Our trip was scheduled to begin the last Monday in June. We were going to meet Joe Schuster at the Sportsman’s Air office on Lake Hood early that morning and head out to Judd Lake.

You might be wondering why anyone would book a trip to begin on a Monday...

Well, we were pretty busy researching all of the river options trying to pick the best river with large numbers of massive sized kings, along with looking at the various air-taxi services, outfitted vs. renting options, etc., until late winter. By the time we had picked the river we wanted to float, the best air-taxi, who also provided outfitting services, was already getting booked up. We were lucky to get to begin our trip on a Monday. The air-taxi and outfitting services fill up fast. If you plan to float the Talachulitna, we would advise that you contact Sportsman’s Air as early as possible to give you the best opportunity to get the dates you want.

Anyway, being common working men, with limited vacation time and budgets, we decided there was no way we could just wait until Monday and miss out on a weekend of fishing in Alaska. The plan was to depart Boise, Idaho, Friday evening, get to Anchorage, rent a car, and go fish some of the roadside accessible streams Saturday and Sunday before heading out to float the Talachulitna River.

We departed Boise on time, but when we got to Seattle, it turned out our flight to Anchorage was delayed three hours. So much for getting up to the Alaska Parks Highway streams before the mid-night opener. The Parks Highway streams are open to king salmon fishing from Friday at midnight through Monday at midnight toward the end of June. Of course the flight was delayed a little longer than announced so by the time we got to Anchorage and rented our $80 per day economy car, it was almost 4:00 a.m. About 90 minutes later, we pulled into one of our favorite spots on Willow Creek and visited with some of the people we have fished next to on previous trips at the same fishing hole. They reported that the fishing was as good as always so we headed down to the creek and started to tie up and figure out how we were going to squeeze in with the masses and start fishing.

The Parks Highway streams this time of year are the perfect picture of what is termed “combat fishing.” It is really not combat fishing, but rather just very crowded fishing where there may be as many as 300 or more people fishing a 100 yard stretch of river. For the most part, if you can handle standing and fishing that close to other people, it’s a total blast. In addition to visiting with the locals, we always enjoy meeting and talking with people from all over the lower 48 and from around the world.

We were not disappointed in the fish catching. We fished almost straight through until 4:00 a.m. Monday, only pausing for a couple short cat-naps. One of the gentlemen we fished next to had actually guided on the Talachulitna River for a number of years so of course he had us all primed up to escape the crowds and catch unbelievable numbers of fish. He did express some concern to us though about the challenging white water on the river and the difficult upper section of Talachulitna Creek. At 4:00 a.m., Monday morning we had to stop fishing and head back to the car. We unpacked the small rental car and repacked everything into our dry bags and made sure all the gear was organized for our flight from Lake Hood to Judd Lake. All that was left to do was stop at a grocery store on the way to Anchorage and pick up the rest of the groceries, mostly perishables, and a couple of folding camp chairs we wanted to take along.

At 7:00 a.m. we met Joe Schuster, owner and operator of Sportsman’s Air and discussed the plans. Joe had all the gear he was outfitting for us on the dock next to the Beaver float plane ready to go. The three of us loaded up the plane with the rafts, tents, cots, and the kitchen as well as our personal gear and took off for our short flight out to Judd Lake.

The flight was an enjoyable flight. Joe had head sets for each of us so we could talk on the way out to the lake. As he descended into Judd Lake, the breath-taking scenery of the snow capped Alaska mountains impressed us as they do each time we get to a remote part of Alaska. We taxied over to a small dock near the outlet of Judd Lake and unloaded the plane on a small grassy area. Joe helped us set-up our cata-raft and gave us some general tips about using this type of raft since it was our first cata-raft experience.

As can be expected, walking around in the grass setting up the raft got all the mosquitoes stirred up and of course the same thoughts always go through your mind each time this happens....how many bottles of deet did we bring? Will it be enough? What will we do if we run out of deet before the end of the trip? Meanwhile you keep telling yourself that you brought plenty of deet. Plus, you know in the back of your mind that the mosquitoes aren’t always this bad. Sometimes they are, but usually only when you are in the grass or brush stirring them up.

The raft was assembled, loaded and we were on our way within 45 minutes of landing. It is always a really cool feeling when the air-taxi flies overhead on his way back to the base and it starts to settle in that you are now alone for whatever number of days you will be on the trip.

From experience, we know it will only be a couple days at most before any thoughts of work or the normal hectic schedules fade away. After three or four days of solitude and fish catching, it will take considerable effort to even have thoughts about work or normal life. Actual concentration and significant effort will be required to think of the name of the person who is your boss back home. Of course all we think about is how many more fish we will catch, will the next hole be as good as this one, and dream about which river we will float next year.

For now though, we are starting to worry a little about the upper part of Talachulitna Creek that the former guide discussed with us while we were fishing at Willow Creek. All of the literature we had read also indicated that the upper part of Talachulitna Creek could be a real chore if it was shallow and that dragging the raft might be required.

So far so good though. Although the bottom is visible and there are a number of rocks that we wonder if the boat will float over, we keep floating. The char look huge as they dart away from the raft. Numerous grayling and rainbow trout are also darting away. A short distance later we make it to the first bend of Talachulitna Creek, the river narrows and the river pace picks up a bit. Wow, we made it through the shallow part without any difficulty whatsoever.

Now a new challenge faces us. Although the creek is deeper, the narrowness is making for some pretty difficult rowing trying to stay off the banks. At every turn the current is trying to push us under some tree branches or into sharp sticks along the banks that the beavers have chewed on. Jim was busy rowing trying to stay off the banks and Russ was having a blast catching grayling and rainbows. Several times we pulled over to catch grayling and trout before we got to Chicken Creek. Of course we had our polarized sunglasses on and were constantly scanning the water for kings.

Finally, just as we floated over the small hole where Chicken Creek dumps into the Talachulitna Creek we see them - kings. Not a lot of kings, but 10 to 15. We parked the raft on a small island just below the mouth of Chicken Creek and waded back upstream to fish for these kings. After a number of casts it became obvious that there was a ledge in this hole and no matter what drift combination we used our set-ups kept drifting over top of the fish that were holding. It didn’t take long to figure out the only way to hook these fish would be to use a diving lure back fished into the hole from upstream. After about an hour of less than ideal king catching, we decide to make our way on down Talachulitna Creek.

We continued catching rainbows and grayling as we floated past Trinity Creek and further downstream, but only noticed a few kings here and there. Talachulitna Creek started splitting around a number of small islands several times causing us to drag the raft over shallow gravel bars because the main channel was either too narrow, or it flowed under the brush and trees along the banks.

The first significant obstacle we came to involved a tree that had fallen across Talachulitna Creek and created a small log jam. There was no floating this section. We unloaded the raft and made a hundred yard portage around the log jam using a dry creek bed and gravel bar as a path. Within about 35 minutes, we were back on our way.

After about 12 hours of floating, we were approaching the Forks, the spot where Talachulitna Creek and the Talachulitna River merge. We stopped to fish a long right bending turn in the river that had a few kings holding in it. The pool was about six to eight feet deep with a few logs and sticks creating snaggy fishing conditions. The river’s right had a gravel bar that was perfect for camping. It was obvious by the old fire rings that others stopped to fish this hole. We tried drift fishing with no luck. The only technique we were able to make work was using spinners. After hooking a small king in the first few casts and having it ripping around in the water, the other kings were reluctant to bite. They did not leave the hole, but showed no interest in chasing after the spinners so we floated on down the river.

Another mile down river we came to the mouth of Talachulitna Creek. A camp was set up on the gravel bar immediately below the mouth on the left-hand side. No one was around and the camp was encircled by an electric fence. We decided to float a little ways down and camp at the next camp site on the river’s right, but we ran into the four guys that were camped at the mouth. One of the men had a nice king on his fly rod. We are still not sure why we just kept floating past this excellent fishing hole. All of our research indicated this was a great king hole. The ex-guide we talked to back on Willow Creek had mentioned this spot, but when we saw the other guys fishing there we just kept floating. It was probably a combination of not expecting anyone else to be there, the air was dead still and the mosquitoes were swarming, along with the fact that we had been awake over 70 hours since we had left Boise, other than the few brief naps, that lead to our decision to float on down the Talachulitna River.

The rafting is now very easy. The river just doubled in size. We floated downstream from the Forks about one mile and pulled ashore on a long gravel bar, with no expectations of catching anything other than a good night’s sleep. Halfway delirious, we set up just enough of a camp to have a place to sleep. Everything else was left on the raft or was scattered on the rocks around our tent.

After a quick cold cereal meal the next morning, we loaded up the raft and made plans to head down to Friday Creek, a significant spawning tributary. According to our maps and GPS, we knew we had about nine air miles to get to Friday Creek. We also knew that Hells Gate was the only obstacle between us and what we were hoping would be incredible king fishing. We decided not to fret about Hells Gate too much right then though, because who knew, maybe we would find lots of kings at Grayling Creek and not even need to worry about Hells Gate that day. We saw our first wildlife on the way down to Grayling Creek. A large black bear was feeding along a slew. We stopped on a shallow gravel bar about 100 yards away from the bear to watch it for awhile. The bear was quite aware of our presence and after some nervous feeding, it scrambled back into the dense brush. Shortly thereafter, we passed a small jet boat on the river. It looked like a guide and a fisherman heading up toward the Forks. We only saw one other jet boat on the mid-river section between Grayling Creek and the Forks, another guide and fisherman. We talked with one of the guides later that day when he was fly fishing for trout after he had dropped off his client. He mentioned that the king fishing was still a little slow in the upper river, but expected that the fishing would be excellent once we got below Hells Gate.

We had a quick lunch meat sandwich at the mouth of Grayling Creek and caught a fair number of grayling. Several kings were holding in the hole and several were willing to hit the lures we were throwing, but we didn’t stay long. Getting past Hells Gate and getting to Friday Creek was our mission.

Below Grayling Creek the river really gets slow and deep. Hours pass and we try to get through this section by rowing with the current. More hours pass and we keep trading off the oars to move the raft along a little faster than the slow current. We were not catching any fish - in fact, we eventually put the poles away and did not even try to catch fish anymore. Finally, two small airplanes flew over and we could tell they were attempting to land. We figured we must be getting close to the mid-river lodges, and we knew it would not be too long after that and we would be facing Hells Gate. Neither of us really talked much about Hells Gate, but both of us had it on our mind. Finally we float past the mid-river lodges about an hour after we saw the first small plane going in. There was nothing spectacular about the lodges that we could see from the river, but then again, between the trees and the river bank we really never had a full view of any of the lodge set-ups. Shortly past the mid-river lodges, we floated through the mid-river float plane landing area. We knew we were within a mile and a half of Hells Gate so we began to start talking about it. Of course we were hoping for the best, but being from Idaho, we knew that Class IV rapids were nothing to take lightly...especially out in the middle of the wilderness.

It started to rain lightly as we approached the small treed canyon, Hells Gate’s roar could be easily heard. We pulled the raft over and made sure everything was strapped down tight, secured our life jackets and eased our way toward the canyon. There were a number of places on the river’s left to pull the raft over before actually beginning into Hells Gate proper, so of course we pulled out at the first opportunity to go down-river and scout. Looking into the entrance of Hells Gate is pretty intimidating. We decided to wear our life jackets to scramble along the slippery boulders and rocks at the water’s edge toward the large bluff that we planned to climb up and look over the cliff on the backside at the lower part of Hells Gate rapids.

The scramble up the bluff was via a steep muddy trail that lead to the first look over spot. The actual story goes something like this.... Jim was first up the trail and peered over the backside of the cliff. Russ, standing on a ledge below asked how’s it look? Jim turned around and didn’t say much, and the two words he spoke were said with a sick look on his face...”not good”! After we both reached this lookout point, we stood there looking at the three possible chutes formed by two large rocks in the river. A large tree that had floated down and got hung-up was unquestionably blocking the right hand side of the Hells Gate path, but also extended a fair piece into the middle chute. The left hand chute would be too narrow for our raft to flow through. Both of us were making distant calculations trying to determine if we hit the middle chute, would the raft make it through or would the raft be too wide and get hung up? After considerable deliberation, we decided the raft would probably make it down through if we hit it just perfect. We felt like this was the best choice because we did not want to unload the raft and make it light enough to lift over the rocks along the narrow chute on the left.

Talk about dry-mouthed anxiety as we walked back up river to get the raft and make a run at it. There is no doubt we both had white knuckles, even though only one of us was driving, as we pushed off and started floating into the canyon. Hearts racing, we started hitting the upper white water sections. Using powerful back strokes, we kept the raft square to the current and on the left side of the river to go around the huge boulder which split the river in two. We knew if we went down the right side of this first boulder, we would inevitably be pushed into the right chute on the lower section of rapid that was completely blocked by the log.

So far so good. We had control of the raft and the river was going to allow us to go around the left side of the first big boulder. The river dropped us in nicely behind the bluff and the eddy allowed us to align the raft up to take our shot at the middle chute. Forward we went hoping that if we hit it just right the raft would squeeze through. The boat touched the boulder on the left side and touched the log on the right, but it was going to make it through. Jim let go of the oars and down over the ledge we went, just barely squeezing between the rock and log. What a relief! We quickly eddied out to look at the rapids from below. Talk about exhilaration!

The river picked up its pace after Hells Gate and it didn’t take long until we could see a number of tents set-up on Friday Creek. There was a long gravel bar below the mouth of Friday Creek and by the number and types of tents set-up you might have thought we were pulling into base camp at Mount Everest. There were a total of three groups, but one group had enough people that they accounted for most of the tents. Totally exhausted after a 15 hour float, we set up camp around 11:00 p.m. We could see the kings out in the river rolling. The gravel bar is over 100 yards long and the kings were rolling along its entire length. We both slept well, but were anxious to get up the next morning and start fishing to see if all those kings would be interested in biting.

On the morning of our third day, we got up and could see that all of the groups at Friday Creek were packing up and getting ready to head on down river. A number of the guys were fishing while the others were packing. As we had breakfast, we were a little disappointed to see that out of the five-to-seven people fishing, no one was hooking kings. A group of two guys that were getting ready to push off came over and talked to us while we were having breakfast. They said that no one really had been catching any kings here at the mouth, but that they had hiked on up Friday Creek itself and caught a few kings the day before. Everyone was fly fishing which is normally a productive way to catch kings, so we were nervous as we tied up our gear to give it a try ourselves. Jim tied up our traditional drift gear and headed over to just below the mouth to start fishing. The first cast he missed one and on the second cast he had a monster king on the end of the line out there jumping. By the time Russ got breakfast cleaned up and got tied up, Jim had landed his fourth king and had lost another. Several of the fly fishermen asked us to show them how to tie up the drift gear we were fishing and they hooked a few kings before pushing off their rafts and moving on down river.

We both caught unbelievable numbers of kings over the course of the next few days. We had the hole all to ourselves and then finally two guys came in on the last day we planned to spend at Friday Creek. Just before they arrived, a mother black bear and her cub came into camp this day and they were pretty pushy. She tried to get up on our raft and we had to chase her away. A little later she came back and walked directly to our table and coolers. We had to scare her away again. It took about an hour to get the mother and her cub convinced that she would have more peace if she went somewhere other than where we were.

The gentleman that came in that afternoon was from Virginia. He had brought his nephew to Alaska as a graduation present. They fished quite a bit further down in the hole than we did, but all of us caught kings pretty much nonstop. Occasionally there would be a lull in the action for 30 minutes or an hour, but then the fish catching would start all over again.

One of the things that really stands out in our mind was how much these kings jump! They make large mouth bass look like they are lazy when it comes to jumping. These kings jumped, flipped, and at times did cartwheels as they tried to get off the line (and many did get off). By the end of each day, it was hard to even move our arms from fighting so many fish.

Finally we decided we needed to get heading down river and about the time we were packed up, more fishermen came floating in. We talked with the group that fished the Forks and they said they normally catch 20+ kings per day there, but this year only one of them was catching a few kings and the others did not catch any at all.

The river was swift and had some small white water on it as we floated toward Deep Creek. We had a quick lunch at Deep Creek and made our way down into the second canyon to face Flipper Rapids. There was quite a bit of Class I, Class II, and Class III white water as we made our way into the canyon. It rained much of the way, but was still very scenic. We didn’t stop to scout Flipper Rapids, but after we went through the upper section we eddied out to shoot some video footage before going into the lower section of the rapids. It is said this particular rapids is up to a Class IV rapids, but compared to Hells Gate, it seemed minimal to us. The standing waves were big enough to get us wet, but for the most part we just powered down through it with no trouble at all.

Shortly after Flipper Rapids we pulled into Thursday Creek and did some fishing. Thursday Creek was much smaller than Friday Creek, but still held a significant number of salmon. Both of us hooked kings, but neither of us landed a single one. The powerful current combined with the kings’ determination to stay in the river caused hooks to pop out and leaders to break time and time again.

The river was straight forward after leaving Thursday Creek as we floated toward our next fishing destination. We arrived at a spot referred to by some as King Camp and others as the West Virginia Hole. There were a number of small wheeled airplanes landing not far from the fishing hole, so we called the fishing hole Airport Hole. Regardless of this fishing hole’s actual name, it is a nice pool with good potential. We fished several hours the next day, but didn’t have any luck catching kings.

On down river we went. We needed to be at the mouth of the Talachulitna River where it meets the Skwentna by nightfall for an early morning pick up. A short ways after the canyon ended, the terrain started to flatten. Jet boats were running up and down the river and people were fishing both with guides and also where guides had dropped them off. There were a number of areas where decent numbers of kings were holding in the lower river. Quite a few people were catching fish, but we didn’t stop. We were thinking that there would be good fishing at the mouth.

When we got to the mouth, we had to stop several hundred yards short of the Skwentna on an island where there was another camp set up. We were told there is an island closer to the Skwentna, but it was under water. We set up camp and took a lightened raft down to the mouth. A number of boats were anchored and back drifting Wiggle Warts, Kwikfish and Hot Shots. Everyone was catching some kings, but the fish catching action wasn’t near what it was upriver.

We rowed back up to the island where our tent was set up and caught some kings and graylings there. A black bear hung around camp that night but didn’t cause any trouble.

The next morning, our pilot from Sportsman’s Air helped us break down camp and shuttled us down the Skwentna in a small jet boat to where he had parked his plane. This was not our first experience in the Alaska wilderness, but it never ceases to amaze us where bush pilots land their planes. The Skwentna is a big silty glacial river with an occasional tree floating down it and this was our runway.

What a trip. We caught so many kings on this trip that Jim suffered from tennis elbow for months after arriving back in Boise. So far, we have been extremely fortunate to have had excellent Alaska wilderness experiences and our float down the Talachulitna Creek and river was no exception.