Trout, Salmon, and Grayling Streams

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Alaska

> The Gulkana River

There's a fish-cleaning table right IN the river at this landing. Driving out on the gravel bar is the norm, too. It was a good place to field-dress my sockeye salmon. Tossing the guts out into the river has them devoured by hungry gulls within seconds. That's illegal in many places, but in Alaska it's the preferred way of dealing with fish waste: these ecosystems are driven by dead salmon and fully equipped to deal with it.

Here's my first Alaskan salmon, a small king that put up a fun fight.

This is my first-ever lake trout, caught on a spinner before we stopped to unpack the fly rods near the beginning of a 4-day float trip. I caught another of about the same size soon thereafter. The coloration is incredible compared to other lakers I've seen -- a much more believable cousin to the brook trout.

Here my dad drops his largest resident rainbow ever, after a spectacular fight. It's a good 18 inches.