we went out of sight round the next bend. I had a strong impression of the huge width of its front legs and chest and back. It would be stone cold terrifying to have a creature of that size and power charge at you.
We hadn’t breathed a word as we drifted past the bear, but it stirred up in Jack a couple of stories that weren’t exactly ‘calming’. Back at the lodge I’d heard the fable of the fisherman who’d been chased and harassed by a bear for an hour. He made it back to the safety of his truck and promptly died of a bear-induced heart attack. Jack’s first story involved some clients he took out a few years ago. He raised his eyebrow when he saw them loading a large caliber handgun into the boat as they got ready to launch. They told him confidently it was their insurance against bear trouble. It’s rare for bears to become aggressive with fisherman as they float the river (and just as rare for clients to feel nervous enough they bring along their own firearms). Naturally, what they were most afraid off actually happened-a very aggressive bear charged suddenly out of the undergrowth when they were anchored up in a piece of slow water close to the bank. The clients screamed at Jack to get them out of there, and when the bear was winding up for another charge and he realized he couldn’t get the anchor up and row off quick enough, he screamed back at them, “Shoot! Shoot!” The bear charged, but felt it had made its point and then backed off.
When they were safely downriver a short way and beginning to shake off the adrenaline, he asked why they hadn’t shot the bear:
“We were too scared.” They said.
 Idaho John works Tawah Creek |
 A beautiful small stream fish |
Jack has seen in detail what a grizzly is capable of. He told us of another float on the Situk early one morning when he drifted by the scene of an ambush. A bear had just taken down a yearling moose and was pinning it to the bank. It was flailing around and crying in terror and the bear calmly began tearing great chunks out of it …”its blood was blooming out into the river. It was downright grisly. Not the kind of thing you’ll ever see on the nature shows.”
We motored on, un-seduced by dozens of promising looking holes, until we reached a sudsy backwater off the main flow. Jacked backed the boat tight into the dead water at the top of the hole and showed us the jigs we’d be using. They were his own nondescript design-a small round lead head with a short black woolen body. A strand of fluorescent green yarn buried in the body provided a little color contrast. When wet they looked like a big-headed black bug.
 Salmon fishing on an intimate scale |
 The group fishes Tawah Creek |
They were miracle lures. As soon as we began to jig them so they rose and fell a few feet off bottom, they were instantly hit. Like a scene from a fishing highlights show, first Chuck, then me, then Mr. B hooked into powerful fish, and as soon as we had our jigs back in the water, they hit them all over again. Jack was wielding the net, untangling lines, and dispatching fish with his ancient steel thermos for a glorious half hour before we’d limited out.
We headed downriver and rode through a downpour for an hour. The three of us were at the front of the boat crouched into the cold and wet. After a long stretch with nobody saying anything I couldn’t help laughing out loud at the mad sogginess of it all. Chuck and Mr. B, seventy-year-old party animals, who between them take a dozen pills to kick them into gear in the morning, cracked up right along with me.
If You Go
Yakutat (year round population about 600) must be one of the smallest settlements in the world to receive twice daily jet service. I flew Alaska Airlines from Seattle with a stop in Anchorage. Our party of eight had chosen Yakutat Lodge because of its consistent river and ocean fishing and reasonable prices. Accommodations are bunk beds in small cabins next to a shower and toilet with a mudroom for storing waders and waterproofs. All meals (including packed lunches for days on the water) are served in the friendly main lodge and bar, and are included in the overall price.
Aside from the basic accommodation the lodge keeps the price down by encouraging fisherman to guide themselves on the local rivers, an unusual arrangement for an Alaskan lodge. They maintain a large fleet of vans (never locked and never without a key in the ignition) and battered driftboats for guests to use whenever they wish. With a little planning and some basic to medium rowing skills, it’s a fairly straightforward matter to trailer a driftboat to a starting point upriver and then spend the day floating the moderate-paced Situk. A pre-arranged vehicle waits to pick you up at the takeout, nine miles downriver. If you don’t want to deal with a shuttle and driftboat, the nearby Lost River and Tawah Creek can be fished on foot after a short drive and hike.
 A headland on Yakutat Bay |
 A beautiful day to be on the water |
The Yakutat Lodge package includes one day of guided fishing. Most people take that day as an ocean charter but a guided day on the river is also offered. Our party’s ocean charters coincided with poor weather: salmon, lingcod and large halibut are relatively common when the fleet can get out to the best spots. Additional guided days cost â‚
