August 3, 2009

It took us awhile to return to summer after my parents’ visit.  The grind of work and some rainy weather caused us to take a down weekend.  We kayaked on Mirror Lake on that Saturday.  It rained.  The lake is pretty popular.  There were numerous canoes, kayaks, and boats.  A loud picnic area along the shore gave it more of a party atmosphere.  The nearby highway kept the noise level up as well.  We fished a bit and explored.  Some nice houses with floatplane docks lined one side.  The less developed side of the lake had numerous nesting grebes and ducks.  A grebe swam under my boat.

Sunday was even lazier.  I fished Campbell Creek and caught numerous small fish.  A few silvers were starting to work their way through, but they are still off limits in my stretch of the creek.  We finished the evening with a quick bike ride on the greenbelt.  We needed some exercise.

This past weekend was more typical, a real adventure.  Kris had booked the cabin on Lower Russian Lake many months ago.  It is a very popular cabin.  It is an easy 3 mile hike in from the Russian River Campground.  We drove down Friday after Kris got home from work and arrived at the cabin before nine.  The cabin was immaculate.  The furnishings, a simple table, countertop, and several bunks were finished in glossy polyurethane.  The commercial flooring was a change from the usual worn plywood. A floating dock provided a nice fishing spot where I immediately caught countless little fish.  A flat bottomed aluminum boat was provided with the cabin.

We woke to fog on Saturday morning, but after a leisurely breakfast and a little fishing from the dock, the fog suddenly lifted and exposed blue skies and sunshine.  We loaded up the boat and began rowing.  We stopped to fish along the way.  We saw groups of red salmon cruising in the crystal clear water.  We saw more of the tiny fish following our lures on every cast.  A large rainbow slowly followed Kris’ jig to the boat, but only bumped the lure before swimming away.  We worked our way to the inlet end of the lake.  I noticed fish splashing in the shallows.  We let the wind drift us over and I was surprised to see a huge school of medium sized fish swimming in a few inches of water beneath the boat.  I made one cast as they attempted to swim away and got an immediate hit, a beautiful Dolly Varden.  It was still early in the day, too early to keep a fish for dinner.

A juvenile eagle tolerated our creaky approach in the row boat.  I took numerous pictures as it perched on a dead log and then flew away.  My photography was slightly handicapped.  It had been drizzling lightly on our hike in, light enough that my clothes didn’t get wet, but heavy enough that water may have run down the side of my big lens strapped to the side of my backpack.  The front few elements were completely covered in water spots from the inside.  I don’t know if I fried the electronics and the lens is still drying out today.  Even if the water dries, it could likely leave spots on the inside that cannot be cleaned without disassembling the lens.  It may be ruined – bummer.  I was forced to use my professional grade but slightly shorter lens for wildlife.

We caught a couple more Dollies before looking for a lunch spot.  The swampy end of the lake didn’t provide much of a beach and the steep side didn’t offer much of a landing.  We headed part way back to the cabin and found a nice gravelly beach to stop and have lunch.  We ate, skipped stones, and fished a little from shore.  I caught a beautiful little rainbow trout, still too early to keep for dinner.  We climbed back into the boat and tried fishing the zone that our casts could barely reach from shore that produced the one nice rainbow.  The light wind changed directions and we drifted back and forth.

I was startled by a sound on the shore a mere 30 yards behind me.  I quickly dropped the fishing rod and debated whether to grab the camera or the oars as a grizzly walked along on the beach where we just had lunch.  I grabbed the camera.  The bear slowly walked along the shore, glancing in our direction occasionally.  It grazed on the grasses and kept moving along.  A noise inland caused the bear some concern.  It raised up on its hind legs, scanning for the source of the noise.  It stood there for what seemed like a long time, but probably was only a few seconds.  My camera was clicking at 8 frames per second.  The bear heard the camera and turned toward me as he settled back to all fours.  It didn’t seem like a huge bear, but it was a lovely blond colored grizzly.  It moved along the shore a bit further before turning inland.  It was an exhilarating encounter, far closer than a comfortable distance from any bear, but partially comfortable because of the deep water separating us.  I still wasn’t confident that I could get the clunky oars back into the crappy oarlocks and row away quick enough if the bear decided to swim in our direction.  Luckily it just moved along, relatively undisturbed by our presence.

We explored the inlet of the lake a little more, rowing a few hundred yards up the Russian River.  As we approached evening, we decided to see if our school of Dollies was still in the shallows.  I used the wind and a little poling with an oar to slowly move us into position.  The flat bottomed boat provided a stable platform for me to stand and look for fish.  I maneuvered to where I could see them and waited for the wind to blow us around some weeds before directing Kris to cast.  She quickly caught a perfect eating size fish.  I tried next and immediately caught another.  We decided that one more of this size would make a filling meal.  Kris cast into the middle of the pack and the water boiled with fish.  I directed her reeling speed to keep her lure off the bottom while maintaining the chase.  Several fish followed and one finally took the lead.  I cast a few more times for some catch and release action.  Kris was impressed that I could jerk my lure away from the small ones and only allow the bigger ones to take the spinner.  I quickly landed two bigger Dollies, probably about 16 inches in length.  They seemed to have some stupid behavior upon release, swimming downward into the mud where they sat head down, dazed and confused.  I had to reacquaint both fish to a horizontal orientation a couple of times before they appeared to be sitting normally in the water, swimming slowly, but appearing none the worse for our encounter.

After dinner, I enjoyed just standing on the deck of the cabin listening to the wilderness.  Birds and squirrels chirped all around.  A distant waterfall provided white noise.  Occasional rustlings had me wondering what might be lurking in the tall vegetation.  A movement caught my eye directly across the lake from us.  I grabbed the binoculars and we watched as a black bear grazed along the shore for several minutes before darting into the brush.

Sunday started similarly.  The heavy fog magically lifted to expose our surroundings bathed in bright sunshine.  The rules allowed us to use the cabin and the boat until noon so we decided to explore the outlet end of the lake.  A swan added an ethereal feeling to the sunlit fog.  The perfectly smooth surface provided a looking glass into the shallow waters.  We didn’t see any fish so we just kept rowing along.  At the outlet, we noticed what looked like a dam.  We found a nice beach and decided to go have a look.  We followed a game trail to the structure which turned out to be a fish counting system for local salmon management purposes.  We returned to the beach.  It was such a perfect morning that we just sort of hung out for a few minutes.  I threw a spinner into the moving water to see if any fish were congregating at this end of the lake.  We were startled by the sound of an engine.  A float plane must have landed when we weren’t looking and now it was motoring in our direction.  We figured the plane was getting into position to take off, but it kept coming in our direction, beaching a short distance away.  I noticed that the two men inside were in uniforms of some type.  They turned out to be state troopers.  We had a nice chat with them as they looked over our equipment.  Our ultralight tackle with legal single hooks convinced them that we weren’t poaching salmon, but they concluded our conversation by asking to see our fishing licenses.  I thanked them and joked that they were just making it worthwhile for me to have bothered purchasing a license.  I have never had my license checked before and certainly never had it checked by two guys in a floatplane. 

We fished our way back to the cabin where we finished packing our heavy packs before hiking out.  We had lunch on the beach before progressing down the trail.  We hiked back to the main trail and decided to take the side trip to the falls to see the salmon and maybe a bear.  It was more downhill than I expected getting to the falls.  Hundreds of salmon were congregated in a pool at the bottom of the falls.  A few times every minute a large fish would launch itself high above the water toward the falls.  Some disappeared into the frothy water with an uncertain level of success.  Others clearly crashed a burned, tumbling over rocks on their way back to the bottom.  No bears were taking advantage of these easy targets.  We moved along.

I really didn’t want to walk that far uphill on the popular improved gravel trail.  A side trail indicated that it led to fishing downstream of the falls so I convinced Kris to take an alternate route.  The trail quickly dropped down to the river and followed along the shore for a couple miles.  It was a slow go.  Uneven surfaces challenged our footing.  At times, steep embankments forced us to walk in shallow water or cling to narrow footholds.  Further slowing us down was the constant red currant breaks.  We grazed, stumbled, and climbed our way downriver. 

We passed a small group of fishermen who warned us that a black bear was just a couple hundred feet away.  The bear was on our side but crossed as we approached.  The narrow river put us directly opposite and uncomfortably close to this lanky small bear.  It seemed irritated.  We tried to move by quickly and the bear began moving along with us.  I don’t know if it was following us, but it followed us for hundreds of feet along the river.  We moved quickly, but I frequently stopped to snap pictures.  We finally put some distance between us and the bear headed up into the hills on the other shore.  It was another too close encounter with only a short section of shallow water separating us.  We were relieved to exit the river valley into the campground after no more miles than we would have needed to take the more conventional path.  We were hot and cooled off by dumping our remaining water over our heads before heading to the ice cream place at Summit Lake.

It was an awesome weekend with most every desirable Alaskan element, bears, eagles, fish, glaciers, and mountains with perfect weather.  It was a dream weekend for most visitors and it only cost us $90 for cabin and boat rental, a half a tank of gas, and maybe an $800 lens.  The only negative other than the lens was that we didn’t see any moose.