Up the Boohai: Back From The Bush

Rob: I just got back from a week long trip to Western Alaska with Jenna's dad, Dan, and 7 of his friends; the trip was amazing! Dan flew his friend Ron and I up to Dillingham, AK, an hour and half or so from Soldotna. We stayed the night with some of his dental friends and then headed to the rafting company the next morning. We vastly exceeded our 30 lbs. per person weight limit by about 70 lbs. each, d'oh! We got the planes loaded and flew another hour or so and landed on Good News Lake. We unloaded our gear onto the beach; the planes took-off then buzzed about 50 feet over our head and tipped its wings. We assembled our rafts and loaded our gear and were off.

We camped and fished for 7 days and 6 nights along the river. Mountains surrounded us and the gravel bottom of the Good News River lead the way to pick-up point about 65 river miles away. Ron and Dan taught me to fly fish which took a few days to get the hang of; luckily the only person I hooked was myself. We fished 6 or more hours each day and caught an amazing amount of fish. Most of the fish we caught were dolly varden char (pink dots on the side), rainbow trout and silver salmon; we also caught some red salmon, arctic grayling and king salmon. The water was so clear you could see the bottom along the whole river. It was however very cold, about 55 degrees; I took a few frigid baths. They weren't fun.

Camping was a lot of fun, we had 3 big tents and air mattresses so sleeping was comfortable. Well, except for the snoring but I think that kept the bears away. As for bears, we only saw two grizzly bears a medium size one and a very large one but they didn't bother us.We also had a cook tent and two burner stove and each person was assigned to bring a dinner. We ate very well, steak, spaghetti and meatballs, grayling and dolly picatta and fajitas to name a few.

After 7 days on the river we were picked up by a couple Eskimos and taken to the Village of Good News, pop. of about 350, on Good News Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnews_Bay,_Alaska). Then it was back on the planes and back to Soldotna. It was a world class trip; we caught a ton of fish, saw amazing scenery and had a great time with a great bunch of guys.