Flyout Trip to Wolverine Creek
If you are going to start off an Alaska bucket list fishing trip, there is really no better way to start it than a flyout trip. There is something about getting out into the wild where it really says to you, holy shit I’m really in Alaska doing this thing. It just blows you away to see the snow capped mountains come closer to you as you fly to your destination. In our case, we started our journey by visiting Wolverine Creek, which is located in the Lake Clark Preserve & Wilderness across the Cook Inlet.
Alaska Air West (https://www.alaskawestair.com/)
When we touched down in Wolverine Creek, it was really a breathtaking scene. I think Joe and I stood there in disbelief for a few minutes before our guide Jake kicked us back into action. We all got our equipment loaded into the john boats and headed off to our first spot of the day. From what Jake told us, the Sockeye have been moving into this creek and there are some runouts that they are transitioning to which we would target. He took a few minutes to describe to us what technique we’d be using to catch the sockeye, which was called lining. After throwing at a spot for a few minutes, I picked one up pretty quickly. Sockeye are a hell of a lot of fun to catch. They pull hard, jump like crazy, are beautiful fish, and are a really great quality fish to harvest. As you’ll see in the images, there is a pretty good variance in the colors you’ll see depending on where they are at in the spawning cycle. The more silvery ones are called chromers and are really the best to harvest. As they progress through the spawn, they become pink then eventually red and the more red they are their meat becomes softer and isn’t as good for eating.
Beyond the fishing, the wildlife you see at Wolverine Creek is alone worth the trip. Joe said at one point that we saw more bald eagles on that trip than he’d seen in his whole life. They are seemingly literally everywhere you look and it just makes you often stop what you are doing and enjoy the majesty of them. You want bear encounters? We got that on our Wolverine Creek flyout trip too. We were fortunate enough to get up close and personal with a momma bear and her three cubs. We went by a spot where the guides filet their catches and shortly after we arrived, the three young bears made an appearance. I was looking out at the water on the bank when my whole boat started yelling my name. Much to my surprise one of the little guys was coming down the beach towards me. That will get the heart pumping a bit but they are really more curious than anything at that age. For while we sat on the boat and enjoyed watching the bears curiously wandering around the bank and through the brush around the point.
As if we had not experienced enough on the trip, when we flew out from Wolverine Creek, the pilot took a detour and flew us past a nearby glacier. As we rounded the glacier, the plane could not have been more than a few hundred feet above the ice. It was breathtaking to see it from that vantage point. When we got back to Alaska Air West, we both hopped in the car and I think for a moment we just sat there in awe of how good the day was. We both agreed that this kind of day was going to be impossible to top.
But we were wrong because Alaska had a whole lot more in store for us…
