Here is the Grumman Widgeon mentioned in the text


ALASKA FLOAT FISHIN'

Some of you may have heard of my building a power plant in a native Aleut village. Well, Bob Swanson, the Anchorage electrical contractor who helped me with that job, wanted to host a genuine Alaskan bush fishing trip to show his appreciation for getting that work.

Bob planned to fly us from Anchorage to a lake near the headwaters of the Sustina River. From whence we would portage to the river, then float it for four days, fishing all the way. And finally fly back to Anchorage from the lower reaches of this stream.

My boys and I flew up from Seattle, with about a truckload of gear. Two rubber rafts with paddles and plywood floorboards. One outboard as well, along with packs, sleeping bags, fishing gear, and assorted other kit. And miraculously, the stuff all made it as checked luggage, with no excess baggage or overweight charges. Oh for the good old days.

It was about nine PM and just getting dark when we made wheels up out of Sea Tac. Upon arrival at Anchorage at 10:00 PM though, the sun was shining brightly. We were met by Bob with his truck, and headed for his house, where we met our fishing partners to be.

Beside myself and my boys, Mark and Whalen, there was Bob, and his lovely wife Pat. Not to mention Bill and Sandy Mc Dermott, four other guys who worked for Bob, and last but not least, a cocktail waitress from Klinkendaggers in Anchorage who joined the party at the last moment. A grand total of twelve lost souls.

Of course nothing would do but to welcome the newcomers with a good ol’ Alaska party, so we bunked my boys in a spare room, and had at it. We were interrupted, though, at about two AM, when son Whalen crept in and announced, “Dad, it s getting light, and it didn’t even get dark yet. Welcome to Alaska, kid.

Anyway, after a couple hours sleep, we all made our way to Merrell Field, where we found our airplane and met the pilot.

The airplane we impressed for this venture was a six place Grumman Widgeon, an ex Navy seaplane of WW II vintage. It was a bit long in the tooth, but had been reengined with powerpacks from a Cessna 310, and was in reasonably good shape.

The idea was to have a five rubber raft convoy with the lead two rafts powered by outboards. This would give us four rafts, each with three persons aboard, plus a freight raft.

This, understandably, involved about a ton of gear. But after eyeballing this monstrous pile, and doing a few weight and balance calculations, we figured that if we overloaded the plane just a bit, we could transport the whole shebang out to the starting lake with just three trips of the Widgeon. This was a pretty important consideration, as Bob was paying for the plane by the hour, and we needed to minimize flying time.

(Note the low registration number on the Airplane)
How we gonna get all that freight aboard??

Incidentally, overloading a plane was pretty standard bush flying procedure, particularly with a seaplane. ‘Cause you don’t run out of runway on the water, and if the plane won’t get off, one can just taxi back and offload a can of beans, or a pair of socks, or whatever. And then have at it again.

So off we went. And we made it in three trips too. But I can remember on the last trip, young son Whalen, sitting in the back seat with stuff piled all around him. Literally up to his ears in freight.

The guys on the first two trips portaged the gear from lake to river, while the Airplane went back for more. The portage wasn’t bad, so we celebrated with a few beers while inflating and packing the boats, and testing the engines.

Pretty tough looking bunch, And we were just getting started.

Turned out the gal from Klinkendaggers had never fished in her life and hardly knew which end of the pole to hang on to, but she wanted to start right now. So I rigged her a pole with spinning reel and some kind of a spoon, and helped her with a couple of practice casts. And would you believe, on her first cast for real, she hooked about a five pound Jack Salmon. So nothing would do but to build a fire and cook it on the spot. It did make a nice snack though, to go with the beer.

Eventually we got loaded up and cast off. Me with one outboard towing a string of three boats, and Bob, with the other outboard, pulling the freight boat. We found a likely looking sandbar a couple of miles down stream, tied up for the night, and made our first camp.
John towing a string of rafts.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the mosquitoes were fierce. They don’t bite me, so I didn’t notice, but everyone else was catching Hell. In the boats on the river, they weren’t too bad, particularly if there was a breeze, but as soon as we disembarked, they would eat us alive.

Young son Whalen, in particular, got initiated early on, when wandering off into the bush to answer a call of nature. He dropped his pants in a secluded spot, but then got bit about 100 times before he could get them back up. From then on, we would “sanitize” a maybe twelve foot circle with bug spray, before doing our business, and if lucky, would only get bit a couple of times.
The camp at ten PM the first evening.

Same with the tent interior, it would be sprayed liberally before retiring, and at intervals throughout the night. Some of the guys tried wearing mosquito nets, but these only succeeded in trapping the mosquitoes between net and face, with the additional benefit of making one look like a tenderfoot. (Really bad form in Alaska).

We had timed the trip just right, at the peak of the King Salmon run. Only drawback, according to the arcane Alaska Fish and Game rules, was that the river was closed for Kings. One really needed a lawyer to figure out the rules, but the game wardens pretty much held that ignorance of the law was no excuse.

But as you know, Rainbow Trout follow the Salmon to feast on stray eggs, and Rainbow fishing was open. So we fished for Rainbow, or that’s what we told the wardens. The gear was a little heavy for Rainbows, but really too light for King Salmon, so who was to tell the difference. We were also practicing catch and release for everything, so could we help it if a big King got on our Trout rig.

So we lost two Kings for everyone we caught, but there were so many of them, who knew the difference. Some of these guys were running 40 to 70 pounds, and when a 70 pound boy tied into one, it was a sight to watch. A guess I mislaid the pictures, but I had some of Whalen
alongside a fish he caught that was as big as he was.

Speaking of fish and game wardens, they really had a pretty good system. Flying around in their Super Cub, they would spot a potential violator, and then radio their buddies on boats in the river the exact location. The cops would then swoop down in their high powered machines and catch the perps red handed.

Anyway, that was the idea. They always seemed to find us, though, with either no fish, or only a couple of trout. Which led one warden to muse that it seemed odd that the best equipped guys on the river that summer (Like how many had a bar maid to serve drinks) were apparently the worst fishermen.

We soon found that the wardens packed it in at about 6:00 PM, so after that we would keep one or two nice fish for dinner. And since it never got really dark, everyone could fish as late as they wished. This became a particular problem with my boys, ‘cause they were loath to quit while still catching fish, and this could go on well into the night.

The boys cooking up a storm.

So it was float, fish, float, fish, float, camp and then repeat this drill the next day, and the next, for the entire four days.

And, just to make things a bit more interesting, there was the odd Kodiak, or Alaska Brown bear. About twice as big as a Grizzly, and four times as mean. We carried an assortment of firearms but the old hands knew that anything short of a twenty millimeter cannon would only make them mad. The bears really were mainly interested in fishing though, so the best solution to the bear

problem was to leave them to their fishing and find somewhere else to do ours.

A couple of the old timers did swear that the best bet to neutralize these bears was to sneak up on them, shove an old Walrus harpoon up their posterior, give the attached rope a couple of half hitches around the nearest tree, then run like Hell. Fortunately, the harpoons had been forgotten at home, or so they said.

Only other real problem was that the rocks in the river were tough on shear pins, and after depleting our supply of spares, were forced to scrounge rusty nails from abandoned trapper’s shacks. Things got really bad, though when Bob broke our only operable pair of pliers. So from that time on were reduced to cutting the nails to length with an axe, then kind of riveting them through the shaft with two axes, Crude, but effective.

We finally reduced the shear pin wastage somewhat, by posting a lookout in the bow of each powered boat to watch for obstructions, but he never seemed to spot them all.

Also had a bit of trouble with the freight raft from time to time, when it would hang up on something and we would have to cut the towrope before everything swamped. Then it was circle back, free the raft from the obstruction, and hitch up again.

Of course, we had the usual air leaks in the boats, but we had pumps and patches, so no real problems.

Finally we got to the appointed meeting place, and believe it or not, the airplane showed up, the right day, and only a couple of hours late. Of course, this was before GPS, reliable radios, or satellite phones, so one had to just hope that one was in the correct rendezvous spot, and that the airplane would show up.

So three trips, and several hours later, we were all back in Anchorage, safe and sound, with only a few cuts and scrapes, numerous mosquito bites, and a case or two of sunburn to show for the ordeal.

Anyway, a good time was had by all, with fond memories and a new supply of war stories for everyone. And yes, the young lady did make it back to Klinkendaggers with her honor intact.

And back to civilization.