Salmon and Grayling Streams

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Alaska

> The Chatanika River

Here's the first of many new pictures of Alaska that I'll be putting online as soon as I get the chance. It's a panorama of my dad standing and looking across the valley of the river where we both caught our first arctic grayling an hour or so later.

You've got to see it full-size to appreciate it.

My dad went to great lengths to place a good cast above this high spruce sweeper into a little back slough where he saw a grayling rise. The cast was good, he assures me, but the grayling did not take.

This simple rubber-legged foam beetle is one of my favorite flies for Arctic grayling. It's quick to tie so I don't mind losing one or two on snags. It's durable, so one fly can last a hundred fish or more. It never needs floatant to ride the surface well. Most importantly, it catches fish, although grayling often hit almost anything. The bold profile and attention-grabbing plop of the beetle, I think, draw fish from farther away than a more subtle fly might, and it often draws unusually savage strikes.