I’m happily settled with Midnight Sun Trophy Pike Lodge on the Yukon River drainage here in Alaska. All of my small group of friends, Sammy Vigneri, Steve Fitzsimons and Therese Rappazini made it to Anchorage last night without hassle. This is a hosted trip I’m running for Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures.
Early this morning we caught a Deni’Ina Air Taxi from Anchorage to about 300 miles west to the village of Galena. No time for details, but as with most of these northern charters, weather threatened our flight. We had drizzle and a low cloud ceiling to contend with but fortunately our pilot calculated the weather changes to the minute and found a window for our 1 ½ hour flight. We were only an hour late and arrived at Holy Cross at 11:30.
At the tiny landing strip we were met by a few locals that run supplies for the famous Midnight Sun. The Midnight Sun isn’t exactly a lodge, but rather a 37 foot mothership called the Midnight Sun Patriot Catamaran. This is a new vessel carefully planned by working owner, Scott Rowekamp. Scott designed it to handle the rigors of the mighty Yukon River and its thousands of back sloughs and lakes – all of which are inhabited by humongous northern pike and sheefish.
Of course it’s the pike of massive proportions that brings us here. And oh yeah, I’ve never caught a sheefish either. That’s high on my list of goals for this week. After a short, chilly ride in the back of a pickup we boarded the well-equipped Patriot Catamaran.
Scott and his righthand man, Wade Alexander, gave us a quick orientation of the Patriot. It’s hard to explain how cool this boat is. It’s perfect for hardcore fishing with its comfortable accommodation. I won’t lie, the bunkbeds barely fit in the small bedrooms but they’re snug and there’s just enough space to organize my stuff. I’m in the bottom bunk. Sammy grabbed the top. Steve and Therese have their own room. Our fishing stuff is rigged out in one of two skiffs. “Rigged” – yeah, after a nice lunch upon arrival, we managed a full day of fishing today between the hours of 1 PM and 9 PM.
1-9 PM fishing time may sound odd and more of a “we took advantage of the time we had today”, but no, for this entire week we’ll fish between noon and 9. There’s no need to be up early. Pike don’t become active until later in the day when the water warms up. And the way the Yukon fits in the AK time zone, it doesn’t get light until around 7 AM and remains light until almost 10 PM.
There will be plenty of time to talk fishing in the blog this week but all I can say is that today’s results exceeded expectations. Steve and Therese fished with Scott while Sammy and I went with Wade. The four of us caught a heap of fish with some big ones mixed in. There was a 42”, 43”, 44” and Sammy got a brute of a 47”. That 47” had frightening girth – one of the fiercest looking freshwater fish I can recall in years. For Steve and Therese this is their first time playing with big pike and they are ecstatic!
If there’s anything not fun about today it was the weather. Thick clouds cut loose around 3 PM today and the rain never let up. Though the rain seemed light the drops certainly carried their share of water. We are all DRENCHED. Thank goodness for Simms waders and rain jackets.
Its time for dinner. It’s 11 PM. Its quite the long day for everyone but especially for Scott and Wade. Not only to they run the boat and guide us but it is them who are preparing us a delicious dinner as I write. And here it comes. Its back on the water tomorrow!
Can’t wait for the next post. Those are some crazy beasts!