Trolling The Fish Highway
Right off we had to change the route of the ALCAN, ad 800+ miles of side trips, pack the pick-ups with fresh and
salt water tackle for grayling to halibut, salmon to lake trout, hen slow down and cherry pick the adventure road.
What we should have done was tacked a second fish month.
By Terry W. Sheely
Leaning over the flap of maps on the kitchen table, staring at blue-ribbons of salmon, char, grayling and steelhead rivers, neatly-drawn outlines of trout and pike lakes, winding red highways, gray mountain ranges and black city dots it was obvious that our first step to becoming fish bums on the Alaska Highway would be to change the route.
We were mapping out a month-long road trip, a fishing adventure where grizzlies, white sheep, caribou, moose and wild woods bison are more plentiful than people, where we will have the opportunity to fish untrammeled fresh and salt water from under-fished roadside rivers, streams and lakes, coastal bays, charter-boat towns and saltwater sounds for everything from Arctic grayling to ling cod, rainbows to halibut, dollies to king salmon and northern pike to steelhead.
Our original plan was to drive and fish the ALCAN Highway from its start at Dawson Creek near the Alberta border to the end at Delta Junction in the shadows of the magnificent Alaska Range mountains 98 miles southeast of Fairbanks. That didn’t happen.
Looking at the maps it was immediately apparent that either we realign the 1,390 mile path of the Alaska Highway or miss a lot of prime fishing opportunities; an option never seriously considered. The consideration that should have been apparent was that a month is not enough to do this road trip justice, and that other fishermen—excluding Soldotna and Kenai at the height of the red run—would be few and miles between and the amount of pristine fish water unimaginable.
Great fishing opportunities, we found, were as vast and plentiful as the wildernesses of short black spruce and glaciated mountains always on either side of the highway; opportunities that came at us too fast and frequently to fish more than a handful. Far more fishing was available than I had even imagined.
My pre-trip research turned up a wealth of advice, including this nugget: “For the ALCAN route you'll do best to concentrate efforts in the Yukon. The fishing there is superior to just about anything you'll find along the Alaska part of the route. I particularly like the rivers and lakes in the Kluane region, and just about any clear-water stream will have grayling. Fishing - as a general rule - gets better the farther you walk from the road.”
I won’t argue because that advice is sound. Just limited. We found a wealth of hot fishing options in British Columbia, Alaska and yes, the Yukon. But then we didn’t stick to the old ALCAN route.
Our Fish Highway connected the great Fraser River Valley salmon runs, southern BC trout lake, the steelhead supremacy of Smithers, Houston, and Terrace and the lake trout, grayling and wild trout in the mountains, rivers, lakes and glaciers off the remote Cassiar Highway 37—a 450 mile side trip through the lonesome Cassiar and Skeena mountains. The Yukon’s huge lake trout lakes and grayling streams northeast of the glacier-packed Saint Elias Mountains were on the route, along with saltwater salmon, halibut and bottomfish options.
On the second of July, we cleared the maps from the table, and my wife Natalie and friends Scott and Marilyn Tews, hitched up their 31-foot Mountaineer checked the brakes and lights, loaded two canopied pickup trucks with spare tires, fishing rods, tackle boxes, waders, tool boxes, full gas cans, water, generator, maps, travel guides, campground directories, food, raspberry donuts, good coffee and dreams dancing with adventure. We plugged in the GPS, hung a left and headed north from Black Diamond Washington to Homer, Alaska.
I was surprised, even delighted to discover that we could fish the ALCAN and its tributary highways at every wet spot and find uneducated game fish and no one else sharing the water. Fishing alone is an increasingly rare treat in two countries with 343 million people. But along the ALCAN those congested numbers seem silly. The population of the entire Yukon Territory is just 34,000 and 23,000 of those are in Whitehorse. Neighboring Alaska has 710,000 year-rounders and northern B.C. maybe 17—which means that most of the traffic on this east-west arterial is driven by here-to-there vacationers with miles of empty asphalt between vehicles. That makes a lot of prime fishing available once you get a few miles out of any town and the farther north you drive the better the lonely becomes.
It’s hard to believe, but the hardest part of taking advantage of the great ALCAN-Etal fishing opportunities, was forcing myself to stop and fish when I saw water that needed to be fished. The road is addictive and the draw of better places, clearer water, bigger fish is always beckoning just a little further down the road. My greatest regret of this remarkable trip are the waters that I would have loved to stop and fish but passed up to be somewhere else, to find a camp spot, to get down the road. Don’t cave in—fish, that’s my advice.
I also recommend dedicating more time to the trip than you think you’ll need, keep rods strung, boxes of spinners, spoons and flies at the ready, boots wet and stop often. A canoe on top, a float tube in the trunk, an inflatable on the trailer aren’t necessary but are real assets. Trailered boats involve more tires to blow out, bearings to seize and bigger ferry bills. Rent.
The modern ALCAN may be paved (mostly) and it’s communities computerized and cell-phone enhanced but it’s still monstrously big wild country with wonderfully few people, and great fishing options.
From Cache Creek in southern BC to our turnaround at Homer Spit we passed and sampled innumerable lakes, rivers and streams in B.C., Yukon and Alaska. Some hid excellent numbers of trout, grayling, char, pike and lake trout and almost always without seeing a boot track or a boat.
A telling example of typical under-fished ALCAN is off the shoulder of the 43 miles of Highway 1 that curve around the shoreline of Kluane Lake east of the Alaska border. This is the same region my contact bragged up. At 150 square miles Kluane is the largest lake in the Yukon Territory, one of Canada’s premier designated “trophy lakes” boasting good numbers of lakers past 50 pounds, northern pike to 25, and carpets of grayling and in two days at the height of summer we saw one troller.
South of the trailer tire replacement store (four for the trip) in Tok, we camped in loon calls at picturesque Deadman Lake on the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge and caught northern pike by casting spoons and white streamers right off the boat ramp. If I had packed a canoe, the campground host said, there was a chain of lakes unfished for pike, grayling and rainbows, and canoe accesses to equally unfished rivers at Desper Creek milepost 1225.4, the Chisana River at the bridge in Northway and at milepost 1281 and into the Tanana River at the bridge at milepost 1303.6.
In mid-July, at the height of vacation season, we found little traffic on the Alaska Highway and most was ooh-and-ahh tourists’ either traveling without fishing rods or arrowing straight to famous destination fisheries. And there are plenty of those: Copper River kings, coho, steelhead, dollies and grayling at Glennallen, Yukon kings, summer and fall chums, grayling, pike below Whitehorse, walls of pinks and silvers at the end of the Richardson Highway in Valdez, reds, silvers and trout in the Kenai and Russian rivers, halibut, lings and salmon at Homer and Whittier, silvers and monstrous ling cod, yellow eyes and rockfish from Prince William Sound flopped on the docks at Seward.
South, there is world-class steelheading in the famed rivers of Smithers, Houston, and Terrace, BC, more un-advertised seasonal salmon at Haines and Skagway, world-class Kamloops trout on the Thompson and Cariboo Plateaus—and those are just the headliners. A little research uncovers dozens of equally or even more productive fresh and salt water honey holes.
Changing history and re-directing the famous military route turned out to be easier than reconciling the guilt that comes from fiddling with an international icon. A slight wiggle of the felt-tip highlighter and the historic War Road became a Fish Highway; a giant loop of asphalt, gravel, pot holes, dirt, dust and calendar scenery that touched some of the best wilderness roadside angling in North America.
After reviewing years of regional fishing notes we decided to re-start the Alaska Highway near Seattle 810 miles south of the official starting point in Dawson City, BC. and add detours up the Stewart-Cassiar highway and down past the hanging glaciers to the twin saltwater communities of Stewart BC and Hyder, AK, then added a left along the headwaters of the Yukon River to Skagway. The turnoff to Skagway from the ALCAN is on the Klondike White Pass Highway at Jake’s Corner. And for miles south of Jake’s Corner in the mountainous wedge between Klondike and ALCAN highways are huge B.C. lakes literally plugged with lake trout and schools of grayling.
The largest is Atlin Lake, official headwater of the Yukon River, and the largest natural lake in BC. An Atlin fishing lodge owner unabashedly says, “Atlin has probably the best population of lakers in Canada. It's no big deal to average four to five fish an hour,” adding, “Fish of up to forty pounds.” Little Atlin, Tagish, Racine, Marsh and the other neighboring laker lakes inside the wedge all have fish fit for the wall.
On south past Carcross and the Chilkoot gold rush history to the gee-gaw tourists shops in Skagway and a small fleet of charter fishing boats. Skagway’s salmon potential is underpublicized and off the beaten path, but summer anglers target resident feeder kings to 25 pounds, and a developing enhancement effort at the head of Lynn Canal produces a second June-August run of hatchery kings exempt from commercial nets.
We booked space and pancake breakfasts on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry at Skagway and crossed Lynn Canal to Haines, tried our luck in the web of small trout streams with reds and pinks, (we were too early for the September silvers), and saw pink and dolly fishermen casting into the incoming tide from the shoreline near the ferry terminal, at Chilkat Inlet and Berner Bay. A paved shoreline road from Haines goes north following the salmon runs in the shallow rocks of the Chilkoot River to Chilkoot Lake and campground. The lake and river claims to grow the largest sockeye (red) salmon in Southeast with peak sport-fishing in mid-June. By July there are pinks and Dolly Varden and fishing grizzlies.
From Haines we trailer north up Haines Junction Highway 3 through customs and out of Alaska to rejoin the ALCAN west of Watson Lake, YT. For fishermen the Haines Junction Highway 3 offers little. It’s a mountain top route through muskeg, heather and open alpine with little fishing opportunities but I’d take it again just for the sheer magnitude of the scenery and wildlife.
Watson Lake is the major supply source for the area, and is world-famous for its “Sign Post Forest” acres of corporation limit, city and homemade signboards naming hometowns in all directions.
Northwest from Watson Lake we follow the pristine shore of Lake Kluane, come back into Alaska and head for Tok and another side-trip. At Tok the ALCAN goes northwest to the end in Delta Junction. Instead, we turned southwest on the Tok Cutoff Hwy. 1 to include the fish-rich Kenai Peninsula on our Fish Highway. The cutoff eventually runs along the slurry gray of the upper Copper River and when the kings and silvers are in it’s a highly-recommended float trip fishery.
At Glennallen junction four mountain ranges border the gas pumps and visitor center which is a source of local fishing info and Copper River guide contacts.
At the junction, Valdez anglers turn south on the Richardson Highway (4) over Thomson Pass to the sport-fishing stronghold at the head of Prince William Sound.
Valdez defines sport-fishing with a solid fleet of day-fishing charters, rental boats, and facilities, tackle, accommodations and anything else needed to target PWS silvers, pinks, an expanding king run, salmon sharks, halibut and rockfish. An aggressive and monstrous hatchery program (compensation for the Exxon Valdez debacle) fills the small boat harbor water with pinks in July and silvers in August and September and it can be red hot from the bank at Allison Point near the hatchery and off downtown docks.
However, we turned southwest on Highway 1 into the twisting cliff scenery along the Matanuska River/Glacier. It still hurts that I passed up the big river’s kings, silvers, reds, pinks, steelhead, rainbows, northern pike, grayling, Dolly Varden, and Arctic char, especially after finding the turn-off onto a dirt and gravel track to the valley floor and primitive river-side camping.
Our ALCAN Alternate 1 Fish Highway hung a left in Anchorage south down Hwy. 1 tracking the eastern edge of Cook Inlet to Hwy. 9 where we detoured to Whittier past the blue ice bergs floating in Portage Lake. It’s an amazing little town at the end of the joint rail track/highway toll ($12) tunnel. Whittier is two boat harbors and a business street on a spit of steep ground between Maynard Mountain and Prince William Sound.
Before the tunnel was built to defend against Japanese submarines it was an isolated little town on the edge of some tremendous salmon, rockfish and halibut areas. It’s still little but is developing into what I believe will become a glacier-framed sport-fishing Mecca on Prince William Sound. Rockfish are caught from the shore near the boat harbor and marine ferry docks, salmon and halibut in the Sound and fishing pressure is practically non-existent. I expect this deep-water port to eventually rival Valdez for sport-fishing.
We camped in sight of nearby Portage Glacier, discovered our campground river was not open for salmon, then drifted down the Seward Highway Scenic Byway to the sport-fishing hub in Seward (great waterfront camping in a huge city park). A couple of afternoons were invested in casting into Resurrection Bay coves for reds and silvers then envying the giant ling cod, yellow eyes and boxes of silver salmon unloaded at the charter boat docks. Seward is heavy with sport-fishing options, from rental kayaks to beach casting, charter boats to small boat guides and it’s often possible to book an economical half-day trip. The later in the summer the better the fishing and the bigger the fish.
From Seward, our Fish Highway re-crossed the Kenai Mountains through Moose Pass to Hwy. 1 and turned southwest along the Kenai River (spotted ‘bows, dollies and salmon of every persuasion) through Soldotna, and Kenai, along the salmon beaches at Kasilof, Clam Gulch, Ninilchik, and Deep Creek with a stop to wade for dollies and pinks in the lower Anchor River. It ended where anglers were beach casting for salmon at Kachemak Bay, and lugging boxes off halibut charters at Homer harbor. Before turning the trip around we quaffed the requisite beer at Salty Dawg Saloon, pinned our buck on the wall, and inhaled fish and chips at a boardwalk café.
We’re a long way from the official ALCAN route but if the Kenai Peninsula doesn’t rate a road-trip detour I don’t know what would.
Had we continued east from Tok on the ALCAN we would have bypassed Anchorage and pulled up at Delta Junction southeast of Fairbanks. Depending on water levels and timing we could have fished the Chena, Tanana, Chatanika, Delta-Clearwater and Salcha rivers and a scattering of small lakes for kings and silvers, grayling, burbot, lake trout, northern pike and rainbows.
Unfortunately, travel time ate into fish time forcing us to chop several other excellent destinations off Fish Highway, including the road to Valdez where we missed an unbelievable pink salmon fishery that was blowing up along the shoreline at Allison Point and the smoking hot silver fishery was about to start.
The return trip south was plotted to go into new country looping east of our north-bound route and following the original Alaska Highway east from Watson Lake across the Rocky Mountains. This route winds back-and-forth on the Yukon-BC border before diving south into B.C. along the steep walls of the Liard River and Stone Mountain Provincial Park. It’s roughly 300 miles from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson and good fishing prospects slide along the edge of the highway for most of the way.
I could spend a lifetime fishing the remote 693 mile corridor of the Liard and Muncho complex with its spider webs of dozens of clear-water tributaries and lakes. Gamefish from northern pike to lake trout, wild rainbows to Arctic grayling and Dolly Varden char can be caught in the main Liard and its two dozen tributary rivers, 55 major creeks and uncounted outlying lakes.
The ALCAN rides the edge of jade green Muncho Lake 7½ miles of reflected crags that hold mountain goats and Stone sheep and begs to be fished for lake trout up to 50 pounds plus grayling and dollies. We saw multiple ramps and one boat trailer. Trails lead into the Grand Canyon of the Liard crossing trout and grayling streams and winding past trout lakes. Not a spot along the Liard, including roadsides, is not wilderness remote and nearly unfished. Make an effort to soak in the developed hot springs at Liard campground to re-energize casting muscles.
From Fort Nelson the Fish Highway went south into oil and gas pumping country, muskeg bogs and slivers of trout rivers to Fort Saint John and Dawson Creek. Great hunting country, sparse on big fish options. Fom Fort St. John/Dawson Creek we headed south along a series of smaller, incredibly picturesque trout rivers into the practically untouched upper Fraser and McKenzie river tributary streams and south into the hundreds of rainbow trout lakes in the Cariboo and around Kamloops and Merritt, BC. Almost every dirt track leads to a trout lake and the bigger ones are marked with signs on the highway.
Added up we covered 5,184 miles of fresh and saltwater fishing, wildlife, spectacular scenery, and adventure. And then we added another 800 miles or so of side trips until our northern round-trip circle route into B.C., Yukon and Alaska was just about equal to driving from Seattle to New York City and back.
We allowed a month to travel and fish through northern Washington, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Southcentral Alaska--almost all of it on the famed Alaska Highway.
Four weeks to wander and it was nowhere near enough time.
This country is bigger than a month, we learned. Six weeks minimum, two months is better—it’s that big, that spread out, that incredibly overwhelming and that filled with fishing options As an outdoor writer I’ve traveled and fished in Alaska, BC and the Yukon for decades, but almost always flying into a fishing center, exploring the surrounding region and flying out. Until I saw the country roll past, through the windshield raspberry of an ALCAN flying rock, the dots were disconnected, the distances deceiving, the roadside fishing under-appreciated.
This is a huge road trip through immense wild country, where pioneer necessities are still common, the communities small, hardship inconveniences tolerated and the residents resourceful and generous.
North of Williams Lake, B.C. the world is closer to wilderness than rural and connected by international rivers, mountain ranges, lonely highways and shared adversities more than government boundaries and citizenship.
When you park along the highway or a dirt road and hike up a gin-clear creek you will probably never find old fish lines, tackle wrappers or hip boot tracks. That’s one of the anomalies I found on this trip—few fishermen stop along the road and fish. The highway is addictive, the famous destination fisheries alluring and to stop and explore almost unheard of.
Fish Highway is a road trip unfinished.
I’ll be back and this time I’ll stop and fish. A lot!
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Advice, Insights
And License Info
Fish Highway Road Trippers: allow 6 weeks to 2 months.
Top off the tank when it hits half and you’ll have no gas or diesel shortage.
The ALCAN and Fish Highway detours are surprisingly lightly traveled and barely fished. A lot of miles between cars and fishermen, except in developed areas. Grab maps wherever possible and pay attention to the wandering blue lines. Farther away from civilization better the fishing.
Lots of primitive off-road campsites from Quesnel, BC north and plenty of developed public and private sites everywhere. No problem finding flat places to layover.
Bring a boat, tube or raft, plenty of small spinners/spoons and wet flies (egg patterns always) for trout, char and grayling. Include large spoons and spinners for Yukon/Alaska northern pike and lake trout and river salmon near the coast. Little water, little lures; big water, big lures—proven formula.
Ask questions. Every tackle shop or mercantile I went into was happy to share local secrets, hot spots and tackle riggings. Bring waders (no felt soles), keep the 40% Deet handy and tackle rigged to fish. Spontaneous stops are a big part of the allure.
BEST TIME
Peak season for highway travelers is June through August but for fishermen August and early September is when the rivers are low and clear, salmon running in salt and fresh, traffic is lighter, mosquitoes gone and scenery spectacular. Higher passes may see mid-September snow.
What you catch depends on when you go. Salmon don’t show in big numbers until mid-summer and August is best for silvers, pinks and chums. In mid-summer many Alaska rivers are the color of concrete slurry, and you’ll want big, noisy lures and to concentrate on clear-water tributary mouths.
In B.C. and the Yukon snow melt keeps rivers colored and flushed into late June. Rainbow lakes in the Williams Lake, Cariboo and Kamloops region peak in June-July. Best trout, grayling and char river fishing from July on. Steelhead in the Smithers-Terrace region are awesome, but don’t count on good water or wads of fish until late, late summer. In the Bulkley Valley fish June-August for spring salmon, pinks and silvers in September. The steelhead heart doesn’t start to beat until September-October in the Skeena, Bulkley, Morice, Kispiox, Babine and Sustut rivers.
SERINDIPITY IT
Advance reservations for fishing destinations prove limiting. To be anywhere at an appointed hour usually means high-balling past prime fishing stops. Destination hot spots—mostly Alaska saltwater—are always thick with charter boats and guides who need to fill a boat seat, or can book a half-day trip or a whole day on the railing and provide gear. Flexibility and patience are better than long-distant reservations. Lining up spontaneous fish trips was never a problem except in the Soldotna/Kenai craziness during the red run. You’ll be lucky to find a hose bib hook-up in a backyard to use, it’s that crowded.
RESEARCH.
Study fishing reports, pick several must-stop fishing destinations and spontaneously stop wherever it looks promising.
LICENSES AND REGULATIONS
Buy fishing licenses with regulation booklets. 10 day-2 week licenses in each province and state give you time to travel slow and fish well.
Prices and info at:
British Columbia.www.fishing.gov.bc.ca;
Yukon www.env.gov.yk.ca/fishing/fishinglicences.php
Alaska www.gofishingalaska.com/alaska_fishing_license.html
Most gas stops, general and outdoor stores will point you at a local license vendor. Keeping fish is problematic. Thunk a couple for dinner, release most and if you do take a destination trip and fill a box with salmon, halibut and bottomfish be prepared to reach deep in the wallet. Most sportfishing ports are set up to freeze, package and ship fish, either by Alaska Air or FedEx—both do good jobs, neither is cheap and you’ll need someone on the receiving end.
I’m a visitor center junkie and recommend stopping. These people are paid to be helpful, can provide a wealth of local fishing information, maps, guidebooks and down-home insights that can put you in the right fish place at the right time. I’ve had staffers offer to take me to their local honey hole. Many VCs (also libraries) provide free internet service and computer use.
In much of the North Country cell phone service and web connections disappear at the town limits.
Right off we had to change the route of the ALCAN, ad 800+ miles of side trips, pack the pick-ups with fresh and
salt water tackle for grayling to halibut, salmon to lake trout, hen slow down and cherry pick the adventure road.
What we should have done was tacked a second fish month.
By Terry W. Sheely
Leaning over the flap of maps on the kitchen table, staring at blue-ribbons of salmon, char, grayling and steelhead rivers, neatly-drawn outlines of trout and pike lakes, winding red highways, gray mountain ranges and black city dots it was obvious that our first step to becoming fish bums on the Alaska Highway would be to change the route.
We were mapping out a month-long road trip, a fishing adventure where grizzlies, white sheep, caribou, moose and wild woods bison are more plentiful than people, where we will have the opportunity to fish untrammeled fresh and salt water from under-fished roadside rivers, streams and lakes, coastal bays, charter-boat towns and saltwater sounds for everything from Arctic grayling to ling cod, rainbows to halibut, dollies to king salmon and northern pike to steelhead.
Our original plan was to drive and fish the ALCAN Highway from its start at Dawson Creek near the Alberta border to the end at Delta Junction in the shadows of the magnificent Alaska Range mountains 98 miles southeast of Fairbanks. That didn’t happen.
Looking at the maps it was immediately apparent that either we realign the 1,390 mile path of the Alaska Highway or miss a lot of prime fishing opportunities; an option never seriously considered. The consideration that should have been apparent was that a month is not enough to do this road trip justice, and that other fishermen—excluding Soldotna and Kenai at the height of the red run—would be few and miles between and the amount of pristine fish water unimaginable.
Great fishing opportunities, we found, were as vast and plentiful as the wildernesses of short black spruce and glaciated mountains always on either side of the highway; opportunities that came at us too fast and frequently to fish more than a handful. Far more fishing was available than I had even imagined.
My pre-trip research turned up a wealth of advice, including this nugget: “For the ALCAN route you'll do best to concentrate efforts in the Yukon. The fishing there is superior to just about anything you'll find along the Alaska part of the route. I particularly like the rivers and lakes in the Kluane region, and just about any clear-water stream will have grayling. Fishing - as a general rule - gets better the farther you walk from the road.”
I won’t argue because that advice is sound. Just limited. We found a wealth of hot fishing options in British Columbia, Alaska and yes, the Yukon. But then we didn’t stick to the old ALCAN route.
Our Fish Highway connected the great Fraser River Valley salmon runs, southern BC trout lake, the steelhead supremacy of Smithers, Houston, and Terrace and the lake trout, grayling and wild trout in the mountains, rivers, lakes and glaciers off the remote Cassiar Highway 37—a 450 mile side trip through the lonesome Cassiar and Skeena mountains. The Yukon’s huge lake trout lakes and grayling streams northeast of the glacier-packed Saint Elias Mountains were on the route, along with saltwater salmon, halibut and bottomfish options.
On the second of July, we cleared the maps from the table, and my wife Natalie and friends Scott and Marilyn Tews, hitched up their 31-foot Mountaineer checked the brakes and lights, loaded two canopied pickup trucks with spare tires, fishing rods, tackle boxes, waders, tool boxes, full gas cans, water, generator, maps, travel guides, campground directories, food, raspberry donuts, good coffee and dreams dancing with adventure. We plugged in the GPS, hung a left and headed north from Black Diamond Washington to Homer, Alaska.
I was surprised, even delighted to discover that we could fish the ALCAN and its tributary highways at every wet spot and find uneducated game fish and no one else sharing the water. Fishing alone is an increasingly rare treat in two countries with 343 million people. But along the ALCAN those congested numbers seem silly. The population of the entire Yukon Territory is just 34,000 and 23,000 of those are in Whitehorse. Neighboring Alaska has 710,000 year-rounders and northern B.C. maybe 17—which means that most of the traffic on this east-west arterial is driven by here-to-there vacationers with miles of empty asphalt between vehicles. That makes a lot of prime fishing available once you get a few miles out of any town and the farther north you drive the better the lonely becomes.
It’s hard to believe, but the hardest part of taking advantage of the great ALCAN-Etal fishing opportunities, was forcing myself to stop and fish when I saw water that needed to be fished. The road is addictive and the draw of better places, clearer water, bigger fish is always beckoning just a little further down the road. My greatest regret of this remarkable trip are the waters that I would have loved to stop and fish but passed up to be somewhere else, to find a camp spot, to get down the road. Don’t cave in—fish, that’s my advice.
I also recommend dedicating more time to the trip than you think you’ll need, keep rods strung, boxes of spinners, spoons and flies at the ready, boots wet and stop often. A canoe on top, a float tube in the trunk, an inflatable on the trailer aren’t necessary but are real assets. Trailered boats involve more tires to blow out, bearings to seize and bigger ferry bills. Rent.
The modern ALCAN may be paved (mostly) and it’s communities computerized and cell-phone enhanced but it’s still monstrously big wild country with wonderfully few people, and great fishing options.
From Cache Creek in southern BC to our turnaround at Homer Spit we passed and sampled innumerable lakes, rivers and streams in B.C., Yukon and Alaska. Some hid excellent numbers of trout, grayling, char, pike and lake trout and almost always without seeing a boot track or a boat.
A telling example of typical under-fished ALCAN is off the shoulder of the 43 miles of Highway 1 that curve around the shoreline of Kluane Lake east of the Alaska border. This is the same region my contact bragged up. At 150 square miles Kluane is the largest lake in the Yukon Territory, one of Canada’s premier designated “trophy lakes” boasting good numbers of lakers past 50 pounds, northern pike to 25, and carpets of grayling and in two days at the height of summer we saw one troller.
South of the trailer tire replacement store (four for the trip) in Tok, we camped in loon calls at picturesque Deadman Lake on the Tetlin Wildlife Refuge and caught northern pike by casting spoons and white streamers right off the boat ramp. If I had packed a canoe, the campground host said, there was a chain of lakes unfished for pike, grayling and rainbows, and canoe accesses to equally unfished rivers at Desper Creek milepost 1225.4, the Chisana River at the bridge in Northway and at milepost 1281 and into the Tanana River at the bridge at milepost 1303.6.
In mid-July, at the height of vacation season, we found little traffic on the Alaska Highway and most was ooh-and-ahh tourists’ either traveling without fishing rods or arrowing straight to famous destination fisheries. And there are plenty of those: Copper River kings, coho, steelhead, dollies and grayling at Glennallen, Yukon kings, summer and fall chums, grayling, pike below Whitehorse, walls of pinks and silvers at the end of the Richardson Highway in Valdez, reds, silvers and trout in the Kenai and Russian rivers, halibut, lings and salmon at Homer and Whittier, silvers and monstrous ling cod, yellow eyes and rockfish from Prince William Sound flopped on the docks at Seward.
South, there is world-class steelheading in the famed rivers of Smithers, Houston, and Terrace, BC, more un-advertised seasonal salmon at Haines and Skagway, world-class Kamloops trout on the Thompson and Cariboo Plateaus—and those are just the headliners. A little research uncovers dozens of equally or even more productive fresh and salt water honey holes.
Changing history and re-directing the famous military route turned out to be easier than reconciling the guilt that comes from fiddling with an international icon. A slight wiggle of the felt-tip highlighter and the historic War Road became a Fish Highway; a giant loop of asphalt, gravel, pot holes, dirt, dust and calendar scenery that touched some of the best wilderness roadside angling in North America.
After reviewing years of regional fishing notes we decided to re-start the Alaska Highway near Seattle 810 miles south of the official starting point in Dawson City, BC. and add detours up the Stewart-Cassiar highway and down past the hanging glaciers to the twin saltwater communities of Stewart BC and Hyder, AK, then added a left along the headwaters of the Yukon River to Skagway. The turnoff to Skagway from the ALCAN is on the Klondike White Pass Highway at Jake’s Corner. And for miles south of Jake’s Corner in the mountainous wedge between Klondike and ALCAN highways are huge B.C. lakes literally plugged with lake trout and schools of grayling.
The largest is Atlin Lake, official headwater of the Yukon River, and the largest natural lake in BC. An Atlin fishing lodge owner unabashedly says, “Atlin has probably the best population of lakers in Canada. It's no big deal to average four to five fish an hour,” adding, “Fish of up to forty pounds.” Little Atlin, Tagish, Racine, Marsh and the other neighboring laker lakes inside the wedge all have fish fit for the wall.
On south past Carcross and the Chilkoot gold rush history to the gee-gaw tourists shops in Skagway and a small fleet of charter fishing boats. Skagway’s salmon potential is underpublicized and off the beaten path, but summer anglers target resident feeder kings to 25 pounds, and a developing enhancement effort at the head of Lynn Canal produces a second June-August run of hatchery kings exempt from commercial nets.
We booked space and pancake breakfasts on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry at Skagway and crossed Lynn Canal to Haines, tried our luck in the web of small trout streams with reds and pinks, (we were too early for the September silvers), and saw pink and dolly fishermen casting into the incoming tide from the shoreline near the ferry terminal, at Chilkat Inlet and Berner Bay. A paved shoreline road from Haines goes north following the salmon runs in the shallow rocks of the Chilkoot River to Chilkoot Lake and campground. The lake and river claims to grow the largest sockeye (red) salmon in Southeast with peak sport-fishing in mid-June. By July there are pinks and Dolly Varden and fishing grizzlies.
From Haines we trailer north up Haines Junction Highway 3 through customs and out of Alaska to rejoin the ALCAN west of Watson Lake, YT. For fishermen the Haines Junction Highway 3 offers little. It’s a mountain top route through muskeg, heather and open alpine with little fishing opportunities but I’d take it again just for the sheer magnitude of the scenery and wildlife.
Watson Lake is the major supply source for the area, and is world-famous for its “Sign Post Forest” acres of corporation limit, city and homemade signboards naming hometowns in all directions.
Northwest from Watson Lake we follow the pristine shore of Lake Kluane, come back into Alaska and head for Tok and another side-trip. At Tok the ALCAN goes northwest to the end in Delta Junction. Instead, we turned southwest on the Tok Cutoff Hwy. 1 to include the fish-rich Kenai Peninsula on our Fish Highway. The cutoff eventually runs along the slurry gray of the upper Copper River and when the kings and silvers are in it’s a highly-recommended float trip fishery.
At Glennallen junction four mountain ranges border the gas pumps and visitor center which is a source of local fishing info and Copper River guide contacts.
At the junction, Valdez anglers turn south on the Richardson Highway (4) over Thomson Pass to the sport-fishing stronghold at the head of Prince William Sound.
Valdez defines sport-fishing with a solid fleet of day-fishing charters, rental boats, and facilities, tackle, accommodations and anything else needed to target PWS silvers, pinks, an expanding king run, salmon sharks, halibut and rockfish. An aggressive and monstrous hatchery program (compensation for the Exxon Valdez debacle) fills the small boat harbor water with pinks in July and silvers in August and September and it can be red hot from the bank at Allison Point near the hatchery and off downtown docks.
However, we turned southwest on Highway 1 into the twisting cliff scenery along the Matanuska River/Glacier. It still hurts that I passed up the big river’s kings, silvers, reds, pinks, steelhead, rainbows, northern pike, grayling, Dolly Varden, and Arctic char, especially after finding the turn-off onto a dirt and gravel track to the valley floor and primitive river-side camping.
Our ALCAN Alternate 1 Fish Highway hung a left in Anchorage south down Hwy. 1 tracking the eastern edge of Cook Inlet to Hwy. 9 where we detoured to Whittier past the blue ice bergs floating in Portage Lake. It’s an amazing little town at the end of the joint rail track/highway toll ($12) tunnel. Whittier is two boat harbors and a business street on a spit of steep ground between Maynard Mountain and Prince William Sound.
Before the tunnel was built to defend against Japanese submarines it was an isolated little town on the edge of some tremendous salmon, rockfish and halibut areas. It’s still little but is developing into what I believe will become a glacier-framed sport-fishing Mecca on Prince William Sound. Rockfish are caught from the shore near the boat harbor and marine ferry docks, salmon and halibut in the Sound and fishing pressure is practically non-existent. I expect this deep-water port to eventually rival Valdez for sport-fishing.
We camped in sight of nearby Portage Glacier, discovered our campground river was not open for salmon, then drifted down the Seward Highway Scenic Byway to the sport-fishing hub in Seward (great waterfront camping in a huge city park). A couple of afternoons were invested in casting into Resurrection Bay coves for reds and silvers then envying the giant ling cod, yellow eyes and boxes of silver salmon unloaded at the charter boat docks. Seward is heavy with sport-fishing options, from rental kayaks to beach casting, charter boats to small boat guides and it’s often possible to book an economical half-day trip. The later in the summer the better the fishing and the bigger the fish.
From Seward, our Fish Highway re-crossed the Kenai Mountains through Moose Pass to Hwy. 1 and turned southwest along the Kenai River (spotted ‘bows, dollies and salmon of every persuasion) through Soldotna, and Kenai, along the salmon beaches at Kasilof, Clam Gulch, Ninilchik, and Deep Creek with a stop to wade for dollies and pinks in the lower Anchor River. It ended where anglers were beach casting for salmon at Kachemak Bay, and lugging boxes off halibut charters at Homer harbor. Before turning the trip around we quaffed the requisite beer at Salty Dawg Saloon, pinned our buck on the wall, and inhaled fish and chips at a boardwalk café.
We’re a long way from the official ALCAN route but if the Kenai Peninsula doesn’t rate a road-trip detour I don’t know what would.
Had we continued east from Tok on the ALCAN we would have bypassed Anchorage and pulled up at Delta Junction southeast of Fairbanks. Depending on water levels and timing we could have fished the Chena, Tanana, Chatanika, Delta-Clearwater and Salcha rivers and a scattering of small lakes for kings and silvers, grayling, burbot, lake trout, northern pike and rainbows.
Unfortunately, travel time ate into fish time forcing us to chop several other excellent destinations off Fish Highway, including the road to Valdez where we missed an unbelievable pink salmon fishery that was blowing up along the shoreline at Allison Point and the smoking hot silver fishery was about to start.
The return trip south was plotted to go into new country looping east of our north-bound route and following the original Alaska Highway east from Watson Lake across the Rocky Mountains. This route winds back-and-forth on the Yukon-BC border before diving south into B.C. along the steep walls of the Liard River and Stone Mountain Provincial Park. It’s roughly 300 miles from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson and good fishing prospects slide along the edge of the highway for most of the way.
I could spend a lifetime fishing the remote 693 mile corridor of the Liard and Muncho complex with its spider webs of dozens of clear-water tributaries and lakes. Gamefish from northern pike to lake trout, wild rainbows to Arctic grayling and Dolly Varden char can be caught in the main Liard and its two dozen tributary rivers, 55 major creeks and uncounted outlying lakes.
The ALCAN rides the edge of jade green Muncho Lake 7½ miles of reflected crags that hold mountain goats and Stone sheep and begs to be fished for lake trout up to 50 pounds plus grayling and dollies. We saw multiple ramps and one boat trailer. Trails lead into the Grand Canyon of the Liard crossing trout and grayling streams and winding past trout lakes. Not a spot along the Liard, including roadsides, is not wilderness remote and nearly unfished. Make an effort to soak in the developed hot springs at Liard campground to re-energize casting muscles.
From Fort Nelson the Fish Highway went south into oil and gas pumping country, muskeg bogs and slivers of trout rivers to Fort Saint John and Dawson Creek. Great hunting country, sparse on big fish options. Fom Fort St. John/Dawson Creek we headed south along a series of smaller, incredibly picturesque trout rivers into the practically untouched upper Fraser and McKenzie river tributary streams and south into the hundreds of rainbow trout lakes in the Cariboo and around Kamloops and Merritt, BC. Almost every dirt track leads to a trout lake and the bigger ones are marked with signs on the highway.
Added up we covered 5,184 miles of fresh and saltwater fishing, wildlife, spectacular scenery, and adventure. And then we added another 800 miles or so of side trips until our northern round-trip circle route into B.C., Yukon and Alaska was just about equal to driving from Seattle to New York City and back.
We allowed a month to travel and fish through northern Washington, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and Southcentral Alaska--almost all of it on the famed Alaska Highway.
Four weeks to wander and it was nowhere near enough time.
This country is bigger than a month, we learned. Six weeks minimum, two months is better—it’s that big, that spread out, that incredibly overwhelming and that filled with fishing options As an outdoor writer I’ve traveled and fished in Alaska, BC and the Yukon for decades, but almost always flying into a fishing center, exploring the surrounding region and flying out. Until I saw the country roll past, through the windshield raspberry of an ALCAN flying rock, the dots were disconnected, the distances deceiving, the roadside fishing under-appreciated.
This is a huge road trip through immense wild country, where pioneer necessities are still common, the communities small, hardship inconveniences tolerated and the residents resourceful and generous.
North of Williams Lake, B.C. the world is closer to wilderness than rural and connected by international rivers, mountain ranges, lonely highways and shared adversities more than government boundaries and citizenship.
When you park along the highway or a dirt road and hike up a gin-clear creek you will probably never find old fish lines, tackle wrappers or hip boot tracks. That’s one of the anomalies I found on this trip—few fishermen stop along the road and fish. The highway is addictive, the famous destination fisheries alluring and to stop and explore almost unheard of.
Fish Highway is a road trip unfinished.
I’ll be back and this time I’ll stop and fish. A lot!
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Advice, Insights
And License Info
Fish Highway Road Trippers: allow 6 weeks to 2 months.
Top off the tank when it hits half and you’ll have no gas or diesel shortage.
The ALCAN and Fish Highway detours are surprisingly lightly traveled and barely fished. A lot of miles between cars and fishermen, except in developed areas. Grab maps wherever possible and pay attention to the wandering blue lines. Farther away from civilization better the fishing.
Lots of primitive off-road campsites from Quesnel, BC north and plenty of developed public and private sites everywhere. No problem finding flat places to layover.
Bring a boat, tube or raft, plenty of small spinners/spoons and wet flies (egg patterns always) for trout, char and grayling. Include large spoons and spinners for Yukon/Alaska northern pike and lake trout and river salmon near the coast. Little water, little lures; big water, big lures—proven formula.
Ask questions. Every tackle shop or mercantile I went into was happy to share local secrets, hot spots and tackle riggings. Bring waders (no felt soles), keep the 40% Deet handy and tackle rigged to fish. Spontaneous stops are a big part of the allure.
BEST TIME
Peak season for highway travelers is June through August but for fishermen August and early September is when the rivers are low and clear, salmon running in salt and fresh, traffic is lighter, mosquitoes gone and scenery spectacular. Higher passes may see mid-September snow.
What you catch depends on when you go. Salmon don’t show in big numbers until mid-summer and August is best for silvers, pinks and chums. In mid-summer many Alaska rivers are the color of concrete slurry, and you’ll want big, noisy lures and to concentrate on clear-water tributary mouths.
In B.C. and the Yukon snow melt keeps rivers colored and flushed into late June. Rainbow lakes in the Williams Lake, Cariboo and Kamloops region peak in June-July. Best trout, grayling and char river fishing from July on. Steelhead in the Smithers-Terrace region are awesome, but don’t count on good water or wads of fish until late, late summer. In the Bulkley Valley fish June-August for spring salmon, pinks and silvers in September. The steelhead heart doesn’t start to beat until September-October in the Skeena, Bulkley, Morice, Kispiox, Babine and Sustut rivers.
SERINDIPITY IT
Advance reservations for fishing destinations prove limiting. To be anywhere at an appointed hour usually means high-balling past prime fishing stops. Destination hot spots—mostly Alaska saltwater—are always thick with charter boats and guides who need to fill a boat seat, or can book a half-day trip or a whole day on the railing and provide gear. Flexibility and patience are better than long-distant reservations. Lining up spontaneous fish trips was never a problem except in the Soldotna/Kenai craziness during the red run. You’ll be lucky to find a hose bib hook-up in a backyard to use, it’s that crowded.
RESEARCH.
Study fishing reports, pick several must-stop fishing destinations and spontaneously stop wherever it looks promising.
LICENSES AND REGULATIONS
Buy fishing licenses with regulation booklets. 10 day-2 week licenses in each province and state give you time to travel slow and fish well.
Prices and info at:
British Columbia.www.fishing.gov.bc.ca;
Yukon www.env.gov.yk.ca/fishing/fishinglicences.php
Alaska www.gofishingalaska.com/alaska_fishing_license.html
Most gas stops, general and outdoor stores will point you at a local license vendor. Keeping fish is problematic. Thunk a couple for dinner, release most and if you do take a destination trip and fill a box with salmon, halibut and bottomfish be prepared to reach deep in the wallet. Most sportfishing ports are set up to freeze, package and ship fish, either by Alaska Air or FedEx—both do good jobs, neither is cheap and you’ll need someone on the receiving end.
I’m a visitor center junkie and recommend stopping. These people are paid to be helpful, can provide a wealth of local fishing information, maps, guidebooks and down-home insights that can put you in the right fish place at the right time. I’ve had staffers offer to take me to their local honey hole. Many VCs (also libraries) provide free internet service and computer use.
In much of the North Country cell phone service and web connections disappear at the town limits.
