By Jenny Weis
This’ll be one of my shortest blog posts.
For pertinent background information and full appreciation of what follows, first check out this post from earlier this season. (TL;DR: I came so close to catching a great rainbow trout on a beautiful river, on a perfect evening, but it eluded the net and then, of course, haunted my dreams.)
With that context, the content of this post could simply be: REDEMPTION. Because I can’t help myself. I’ll add a little more: I paid a visit to the same river—the Naknek, in Bristol Bay.
We went out Wednesday evening expecting to fish for sockeye, but when we saw birds dive-bombing for smolt, we knew there’d be rainbows. If you’ve never fished this way before (I hadn’t), let me tell you, it’s madness. Massive rainbows are splashing all around after the smolt. The birds are everywhere, and your (hypothetical) guide boyfriend is all-of-a-sudden screaming at you to cast right into the middle of it, at the exact right time, right downstream of the splashing rainbows.
It can be over in an instant and you don’t know where the birds, rainbows or smolts will go next. Madness.
Somehow though, I did all of the things. I hooked my largest rainbow yet… and then my second largest rainbow yet.
Whew! What a thrill. G ‘n G photos were taken. Redemption is so sweet.
I can’t wait to do it again.
Jenny Weis is the communications director for TU’s Alaska Program. She lives and works in Anchorage.