Archive for July, 2014

Casting instructor Mark Huber works with AFF member Jolynne Howard’s 2-handed technique.

Up Coming Event

Saturday, August 16th at Mirror Lake Park

The 2014 Fly Fishing Festival and Spey Clave

sponsored by the Alaska Fly Fishers and Fish Alaska Magazine.

Click the link below to go to AFF’s Facebook event page.

https://www.facebook.com/events/740018756039241/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Healthy wild rainbow from a undisclosed Mat-Su lake.

Lance and I fished with Lake Master Mike Malone again, and like our last outing, we let Mike pick the destination. This time we headed north of Wasilla on a Sunday; which turned out to be a very pleasant day, given the forecast was for rain. It was a short (fishing time) day trip with a lot of driving attached. Lance and I had been to this particular lake before, about 15 years ago; with Mike, his son Tim, and a mutual friend Greg Heister. We fished small Lake Leeches back then, and I don’t remember the day being nearly as nice. I seem to remember cool drizzly skies. I do know we did not catch nearly as many good fish. (In fact, I think I went fishless.) Today’s trip was different. Read the rest of this entry »

We had an opportunity  to fish with a fellow AFF member that is, in my opinion, a master lake angler. Lance and I are making an effort to fish lakes a bit more. We’ve been off of them for over 10 years and it’s amazing how much methodology has changed. Mike Malone, a long-time friend, offered to help us out in that department.

Mike has lived in the north Wasilla area for over 20 years and has spent most of his fishing time on the local lakes that surround his home. In the Mat-Su Valley ADF&G lists over 80 lakes that they stock, and almost 40 that are managed as wild fisheries. Granted the Mat-Su Borough is huge in terms of square miles, but most of these lakes are near a road, have public access points, and are within a 50 mile radius of Wasilla. As a result, Mike has experience fishing a diverse set of waters. Read the rest of this entry »

Lance and I made it out lake fishing again. We spent a few hours kicking our pontoon boats around Loon Lake in Mat/Su Valley Saturday night. Catching wasn’t great, but it was a wonderful evening for fishing. Given our weather (mostly rain) the previous week, Saturday was the nicest day to get out. We decided to fish late, getting on the water about 7:30PM. The air was still, the sun popped in and out of clouds, and the projected thunder showers never showed up. Although the mosquitos were ravenous on shore while were getting ready, once we were on the water they disappeared.

Looking towards our fishing area from the public access.

Launching from the public access.

Loon Lake is only a little over an hour out of Anchorage, mostly private property with a Public Access on the northwest shore. We had checked with some friends that had fished it earlier in the month and they gave us some advice on where to concentrate our efforts. ADF&G stocks it every year with rainbows and the holdovers can get to be over 20 inches. The lake is just over 100 acres, a bit bigger than what we like, but we had inside info and a report that fishing had been decent. They had done well on leeches and had seen a few blue damsels; we were going prepared with a little bit of everything, always a good idea in Alaska. Read the rest of this entry »

On June 21,2014, Rich and I floated the Upper Kenai with Val Reynolds from San Diego. It was an interesting trip with a variety of complications that I’ll tell you about in a bit. I have to finish the story so come back here to read the rest…

Oh, there WERE fish! 😉

Val and a nice Kenai rainbow!