Trout, Salmon, and Grayling Streams

>

Alaska

> The Copper River

An anonymous dipnetter works the bank near the access point at O'Brien Creek.

I spent twelve hours holding this net in the river, often in fast current. The key is to hold it in an eddy, so it billows out upstream and can catch the salmon that are all swimming in that direction. The eddies along the bank attract salmon because it's easier for them to run upstream with the current than against it. The best eddies are the narrow ones where the rest of the river is flowing fast downstream most of the salmon hug the bank.

I was at a popular spot for dipnetting, and this little rodent (a vole, I think?) hit the jackpot with an earlier angler's leftover snack.

Seagulls rest on a gravel bar across from the fish cleaning station at O'Brien Creek, in between meals.

This is the delta where O'Brien Creek flows out into the Copper River's channel. It may be one of the most intense graveyards for filleted salmon in the world.

This is the home base for the Chitina dipnetting fishery that supplies thousands of Alaskans with much (if not most) of their annual protein. Many people pay a jetboat charter to ferry them down to prime spots in the canyon, and ferry their hundreds of pounds of fish back up. Others follow the trail to which this bridge leads and negotiate the steep canyon wall themselves, with their fish, and haul them back with the help of an ATV.

The Copper River is another of Alaska's major glacial drainages, hosting huge salmon runs which spread out more thinly into its clearwater tributaries to spawn.

This panorama is best viewed full-size.

Another panorama of the huge Copper River.