Sometimes, when it comes to fishing and fishermen, making a recommendation can be tricky business. Especially if the suggestion contradicts much popular thought. In fact, the specter of contemporary ridicule being what it is, the mere notion of being laughed off the stream has probably kept many an innovative angler quiet about many different things, most of them probably darn useful.

The problem lies in the fact that the inverse isn’t true. If a piece of information is no good—or even downright harmful to all involved—it’ll travel from fly shop to flowing water with scary efficiency. Then one day you’ll look down and notice a green egg pattern has somehow found its way onto the end of your tippet.

Most angling destinations, too, are buried beneath layers of anecdote and innuendo impossible to make out. Got the goods on a new, can’t-miss steelhead stream for this spring? Well, chances are after all the effort and expense of getting there, the creek will be blown out and the fish miles away. The experience will inevitably reach its peak when, after hours of standing in a torrential downpour, casting without a prayer into the hopelessly muddy waters, you’ll bump into a local who’ll greet you with a cheery, “You should have been here last week!”

It can be enough to make a man wish he’d taken up golf, or kickboxing.

In truth, we should all know it’s coming—the faulty intelligence, that is. For legend, folklore, and plain-old falsehoods are as central to angling as they are to the study of history. Our schools still teach that only Columbus knew the world wasn’t flat, and anglers still buy green-colored eggs. Likewise, at least once during every fishing season, a fly fisher espouses on the lake trout’s deficiencies as fly rod quarry. Too deep to reach, sluggish fighters . . .not a gamefish fit for pursuit with feathers and fur.

The facts? Aristotle wrote conclusively that the Earth was round a full 1800 years before the Italian skipper ever put ship to sea. And lake trout are not leviathans of the impenetrable depths, at least not always. Rather, they’re sleek, versatile predators and sometimes more likely to sip a #12 Parachute Adams than crush a bottom-dragging chunk of dimpled metal. In Alaska’s nearly endless lake environments, this can especially be the case.

In areas thick with sockeye, lake trout fishing during the smolt out-migration can be fast and ferocious, more akin to the bonefishing off Christmas Island than it is to jigging for walleye in the Dakotas. Anglers will wade shallow sand flats and sight-cast to lakers slashing bait on the surface, some of the fish going over twenty pounds. Once hooked, the shallow-feeding lake trout offers anything but humdrum resistance, often bolting for deeper water with the power of a bull and then commencing with headshakes and underwater gyrations enough to make the stoutest rod shudder, or enough to make the tapestry of any angling myth come apart at the seams. Even during the height of the Alaska summer lakers will routinely cruise the shoreline and chase baitfish, leech, and sculpin patterns. The fall is much the same; only the schools of fish will be larger and more concentrated as they begin to gather for spawning.

Why so little effort then? I certainly don’t know, but the reasons can’t have anything to do with availability, since the species is widely distributed in the state and all of the scenarios above can be found wherever they are. To fish the smolt out-migration—a time of year rainbow anglers already approach with something of the seriousness of an English soccer fan—one only needs to look for a decent sized lake system that’s known to host both lake trout and a sockeye salmon return. Try Southwest.

The baitfish/leech/sculpin situation exists in nearly every lake that’s home to the fish, from Glennallen to King Salmon to Bettles and beyond. And yes, in a few regions of the state, lakers do a great deal of their feeding on aquatic insects and invertebrates. A short hike to one of the lakes off the Denali Highway should be enough to prove that.

For a lot of us, it’s a little bit new, this fly-fishing for lake trout on or very near the surface. Or at worst, it’s different, sure to land anglers amongst some summer solitude, which is never a bad thing in Alaska. For those looking to give up their spot in one of the state’s mile-long salmon queues or maybe just searching for a little adventure to go along with their fishing, it’s my recommendation for the year.

And if you do happen to give it a try and end up frustrated and fishless at the end of the day, don’t blame me.

It won’t be my fault if you show up a week late.