Italio River Adventures - 2003 Adventure Kayak/Float Trip Photo Gallery

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2003 Adventure Kayak/Float Trip Photo Gallery

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In August 2003, I had the pleasure of going on a float of the Italio with just a single client. Ordinarily, I have 4-8 people to chase around, cook for, etc. That doesn't leave much time to explore the area and try new things. With just John and I, we were able to fish water that may never have been fished before. Generally, the Upper Italio region is only visited by a bear hunter or two each fall. Before we started bringing our fly fishing clients to the area, much of the region went unexplored, or at least unfished. More on the exploring a bit later... The trailhead to Italio Falls requires crossing the ice infested water of Harlequin Lake. We usually spend the first two days of these adventure trips paddling through the icebergs and visiting the Yakutat Glacier, but our two 2003 trips were hard core fishermen, who wanted to get straight to the falls. They regretted that once they saw the ice and glimpse of the glacier in the distance, but they can always come back... :-) Unfortunately for me, I didn't take any photos of the kayak portion, since we were just paddling across to the trailhead. For this gallery page, I am including a few photos from when I hiked the rafts in the day before. For much better photos of Harlequin Lake, visit the 2004 and 2005 photo pages. Really spectacular images there.

My visiting cousins were enlisted to assist hiking gear in for my trip. A bear was waiting to greet us at the falls, but my dog Emma chased him off so fast, we only had these two blurry shots.

John arrived for one day of halibut fishing in the bay, before we embarked on our trip. Coincidentally, we were hit by a really good storm as we set out, so we got wet. Really wet. The higher water wasn't all bad though. It pushed so many fish into the upper river that we really had to struggle to find a place with fewer fish. We did have one sunny day in the middle to help dry our tent out a bit.

If you have ever tried to capture an airborne fish as it jumps a fall, then you have just as many photos as I do with rushing water and no fish. I did get these 6 shots with an airborne salmon.

Italio Falls is about an 8 foot drop with stepped pools for the fish to climb. Because it is a barrier during low water conditions, the salmon really stack up immediately below the falls, waiting for higher water and their chance to progress up toward Italio Lake (another 3/4 mile above the falls - see our 2001 gallery for really great images of Italio Lake).

The salmon were stacked up like fishing in a pickle barrel! Yes, we had to go looking for places with fewer fish, otherwise you just snagged on ever cast. An area we had never really spent a lot of time on is the West Fork of the Italio. About 1/2 mile below the falls, the river splits in half with the East Fork going over Italio Falls and into Italio Lake. The West Fork has an interesting rapid, before entering a box canyon and a series of falls too great for salmon to migrate past. John and I spent the entire day (our one sunny day) fishing and exploring this great stretch of the Italio.

The different salmon species segregated themselves into different zones of the West Fork. The lower stretch (below our ford, where we cross when hiking the trail to Italio Falls) was primarily sockeye, while Chum Salmon preferred the deep pits that formed behind the boulders of the rapid. Pinks seemed content with whatever was left, so they filled the gravel beds between the sockeye and chum, as well as extensively above the rapid.

The Upper Reach of the West Fork held few fish, since it was essentially a dead end for migration. Even so, there were a few fish tackling the deep pools cut into the bedrock, among sheer cliffs and turbulent water.

The water was crystal clear, peaceful and calm leading up to the canyon. You could easily identify cutthroat and rainbow trout lurking in the shadows of overhanging limbs and behind rocks throughout the system.

The next day, we spent much of our time at the fork itself, where East meets West. The West Fork was originally formed when the Yakutat Glacier filled virtually all of Harlequin Lake and melt-water overflowed around the backside of a mountain ridge. What is left now are some tremendously deep holes cut into the bedrock from the massive flow that once carved this valley. One of the deepest is the fork hole. The migrating salmon have to pause there to figure out which river is their home, making it one of the best fishing spots in the entire Italio system.

Dolly Varden Char and Sea-run Cutthroat Trout follow the salmon schools all the way up the river, waiting for eggs to stray their way. Fishing with egg patters and small streamers, you can draw the trout and char away from the salmon. Dead-drift a single egg through the salmon and out behind the school and an aggressive trout will hammer that fly. Our best technique this day was to work the shallow riffle below the hole, where cutthroat were waiting for eggs, smolt, or flesh to tumble by.

First thing in the morning, we were greeted by a brown bear at the fork hole, but he was terrified of us and disappeared before I could level the lens at him. A nice thing about sharing this area only with bear hunters is that the only contact these bears have with humans isn't a positive experience for the bear. We have NEVER had a problem with a bear up here and we intend to keep it that way.

The fog kept drifting in and out through the day, but we remained pretty dry. It is hard to describe how peaceful and serene it was up there, just the two of us - and several thousand salmon. The sound of rushing water, eagles calling, our reels screaming and John laughing was all that broke the silence of a REAL wilderness.

Then it was back to the falls for a nice easy end to our day, close to the campsite.

Looking back, John had one photo of the kayak and a couple of our Italio Falls camp.

The float begins...

Our last morning at the falls, I wake to the sound of crunching outside the tent. I throw open the tent flap to see a wolf chewing on my spatula!!! I shout at it and it drops the utensil, bolting for the forest, only to circle back and stare me down through the underbrush. I asked John if he would like to see the wolf and he replies without moving from his sleeping bag, "No, my glasses are outside... with the cameras...". The wolf hunkered down and crept to within about 8 feet of me. The intensity of those eyes are still with me to this day. What an amazing shot it would have been, had the camera been inside the tent instead of in the drybag out with the wolf. OOPS! I enjoyed watching him watch me for a while more and I think John enjoyed listening to me say how cool he was over and over, before one shot in the air from my .44 sent him back into the wild. It was time to pack up the camp and get moving.

The float is about 16 miles from mountains to ocean, or 8 miles as a crow flies. Numerous logjams to portage, with many stops to fish along the way. It makes for a very long day, however there are few places left even in Alaska this pristine and untouched by humans. We saw 6 brown bear, the largest black bear I have ever seen, a moose cow and calf and even another wolf out fishing in the river as we approached. There are several dozen bald eagle nests in the treetops, with no trace of humanity anywhere. It was quite an exhausting, but wonderful day.

John spent another several days with us at our main camp on the beach fishing for silvers. His trip lasted 10 days with us, plus his deep-sea charter at the start. Most of our trips are just 5 night/6 day trips, so he holds the record for our longest trip so far. He obviously didn't get burned out, since he was back the next year and will be back in 2006 to do the kayaking to the glacier that just didn't sound interesting enough the first time. What has surprised me the most about guiding is that I look so forward to seeing my friends return year after year. Living in my little cabin on the Italio since I was 4 years old, I dreaded the arrival of tourists, invading MY yard. I've had to revise my view, since "some" of you have been a real pleasure to get to know. Thanks John!

-Bob

Return to the 2003 Photo Directory Page

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