It is not always easy being a guide in Alaska. Yes, the fishing is typically good. Yes, the scenery is spectacular. Most of the time, the guests are pretty darn enjoyable to share the waters with, but sometimes, Mother Nature makes things tough.

One of the tough days came late one September. The Upper Kenai was swollen with run off. Heavy snows from the preceding winter had melted throughout the warm summer months. The glacial headwaters of the Kenai River system had absorbed all they could hold. Fall rains tipped the balance and water was pouring down the Snow River Valley and dumping into Kenai Lake before flowing out to form the Upper Kenai.

I met my guests at their hotel. Despite the deteriorating conditions, expectations were high. We had fished together before and visions of hooking many heavy rainbows filled their heads. I knew I was going to be in for a struggle to find fish where my anglers could reach them on the fly. Many of the remaining sockeye were being washed from the main river by the heavy flows. The primary food source for our rainbow trout was rapidly depleting. As the food goes, so go the fish, on down to Skilak Lake. Further compounding my troubles was the fact that my guests had experienced fantastic fishing on several previous days. Somehow, I needed to produce.

I tried to remain optimistic as we pushed off into the swollen river, but as we floated, my trepidation grew. The river was going off color rapidly. The normally green waters were staining with rotting vegetation, leaves and mud. I carefully chose our first spot because it typically fished well at high water. The main force of the river piled upon a rock wall across from us. On the inside river bend, we could easily wade in slower water. The bend was typically littered with salmon carcasses providing a buffet for grazing rainbows. Just the day before, we had instantly doubled up on rainbows of 24” and 26”.

This day would be different. The water was now pushing above the banks. Most of the salmon carcasses were gone. My guests only managed to hook a couple of post spawn dollies ducking out of the main flow. They must have been forced out of a tributary upstream. The rainbows had already departed. No one overtly complained, but some utterances were made regarding the apparent lack of fish.

I knew that if we did not catch many fish, everyone would understand. Each angler would be disappointed, but sometimes that is fishing. They had seen the river at its best, and now they were seeing it in a different mood. As a guide, I view my job as facilitating the best possible fishing trip given the conditions of the day. Some days come easy and some days don’t, but the passion to provide a great trip never dies.

I opted next for a side channel that carried less water. Typically in late September, it would be too skinny to float in my drift boat. It was now fully a river unto itself. We blasted right past my normal spots and finally found some fishable water. We worked the best looking runs, but the channel was apparently fishless. Finally, with the end of the drift in site, I inspected a little piece of water that I had only fished once in the previous thirteen seasons.

It was the side channel of a side channel's side channel. I got some strange looks as we stumbled though grassy hummocks with pooling water seeping around. More than one curse was uttered as we worked into position and I’m sure my guests swore a time or two as well. The channel was only fifteen feet wide, but too deep to view bottom. The current scribed a lazy path between the tall grassy banks. I was not even sure what was down there, but we soon found out. A pod of sockeyes was frantically spawning in the rising waters and every trout for at least a mile must have been sucked in around them.

The long faces busted into grins as everyone began hooking fish. The rainbows would immediately blast downstream toward bigger water. We chased trout after trout down the bank, tripping and falling in the wet grass and laughing like little boys. How many fish could such a small spot hold? We intended to find out. In three hours time, we never ran out of fish. We ended the day as all good days should end, with tired arms, blissful grins and fish left uncaught for another day. As we headed in to our landing, I said a quiet thanks to Salvation Channel.

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