Book Excerpt: An Angler Recalls Bristol Bay Fishing Adventure

The following appears in the September issue of Alaska Sporting Journal:

Florida-born and now living in Texas’s Hill Country, Steve Ramirez was a U.S. Marine and law enforcement officer in a career that spanned 35 sometimes stressful and tumultuous years. So his outdoor experiences have been cathartic in many ways.

“Anyone who reads my work will come to know that I have endured and witnessed much brutality … I have lived with the challenges of PTSD and have chosen to transform that experience into greater understanding and compassion for others,” he says. “I have experienced and often write about the healing power of nature and what has come to be known as ‘nature therapy.’ Through so many of life’s hardships and heartaches, nature has always saved me. I want to do what I can to return that favor.”

Fishing has become a passion for Ramirez, and his adventures throughout North America are chronicled in a series of books, the final installment of which includes memorable trips casting
for trout, grayling, char and salmon in iconic Bristol Bay.

His previous books in the quartet – Casting Forward, Casting Onward and Casting Seaward – included detailed content about fly fishing on the rivers of his central Texas home base, paying homage to native North American species and the excitement of saltwater fishing.

In Ramirez’s grand finale, he recalls the Last Frontier’s pristine beauty and the thrill of targeting
the myriad fish species that traverse Bristol Bay lakes and river drainages, which he refers to as “a journey from one of America’s least impacted legendary angling waters.” That included a memorable trip on the bay’s Agulowak River.

The following is excerpted with permission from Casting Homeward: An Angler and Naturalist’s Journey to America’s Legendary Rivers, by Steve Ramirez and published by Lyons Press.

BY STEVE RAMIREZ

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. –Joseph Campbell

I embraced the edges of its cold, clean waters and how the salmon, char, trout and grayling vanished into its deepest holes.

I remember the sensation of floating on currents of air as the 1957 de Havilland Beaver carried me over forests and tundra, and then floating on the currents of its rivers while casting and connecting to the many beating hearts that swam within. I recall the primal gaze of brown bears and how that moment of eye contact grounded me in the certain knowledge that in the wilderness, I’m simply another source of protein. And at this moment in the darkness of my room, I am reliving my first and final days when a single river and special fish were both joined to the deepest part of my eternal soul. This is our story.

EVER SINCE I WAS a boy who sat up at night reading Jack London, Russ Annabel and vintage outdoor magazines, I’ve dreamed of this moment. To my childhood mind, taking off and landing in a floatplane was the ultimate gateway to adventure. It brought to mind the images of floating over rugged mountains, raging rivers and endless expanses of wilderness where trees were many and landing sites were few and far between. And now here I was, about to begin my weeklong adventure at Bristol Bay Lodge with my buddy, sporting artist, author and guide Bob White.

Ron Salmon is a quiet, kindhearted and exceedingly competent pilot with over 50 years of experience. Every lesson he ever learned during his winged lifetime was self-evident as he effortlessly launched and landed the floatplane on the surface of Lake Aleknagik.

The subtle separation between the surface of the lake and the underbelly of the plane’s pontoons was surprising, and it took me a while to realize we were airborne as perspectives altered and realities shifted. As we rounded Jackknife Mountain, Ron adjusted flaps, mixture, propeller and throttle so that the alchemy of his actions resulted in the pontoons resting back onto the waters with the natural grace of a mayfly. Stepping onto the dock and into my childhood dreams come true, I could never know that atthat moment, I was coming home.

The flat metal tin can of a johnboat bounded and slid across the choppy surface of the Agulowak River as my newest friend, Sam Fisher, deftly maneuvered us toward Grayling Island. I had barely stepped off the floatplane and into the boat when I told Sam that my number one dream was connecting with an Alaskan grayling. I asked if he thought we might find one before dinner, to which he responded, “Heck yeah!” Sam is a kind, open-minded and able young man with an infectious smile and good nature. We hit it off immediately, and it mattered not if we were 26 or 62 – real friendship is timeless. It was my first day, and every possible reality lay in front of me as each cast would roll out like dice tumbling across a table.

Sam set the anchor at the edge of a community of half-submerged willows, and I began casting a fluffy white dry fly with a tiny Copper Bob nymph dropper. Almost immediately the dry fly became an indicator as I raised my rod tip a bit too softly, hooked and then lost a grayling while we both lit up with excitement and then moaned with good-humored disappointment. That scene continued through four more half-hearted hooksets before I finally shook off the first-day jitters and landed the first grayling of my current lifetime. It was all I had hoped for, and more. He was a beautiful fish, and I tried to burn the image of him swimming back home into the currents of the Agulowak, where he would live and die and live again as his DNA passed through time. It is the way of things that we are all both mortal and immortal – all at once. For me, a fish is not a thing; it is a living being with a desire to survive as long as possible and with the best quality of life possible – just like me. When I do take the rare photo with a fish, I am never intending to say, “Look what I caught,” but rather, “Look who I met.” This is why I bring “him” or “her” to the net – not it. And this is why I say “thank you” when I release each beautiful creature back into the river of life. In the language of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Native American ancestors, I might say, “megwech.” The intention is the same. Respect, empathy, and gratitude.
For me, a river is not a thing; it is a living being with a desire to flow as long as possible with clarity and good health – just like me. I’ve noticed that how we treat ourselves often determines how we treat others and the planet. If I eat more plants and less meat and processed foods, my heart and soul will thrive. If I pollute my body with fat, sugar and salt – I will no longer be the man I might have been. It’s the same with forests and fish and rivers and relationships. We get what we give.

THE MORNING CAME WITH coffee and breakfast and a view of Jackknife Mountain while looking across Lake Aleknagik from the window of Bristol Bay Lodge. I sat there in the soft silence with my friend Steve Laurant, who is the owner and general manager of the lodge, and Bob White, who is more like a brother to me than simply a dear friend. We didn’t need to say much beyond our usual morning greetings. We sat together in silence or spoke in hushed tones about the peace of the moment and the joy of being alive. We didn’t even talk about fishing. Among friends, silences are at least as important as spoken words. There is a comfort that comes with sipping coffee in the morning beside a person or persons who see the same magnificence and magic in the world around them and within the universe.

The Agulowak River is the home waters of Bristol Bay Lodge, as it is just across the lake from the dock that harbors several boats and three de Havilland Beaver floatplanes. The three full-time pilots include Steve, Ron Salmon and a man who goes by the call sign of “T-Bird.” (More on T-Bird in another chapter.) The Agulowak is approximately 4 miles long and is the connecting river between Lower Nerka Lake and Lake Aleknagik as part of the Wood River watershed. It is renowned for its large native rainbow trout, Arctic grayling, Arctic char, Dolly Varden char and as the spawning grounds for approximately 200,000 sockeye salmon, with another two million passing through its waters on their way farther up the drainage.

After breakfast, we looked at the chalkboard on the wall to see what the day might hold, and next to my name was the term “Wok.” This meant that I’d be fishing the Agulowak, so I’d be loading onto a boat and not a floatplane. Bob and I walked down to the docks and met our guide for the day, a nice young man named Ethan Warren. Ethan was calm, quiet, patient and competent with an easy smile. I liked him. The boats were basic 16-foot metal johnboats with oars on the sides and enough motorized horsepower on the back to get the job done without being obnoxious about it.

If taking off in a de Havilland Beaver is my favorite way to launch into adventure, then crossing open water in a boat is a close second. There is something magical about the bouncing of the bow across the water, the coolness of the air and spray on your face, and the anticipation of what lies ahead. And there is something meaningful about looking back at the wake behind the boat and the changing perspective of the place you left behind and the one you are growing ever closer to discovering. It’s not that you wanted to go; it’s that you felt compelled to go. As if staying behind would cause your moist lungs to stop breathing and your warm heart to cease beating. Living life urgently demands that we live gratefully in the moment while looking forward and remembering the lessons of our yesterdays.

Our target species on this first full morning was sockeye salmon, and the location was a turn in the river known as the “sockeye tree.” The salmon are everywhere in the Agulowak as they swim almost zombie-like against the current toward their destiny – the place where they were born and where they will spawn, die and give their last full measure by adding nutrients to the river and surrounding forests. Salmon and coastal brown bears are integral parts of this ecosystem. Without them, it is forever diminished. These fish are the stuff that such dreams are made of. They are the brick and mortar that built this wilderness. They are its lifeblood.

As we pulled up to the sockeye tree, we could see that my new friends Pue Nguyen and Steve Negaard had already arrived and were busy casting and catching as waves of salmon swam over the shallow water that surrounds this bend in the river. And it was this shallow water that made this act of catching these salmon possible. The rigging we were using was basically a salmon egg bead suspended above a hook with a “slinky”-style weight attached to a swivel clip. The weight allows your rig to bounce along the bottom; once the angler feels the pull of the fish, the hook is set and hopefully the fish is landed. While the sockeye salmon are predominantly plankton feeders and therefore less likely to strike, the bead allows the angler to simultaneously fish for the Arctic and Dolly Varden char and rainbow trout that may be following the salmon in hopes of eating eggs that may be washed downcurrent from the redds. Beyond their platonic feeding habits, sockeye salmon are unique in that they require spawning rivers and streams that have lakes at their headwaters – such as the Agulowak, which empties into Lake Aleknagik from its headwaters at Nerka (the Russian name for the sockeye salmon) Lake.

This being the first full day of fishing in a new place, I was focused on getting to the boat and out to the river, which led to me forgetting to bring a few items that later proved meaningful. They included gloves, a head net and mosquito repellent. I never made that mistake again. I quickly concluded that the most frightening sound in the Alaskan wilderness is not the growl of a bear or snarl of a wolf – it’s the whine of a tiny blood-sucking insect in your ear. Enough said.

Upon arrival at the sockeye tree, the guides set up a plastic folding table and laid out a filet knife and a club for dispatching the fish we would be keeping today. The filet knife was long and thin and sharp – like any other of its kind. The club was part of a moose’s femur bone – a truly Alaskan choice. Although I’m usually a catch-and-release angler and go to great effort to be careful with the fish I catch, I am not opposed to a fresh salmon shore lunch when the run of fish is healthy and plentiful. If bears knew how to fry potatoes, I’m sure they would. We are all hunter-gatherers by nature. ASJ

Editor’s note: Order Steve Ramirez’s new book Casting Homeward at lyonspress.com/books/9781493051458.

Q&A WITH AUTHOR STEVE RAMIREZ

ASJ editor Chris Cocoles chatted with author Steve Ramirez, who’s now written four books in his Casting series, about his Bristol Bay fishing experiences.

Chris Cocoles Congratulations on finishing this series of Casting books, Steve. Tell me about how important it was to write about your experiences in Alaska.

Steve Ramirez My time in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region was the intentional launch point for this book project and was essential to its completion for several reasons. All of my books contain layers of themes, paths of discovery, life lessons learned, and philosophical and metaphorical meaning. One aspect being explored was the deeper question of how we define “home.” When I asked my dear friend, author and sporting artist Bob White, “What are the home waters of your heart?” He immediately said, “The Wood River drainage of Bristol Bay, Alaska, where I’ve guided for over 20 years and where I met my wife Lisa.” So,

I wanted to experience this place in part, through Bob’s eyes. I say “in part” because all nonfiction contains an element of fiction in that it is influenced by the perspective of the person telling the story – and my own personal perspective certainly melds with Bob’s and everyone else I reached out to, both Euro-Americans and Indigenous-Americans.

And that leads me to the second reason Alaska was so integral to the creation of this book and its larger story. I also wanted to tell the story of North America from a metaphorical journey backward from that part which to date is least impacted by humanity – Alaska – to the place that is most impacted – New York City. I was traveling backwards along the routes of Euro-American immigrants from “land’s end” to “landfall,” and along theway,IdidasIdoinallofmybooks.Idid my best to tell the story of the impact this had on our Indigenous peoples, and on our natural world. And I am able to show those lessons Indigenous peoples have to teach the rest of us about how to live as one in partnership and community with nature. It was important to me to show that even as far away as Bristol Bay, blind capitalism and greed is endangering a national natural treasure, and the “home” of so many living beings, human and nonhuman alike.

CC You’ve spent a lot of time fishing in your first home in Florida and Texas, where you live now. Can you compare those experiences to your Alaska time? 

SR Alaska is far more vast, and although it has been deeply impacted by the activities of humanity as all of this beautiful planet has been, it has within its forests, tundra and waters more hope than most places might. The wild Florida that I once knew is either gone forever or seemingly doomed toward extinction by anthropogenic alteration, and sadly, Texas is trending in the same direction – but still has a chance. Alaska cannot escape the ravages of human-accelerated climate change, which is already melting your glaciers and changing the outcomes of fish and crab harvests. But Alaska still has wilderness, wildlife and free-roaming rivers that can be the example and the gold standard for the rest of the country. It is a land of possibilities, rather than a paradise that is already lost.

CC I talk to so many people who have fished or hunted there and I like to ask them if they had a welcome-to-Alaska moment. Do you have one that made you say, “Holy #$%, I’m in Alaska right now!”?

SR Yes! It was my first time flying in a floatplane over the mountains, forests, and rivers for over an hour only to land on a lake that felt untouched, even if that was only a feeling. I stepped out of the plane and into the tracks of a big brown bear and a massive moose and then into the lake itself. I didn’t want to leave and, in a way, I never did.

CC I loved in the chapter we’re running that you talked about eating a freshly caught Agulowak sockeye on the banks of the river. How special of a moment was that?

SR It was simply magical. I don’t use that word casually. I intend to say that we weren’t simply frying fish and potatoes along the riverside; we were doing some sort of voodoo alchemy that seemed to make the food taste as if it were a part of the land itself – because it was. It felt primal and communal and yet deeply personal. And I am not joking when I say I can taste it now in my imagination, and wish it were in my reality – once again.

CC Bristol Bay is such a sacred place that Alaskans and non-Alaskans alike have fought to protect its salmon runs from the Pebble Mine project. Having spent time there, how important is it to ensure that those watersheds are protected? SR It’s vital. And it’s also another reason I wanted to include Bristol Bay and Alaska in this book. In my third book in the series, Casting Seaward: Fishing Adventures in Search of America’s Saltwater Gamefish, I explored Southeast Alaska’s Tongass rainforest and inland passage to try to share the story of this one-of-a-kind historical landscape, its people and its importance to this magnificent “Garden of Eden” planet we’ve been gifted. By following salmon from the ocean to the tiniest tributaries in the forest, I wanted to show that we need all of the habitat. Lose any one part, and you lose it all.

I knew then that Bristol Bay was my next logical stop, even if I had no idea how I’d get there. As is often the case, the doors were opened by good people who have lived with and loved Southwest Alaska as their home, including the good people of Bristol Bay Lodge, who invited me to be their guest. Having now had the opportunity to experience this place for myself, even briefly, I am even more committed to doing everything I can to spread the word: Bristol Bay and the Wood River drainage must be protected. To do anything less is in my estimation not only a crime against the Earth and any future generations of our descendants; it’s also a sin.

To that end, on September 24 I have the honor and pleasure of hosting a conversation between Delores Larson, deputy director of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Trout Unlimited Alaska, and my local Guadalupe Valley Trout Unlimited Chapter, here in the Texas Hill Country (grtu.org). It is my understanding that GRTU is the largest Trout Unlimited fundraiser for the protection of Bristol Bay. Your home is my home. As I write in my books and essays, “In nature, everything is connected to everything.” We travel together.

CC What was it like sharing the river with the bears?
SR Cautiously thrilling. Frankly, it would not have felt the same without the healthy bear population being present, and ecologically, the bears are as important as the salmon. I’ve always had a healthy respect for bears, which sounds so much better than saying fear. With that said, I loved every sighting and found it to be life-altering in a fortunately positive way. I know I am the interloper. The bears were here first and I respect their power and potential and gave them plenty of room. But I’m so grateful that they are still there doing what bears do and holding up the ecosystem, along with the salmon and the clean, cold waters.

CC Do you want to get back to Alaska someday and is there still a bucket-list destination you’d love to fulfill?
SR Yes, I’d come back in a heartbeat given the opportunity. I left part of my heart in Alaska, as well as a few pints of blood (the mosquitos are amazing!). And yes, I have a place I’d love to explore while I am still alive and physically able to do so, and that place is The Gates of the Arctic and perhaps the Alaskan shoreline with the Arctic Sea itself. I don’t know if this will ever happen; I’m a “starving artist.” But I have been pondering a story that needs to be told and that is a place ripe for telling it.

CC Overall, in completing this four-book project, what’s it like to reminisce about all these adventures you’ve had fishing in various corners of North America?

SR I am deeply grateful. That is the first feeling and impression that comes to mind. And with it, I am hopeful that I have been telling the stories in a manner that will reach more people and will in some way cause them to love and value these places as much as I have. I don’t write “fishing stories.” I am writing timely stories about life and living in the 21st century, and about choices and consequences. It is my hope that we can come together and through the power of stories, build a better world for all living beings – human and nonhuman. We’re all in this together. ASJ