Destination Juneau
Beer Belly Silvers, Bubbling Whales and Streams of Flies
By Terry W. Sheely
Two quick hours north of Sea-Tac Airport and the world is changed—for the better I’m thinking.
Cindy and Tony Weber are dancing the Over-Under-Over two salmon hookup waltz in waders on shifting creek gravel while Evan stands bear guard, and tomorrow Moon the yellow Lab will bark up limits of big silvers on the back deck of the Rumrunner while humpbacks bubble net herring and locals shoulder in between the tourists to snap digits of a huge glacial blow out at Mendenhall.
The next few days of float planes, waders, salmon, trout, char and charter boats deliver all the evidence needed that Juneau has arrived as a destination for quality Alaskan sport fishing. Alaska’s landlocked capital city has always held an edge on tourism and Southeast scenery, wedged like it is on a narrow strip of level ground between the saltwater blue of Stephens Pass and the staggering 1500 square miles of glaciers in the Juneau Ice Field. “America’s most scenic state capital,” is the boast in the Juneau Guide and Travel planner and it may well be if you like small cities, topographically isolated, surrounded by water, ice, mountains, wildlife, wilderness, adventures and fish. Especially fish.
Mountains rise vertically and green from the edge of town and fade into ice fields, cruise ships line up at the docks, vacationers soar up the face of Mount Roberts in a tram, zip line through the trees, hike across glaciers, sample the outdoor salmon bake, tip a few Ambers at saloon central, and cruise the fur, feathers, dangles and bangles shops.
For years serious fisherman primarily used Juneau as a springboard to shuttle off to more remote fishing lodges. But that’s been changing. In the last few years fishermen are discovering that the House of Politics, Tourism and Good Beer is also a fishing destination with benefits.
Benefits being non-stop airline connections to the Lower 48, budget-conscious places to unpack the overnight bag, restaurants with menus that skittle from fast food to white linen, shopping, theater, hoot and holler bars, art, museums, and more eco-adventure-look-and-oooh tours than I want to count.
For fishermen, the big benefits of basing in Juneau are comparatively quick and competitive travel, reasonable hotel rates, urban comforts and a monstrous fish hatchery. Macaulay Salmon Hatchery within sight of the capital building on the downtown waterfront fattens local waters with millions of king, silver, pink and chum smolts (and summer adult returns). The hatchery run of kings also supports one of the largest catch-and-eat king fisheries in Alaska for nonresident anglers who are allowed four chinook a day during the early king season. Now add in limits of 6 silvers, 6 chums and 6 pinks a day, multiple marinas with a diversified fleet of charter boats, daily float plane fly outs to remote streams and rivers, kicker boat and multi-day tug boat rentals.
Fish in the water—boats to fish from—good food—warm bed—experienced guides, that’s my idea of a fishing destination and that describes Juneau; a fish town with benefits.
TRN publisher/editor Jim Goerg and I fished it hard last July, on the way back from a fly-in trip for salmon, Dolly Varden and big halibut at Gustavus on Icy Strait and inside Glacier Bay National Park. (See January TRN, “On The Hunt For Hallies.”)
Coming back to our base camp with benefits at the historic Westmark Baranof Hotel in Juneau and with a couple of days before our fly-out return to Seattle, Jim and I took the local know-how advice of Lorene Palmer and Elizabeth Arnett at Juneau Convention and Visitors Bureau and booked a float-plane fly-out fish trip with Bear Creek Outfitters and the following day with Captain Chris Conder to fish silvers on the C/V Rum Runner.
The diversity of the two days provided a cross sampling of Southeast variety; wading upstream casting flies to carpets of salmon and Dollies, and trolling saltwater zigs and zags through the whales, porpoises and calendar scenery with a bird dog looking for salmon.
Part 1-Slocum Creek:
On the calm July day when we flew out of Juneau with Arne Johnson piloting the deHavilland Beaver toward Slocum Creek, a lake of melted ice water impounded in the city’s main attraction Mendenhall Glacier blew out sending a roar of Little Ice Age water gushing through the 12-mile wall of the glacier, flooding backyards, threatening bridges, shooting ice bergs down Mendenhall River and proving there’s never a dull moment when the backyard is an ice field.
With us on Bear Creek’s float plane adventure are three Texans and Evan Fritz, fly-fishing guide, casting instructor, bear guard, knot maker and lunch provider. Outfitted in waders and boots provided by the Bear Creek Outfitter office, and carrying their 8 weight Sage fly rods with Ross Reels we climb out of the float plane on a shallow tide flat, wade to shore and watch the long blond marsh grass for brown hair. There is none, just some old sign and rooting. Nothing but eagles, gulls and a small stream dark with salmon, mostly pinks, some chums and a bunch of aggressive Dolly Varden. A few weeks later and the creek will be just as firmly packed with bright silvers and chums. Whatcha catch depends on when you fish, Evan says.
Johnson drops us at the mouth of Slocum and we slog ashore in waders and felt soles. The Beaver roars, turns, taxis, lifts off, fades into the mountainous distance and for our little group of six, standing in a bear meadow surrounded by peaks and empty saltwater, Alaska suddenly becomes a big empty place.
It’ll be back……later, Evan says, always has been anyway. The owner-pilot Arne Johnson has more than 18 years of bush plane experience and says, “that landing a plane on remote water and fish will never seem novel.” Which is why he jumped into a business that lets him share the experience.
Less than half an hour from downtown Juneau, by floatplane and we are standing thigh-deep in a wilderness stream in the 17 million acres of Tongass National Forest.
With float plane access to a wide array of wild, remote streams, Bear Creek Outfitters routinely selects productive water filled with seasonal runs and some of the finest fishing available in Southeast. “We focus on estuaries and the deeper holes and runs in the first two miles of the stream corridor,” Johnson explains, adding, “Other groups are rarely, if ever, encountered.” This is my fourth day trip with Bear Creek utfitters and I have yet to see another fisher on my water—excluding bears, eagles and whales.
The only requirements, Johnson says, are that fishermen be in decent enough physical condition to walk over uneven ground for up to 2 miles wearing waders, and are willing to catch-and-release everything. Bear Creek provide everything else. The creek is small enough to cast across, clear as good gin, cold, with a pebble bottom and a few thousand salmon lying like logs facing upstream. Evan rigs us; for pink salmon he ties on pink Clouser Minnows weighted with two micro shot. For the predatory Dolly Varden hiding invisibly in the shadows he tells us to switch to a plastic egg pegged to the tippet an inch above a small, barbless circle hook.
His job is to provide the flies, tie on the patterns, give instructions, provide fly-casting how-to that will have beginners catching fish in minutes, retie lost flies and broken tippets, unhook snags, point out fish, unhook, revive and release the catch, point out wildlife, carry the bear gun (just in case), carry the gear, hand out lunch, snacks and drinks and generally ride herd over us.
It’s a most civilized way to fish wild.
Anybody intimidated by the challenge of first-time fly fishing loses that intimidation with the first roll-cast and hookup. In our little group that was Ryan, the Texas flight instructor on his first Alaskan adventure. The first fly rod he ever held was the one Evan handed to him. Within minutes, with Evan at his side, he hooked into a real slab of a pink, 10 pounds maybe better, bright, specked with sea lice, a fish that in just a few hot minutes provided more adrenalin driven fly fishing education than Lefty Kreh could teach in an hour. Not sure when Ryan’s fear of fly fishing evaporated but it was gone by the time Evan unhooked his salmon.
If you can’t catch fish on a fly rod with Evan riding herd you……well, nobody knows. It’s never happened.
The pinks are 3 to 8 pounds average, some biggggger, and hot. Often as not we have five on a time—amazingly all fair hooked inside the mouth. “Strip and you’ll snag a fin, dead drift and they’ll nail it,” Evan says. “Strip really really fast and you’ll catch a Dolly Varden.”
Any salmon snob that tries to tell you that pinks are pitifully underwhelming salmon and not worth the time to catch should be ignored because the snob obviously has not tackled pink salmon on fly rods in a shallow stream a few feet from salt water.
The sun is bright, the July temperature a pleasant 70 degrees, the water cold and the fish nasty. Cindy and Tony Weber are from Dallas, in town on business, accompanied by Cindy’s flight instructor Ryan Stewart of Carrollton TX. And all three are doing the salmon dance.
We’re close enough to saltwater to smell kelp and the pinks are chrome bright, aggressive and chasing our flies, nailing them hard, running until they strip line and crashing up and down river. The big ones, humpbacked males turn sideways in the current and test the fly gear. In the first half mile of stream we catch fish in every stretch. I switch to Dolly egg rig and with a fast strip catch a thrashing 18 incher and several leapers.
Jim admits to being more comfortable with a spinning than a fly rod, but you wouldn’t know it. He’s routinely laying out 30 foot casts which is more than long enough, and catches four salmon on four casts with a wet fly swing. “If I can do it, anybody can,” he shouts, “world record, at least a Goerg fly rod record.”
This is the kind of Alaska fishing you read about—wild, remote and so fast your wrist wears out before the lunch
break.
I’ve fished with Bear Creek Outfitters on several occasions and each time we’ve targeted small streams in remote areas with the fish du jour. On Admiralty Island it was pinks, some place on the north end of Chichagof it was big late August silvers with a dozen brown bears, on a quick deep stream beneath the Chilkat Mountains it was a mix of pinks, chums, silvers and huge—repeat—huge, Dolly Varden. I blackened a fingernail on a reel handle on that trip and hooked a “something” beneath a log that I still think about. There’s also sea-run cutthroat, wild rainbows, and steelhead depending on the time of year.
Wildlife-- eagles, black and brown bears, black-tailed deer, whales, marine mammals are part of the day.
Our half-day fly-out was over in five hours, sitting in the tall grass, eating bagles and smoked salmon, listening to the distant growl of a Arne’s Beaver coming in low over the water, bringing five other anglers and a fresh guide to take our place.
As we waded out to the floating plane I turned and looked back. The anglers were putting rigs together, a splatter of white birds was crossing the tall grass, Slocum was still dark with salmon and invisible Dollies, the sun was shining and I knew I had just had one of the best afternoons in my life.
Part 2-Favorite Channel:
On this trip from a not-so-rugged base camp in the historic Westmark Baranof Hotel in Juneau Jim and I had covered Southeast from Glacier Bay National Park to Admiralty Island, putting a couple of really good halibut in the fish box, releasing a few hundred pounds of salmon and Dolly Varden and now it is time to fish for fillets.
JVCB’s Elizabeth Arnett makes her living staying on top of what’s hot and when she pointed us in the direction of Auke Bay Marina and Captain Chris Conder we took her advice.
She hadn’t mentioned Moon the seven year old yellow Lab fish dog, or that Favorite Channel would be blowing up with 50-foot long humpback whales on a feeding frenzy, the pod of black and white Dall’s porpoises lowning in the bow push, a carpet of pinks and chums that swim under the boat, or that the silvers were running up to 13 pounds—huge for late July.
Captain Conder’s fishing platform is a 31-foot cabin cruiser, C/V Rum Runner Charters, with enclosed cabin, heater, two tables, head, couch and an open afterdeck that’s big enough to play crazy triples.
This morning the Rum Runner is set up for silver trolling with electric downriggers. Conder can fish six anglers at a time and says they can split the boat rate. Today there is just Jim and me, deckhand Josh King and Moon whose job it is to bark and wag when a rod goes off. He’s good at his job.
The skipper tells us that we’ll be fishing for silvers, chums and maybe pinks, that large schools of silvers are showing up but like most Juneau salmon are migrating and constantly changing locations .
'The hot spot changes every day. We may have to look a bit, but we’ll find ‘em,” he says, and the first place we’ll look is Favorite Channel which is flanked on the west by Shelter Island and on the East by the Juneau mainland.
On other trips Jim and I have fished the west side of Shelter Island in Saginaw Channel and Lynn Canal and south in Stephens Pass and done well on August silvers and halibut. In June we fished just outside Gastineau Channel within sight of Juneau and Auke Bay Marina for slab Mccauley Hatchery kings and killed ‘em.
For both of us, this was our first time on the east side of Shelter Island in Favorite Channel and new water is always filled with new promise. On the way out the water is glassy calm and filled with the reflections of other boats, mountains and sea birds. The radio crackles with news that humpback whales are bubble netting herring a couple of miles ahead of us. Captain Conder pushes the throttles.
Bubble netting humpbacks are a spectacular sight. A pod of three to half a dozen or more whales encircle a school of herring, exhaling bubbles that form a net around the the baitfish gradually forcing them into a tightly balled panic. When the lead cow signals with a specific song the whales exhale a huge wall of air bubbles, confusing the densely packed baitfish. Using the bubbles as cover they dive beneath the bait then rise like a circle of black torpedoes, mouths open crashing upward through the herring and into the air.
Nine humpbacks are in our bubble-net mob. We cruise in, shut down and Captain Conder lowers a hydrophone into the water. Over the boat’s speakers we can hear the whales signal grunts, bellows and protracted songs. And we can hear the lead cow’s distinctive signal seconds before the whales explode through the bait. Fascinated, we watch for 45 minutes before we remember to look for salmon.
A huge carpet of salmon glides under the hull and in the glassy water I can see the white bellies of pinks and a few chums and a scattering of green-backed silvers all migrating in a giant wad. Josh drops our gear to 60 feet and in five minutes I have two surprisingly larger silvers in the boat. The first one eats a purple hoochie with a flasher and the second clobbers a pearl white J plug. The plugged silver cartwheels six times before landing in the net.
It’s a great start to a silver day.
Jim’s rod goes off and before he can get the silver in the net I’ve got another. In less than an hour we bonk seven unusually large silvers for the fillet box and release a couple of six pounders.
The silver bite between Aaron and Shelter Islands is smoking hot this whaling morning and for whatever reason it’s all coho. We can’t buy a chum or a pink strike, if we were so inclined and today we’re not.
These silvers are big for July fish, long, fat bellies, thick shoulders. Last year was a great silver year everywhere and especially in Southeast.
When the bite drops it’s senseless to keep pounding the same trolling path—the migration is on and our fish haven’t stopped feeding—they’ve left. Captain Conder immediately starts looking for others, pausing off points, dropping gear in the rip lines, following the electronics. And almost always we are in sight of whales, porpoises and feeding birds. It’s a great day to be towing gear in Favorite Channel.
When the plugs and flasher-hoochie rigs wear out Captain Conder has Josh rig us with spinners and squid. Large Indiana style spinner blades are positioned on clevises just ahead of the plastic squid which hide lethal No. 5 Siwash single hooks, often sweetened with a strip of herring for smell and flash. It works wonderfully.
The silver action is jammed into explosive moments. When we hit one fish, we hit a bunch and multiple hookups are the rule, Moon barks port and starboard then port again and looking a little worn out heads for the cabin and a noon nap.
During the brief and welcomed down time between bites, Captain Conder briefs us on the Juneau fishery.
“Our salmon runs start in early May with the returns of our large breeder kings, he says, adding, some weigh over 40 pounds. Pinks (AKA Humpies) start showing in late June, and are the smallest salmon averaging 3 to 6 pounds. When he targets pinks, Conder says, he switches to ultra light gear and “these little salmon are real fighters on the ultra light.”
Arriving with the pinks, are chums, which he believes “can be one of the toughest salmon to land and are excellent for the smoker or BBQ.”.
The silver action arrives in the middle of July, and when Conder describes the coho action his eyes widen and he smiles a lot. “These salmon are surface fighters,” he says, “magnificent jumps and some of the best eating salmon.”
Today he’s preaching to the choir. Jim and I have had doubles, not counting the deckhand’s triples, on strong acrobatic coho that are as beautiful as any I’ve landed anywhere. I hold one up for a photo and the belly sags like the fish has been nursing a few half racks of Alaskan Amber. Beer belly fish in the third week of July—unheard of.
Late in the afternoon with a dozen glistening silvers (two limits) in the fish box, a worn out Labrador asleep under the table, and a smiling deckhand, we turn toward Auke Bay, stopping just long enough to photograph another explosion of bubble netting humpbacks.
That Elizabeth, I say to Jim, is one helluva fish guide.
And with Juneau’s finest homebrew we toast Elizabeth, then the day, the catch, the whales, the skipper, the deckhand, Moon the Dog and most of Alaska—twice before docking.
Who To Call:
Bear Creek Outfitters Provided Provisions
Transportation to and from the seaplane base at Juneau International Airport.
Full or half day fly outs.
Cabela's waders, Cleated wading boots.
Ross Cimarron reels
Hand-tied flies and tackle
Sage rods (6-8 weights)
Cabela's raingear
Floatplane flight service to remote fishing location
Personalized guide service
Snack and beverage.
Half-Day (5½ hrs.) Rate $415
All-Day(8 hrs) Rate $630
Rum Runner Charters
Provided Provisions
Fishing gear, tackle and bait
Snacks and soft drinks
Lunch on all day trips
Transportation
Fish cleaning
Fish processing and shipping arranged
Half-Day Rate, (per boat not per angler) for salmon, $599
All-Day Rate per boat for salmon $1099.
All Day Rate per boat for halibut $1299.
Bear Creek Outfitters,
Arne Johnson, (907) 723-3914
[email protected],www.juneauflyfishing.com
Rum Runner Charters
Capt. Chris Conder
907-789-5482
[email protected]
www.rumrunnercharters.net
Juneau Convention & Visitors Bureau
Elizabeth Arnett , (907) 586-1737 e
[email protected]
www.TravelJuneau.com
Westmark Baranof
Hotel: (907)586-2660,
127 North Franklin Street, Juneau.
www.westmarkhotels.com
Bear Creek Outfitters Provided Provisions
Transportation to and from the seaplane base at Juneau International Airport.
Full or half day fly outs.
Cabela's waders, Cleated wading boots.
Ross Cimarron reels
Hand-tied flies and tackle
Sage rods (6-8 weights)
Cabela's raingear
Floatplane flight service to remote fishing location
Personalized guide service
Snack and beverage.
Half-Day (5½ hrs.) Rate $415
All-Day(8 hrs) Rate $630
Rum Runner Charters
Provided Provisions
Fishing gear, tackle and bait
Snacks and soft drinks
Lunch on all day trips
Transportation
Fish cleaning
Fish processing and shipping arranged
Half-Day Rate, (per boat not per angler) for salmon, $599
All-Day Rate per boat for salmon $1099.
All Day Rate per boat for halibut $1299.
Bear Creek Outfitters,
Arne Johnson, (907) 723-3914
[email protected],www.juneauflyfishing.com
Rum Runner Charters
Capt. Chris Conder
907-789-5482
[email protected]
www.rumrunnercharters.net
Juneau Convention & Visitors Bureau
Elizabeth Arnett , (907) 586-1737 e
[email protected]
www.TravelJuneau.com
Westmark Baranof
Hotel: (907)586-2660,
127 North Franklin Street, Juneau.
www.westmarkhotels.com
Rum Runner Charters Fishing Calendar
