Where Alaskan Fly Fishermen Go To Land The Big Ones

There are a lot of places to catch salmon and trout…just not many like Bristol Bay Lodge

Bristol Bay Lodge was one of the original fly fishermen’s playgrounds built in the heart of the best salmon and trout angling on the planet. The lodge was constructed in 1972 by Ron and Maggie McMillan and many a fly fishing soul has come to know Alaskan fishing through this portal to the state’s captivating wilds. One of those free spirits was Steve Laurent, the guide turned owner-operator of the place where he’s now been for going on 30 years.

I’m joined on this foray by old friend and avid fly fisherman, Matt Connolly. The first morning, Connolly and I find ourselves anchored in a channel with a vein of silver salmon visible through crystalline waters to our left. The chrome fish are fresh from the sea where they’ve been dodging all manner of predators from seals and sea lions to sharks and orcas. These are the genetically honed survivors of the species and they are always ready to fight to the death. A hooked salmon doesn’t know of catch and release and forever errors on the side of caution by expending all of its strength to try and earn its freedom.

I don’t even finish my first mend before one of the finned torpedoes is ripping off bus-length sections of line as my fly rod begins snapping whip-like at the lunges of the salmon.

“Bristol Bay Lodge is in the heart of so many different angling experiences that are incredible,” says Connolly, a man who looks upon his passport as something of a universal fishing license, having traveled to many of our planet’s prime angling offerings.

Since both of us have a penchant for the mega rainbows of Alaska, we head off to the Agulapak, one of the best trout waters in this stretch of Bristol Bay. The skies are clear, there’s no wind and a general sense of euphoria permeates the mood as we boat our way to the start of a drift famous for producing an abundance of ill-tempered fish. Guide Blake Enyart, a tall thin shad of a man who sometimes takes on the human form of an osprey, is weaving us through the boulders and current, introducing us to the rainbows with whom he seems to be on a first name basis.

A few minutes in and my six-weight suddenly takes the shape of a question mark as the first trout of the trip comes looking for a fight. Given the legendary strength of these fish, the questions are always how big is this beast and will I get it to the boat? A few runs later and Enyart is scooping the 24-inch trout into his net, giving it no more deference than he might a creek chub. While a Montana angler will burn a lot of pixels on a 24-inch rainbow, in these parts it’s considered a warm up, an appetizer for the main course of fish stretching past 28 inches.

After getting our fix of rainbows, Connolly and I board one of the lodge’s DeHavilland Beaver float planes and head to a new river where we’ve heard reports of an influx of silver salmon fresh from the sea. After climbing out of the plane and boarding a boat with guide Carter Simcoe for a short jaunt downriver, we wade knee-deep into the current and begin casting. Soon Connolly is engaged in hand-to-rod combat, trying desperately to subdue one of the silvers that has no intention of being shore lunch. Two jumps into Connolly’s encounter and another silver slams my fly, nearly ripping the rod from my hand. After two days of catching rainbows and char, the hefty silvers have us recalibrating our grips in an electric, double hook-up moment that feels like we are caught in some salmon vortex where we can’t escape the endless tug of the fish.

We end the morning with elated exhaustion, like a football team that fought to the end and prevailed. The silvers tested our mettle but now it’s time to enjoy an Alaskan spin on the classic shore lunch, and Simcoe is eager to showcase his culinary talents. Over the course of several days of fishing with multiple guides, it becomes clear that there is a bit of a competition brewing as to which one has the winning shore lunch recipe.

With a colorful mix of sautéed root vegetables and onions along with salmon covered in a light tempura coating, Simcoe delivers a performance worthy of a Michelin rating. We concur that neither of us has ever had better on any shoreline anywhere. There’s nothing like turning a fish that was swimming an hour earlier into lunch to make you want to keep fishing.

Feeling like the over-stuffed bears of the river, we waddle our way back to the bank to continue casting for more silvers. Connolly hooks up again, suddenly holding a lightning rod as a brute of a silver porpoises downstream, apparently well aware of what happens to a salmon when Simcoe is around.

Guides in Alaska are often given a stretch of river to manage for the season, until the last of the salmon runs wane or the fish move to other stretches of the Bristol Bay watershed through the course of their seasonal migrations. Fresh anglers are cycled in and out of the remote camps and for a season the river becomes a guide’s. Thus, there’s nothing but the movement of fish, bears, wolves and the currents of time to occupy a guide’s mind for much of their wilderness stay. That, and apparently experimenting with new shore lunch concoctions.

Over the course of a season, a guide will discover if he’s comfortable in his own skin, for despite the fact that there is a rotation of visiting anglers, there is enough down time between shifts to get to know yourself with only the company of your own thoughts. For some, that provides solace and comfort in nature’s womb. For others in constant need of societal stimulation, wilderness is a prison to be escaped.

It’s clear Simcoe could stay here until either the salmon—or beer—run out. That’s just the kind of guide with whom you want to fish, especially since the bush is a lousy place to have to cope with neurosis. Because of weather and fish movements,  the personality of a river can change in unpredictable mood swings. For guides, the key is to embrace the river for better or worse and introduce newbies just the same.

And for Laurent, living at and working Bristol Bay Lodge for three decades, flying its bush planes and generally delivering angling dreams is all he’s ever known. It’s all he’s ever wanted to know. In the process, he’s created a place you simply don’t want to leave. The kind of destination he can’t leave, either. Some would say, it’s even better than the original.