This article originally appeared on Foxworthy Outdoors. Jan. 18, 2012.
It was cold and the night was on us.
The moon was bright over Alaska’s Chilikadratna River. A father and his 14-year-old son, carrying a stringer of fish, walked along the river towards camp where their two rafts were tied and an inviting fire was waiting. That father and son was me and my oldest son, Matt.
I had caught my greyling on an 8-weight fly rod with a small orange egg pattern fly. The secret was to attach a tiny split shot twelve inches above the fly. You allow the fly to work downstream then you feel for the fish as the fly drifts along the bottom. Man….. every other cast I caught a greyling! Matt was also busy catching them with a spinning rod using a Mepps spinner, allowing it to bump along the bottom with a slow retrieve.
This article originally appeared on Foxworthy Outdoors. Feb. 8, 2012.
“Mr. Scott, I can’t see him…..he’s too far,” said fourteen year old Josh Vogt.
“He’s not too far – you shot over him. Now take a good breath, let it half out and squeeze……easy like,” I replied.
Josh’s Dad and my best friend, Dr. Steve Vogt, was lying on the other side of the boy and said, “It’s OK Josh, just squeeze the trigger.”
This article originally appeared on Foxworthy Outdoors. March 1, 2012.
“Shhhhh…I hear a moose,” whispered Steve Vogt.
“Yeah, I hear him too. Sounds like he’s a half mile down river,” I replied.
The 16-foot aluminum boat with its jet drive kicker drifted down King Salmon Creek, no motor running….quiet like, just oars keeping the boat in the middle of the creek. The cold fog hung low across the river. You could breathe its water.
Steve looked back at me from the bow where he sat and said, “Scotty, I’m going to kill a moose.”
He had the look of a fighter pilot approaching his target.
You see, a few years earlier I had killed a fine bull moose in the Mulchatna drainage area several hundred miles to the north and now it was Steve’s turn. We had flown commercially into King Salmon, rented a boat with enough gasoline to run a destroyer for a week then headed up King Salmon Creek.
This article originally appeared on Foxworthy Outdoors. July 5, 2012.
I opened my eyes to a new morning as steam poured out my sleeping bag, like smoke rising to the roof of the tent.
“Now that’s a sight you don’t see every day,” I thought.
The Coleman bag was very damp but very warm. Hollofil is a life-saver in the bush. On the other side of the tent Steve Vogt is mumbling something about a train wreck. I crawled out of the bag, opened up my duffel bag and pulled out a new set of clothes that had been closed up in a garbage bag.