Lyndel Brady holds the grayling, but only for a moment! Photo © Kathy Anderson.

There’s the traditional in-town Fourth of July fireworks, and then there’s the kind that Mother Nature provides. I needn’t have worried about missing the Anchorage festivities, because, while on our three day early July Aniak River float, we were treated to dazzling displays of both river and sky! Jim and Lyndel Brady had won this trip at a charity auction, and I was lucky enough to tag along as Girl Reporter.

Rob Kinkade, our gracious lodge host and owner of Aniak Air Guides, flew us into the put-in spot one-by-one, treating us to a running commentary about the terrain, the river, and the history of the area as he buzzed over the incredibly complex braids of the Aniak River. The power of the Aniak was inescapable, with oxbow lakes, monumental log jams, and countless marshy tributaries. Rob pointed out several features that had formed over the previous winter, and I wondered to myself how anyone could keep up with the ever-changing river.

It was the first trip to the Aniak for any of us, and, while loading our gear onto the two rafts, guide Scott Rowekamp of Midnight Sun Alaska Fishing Adventures whetted our appetite with seemingly exaggerated descriptions of the rakishly colored Aniak River “leopard” rainbows. As Scott’s raft rounded the first bend past the put-in spot, Lyndel, establishing herself as the Official Fish Magnet, hooked into a magnificent 24-inch beauty. Camp assistant Ty Roderick pulled our raft into the slough so we could watch the action. The river was high and the buck made good use of the current, but Lyndel handled him expertly and he was soon resigned to posing for our cameras. Scott, it turns out, had not been exaggerating—the Aniak rainbows, among the world’s most northern, are nothing if not dramatic. Even the best pictures don’t do them real justice, but one up-close look at the glimmering, densely patterned spots from nose to tail, dorsal fin to belly, is as thrilling as any pyrotechnics.

The Aniak isn’t just about rainbows, though. We knew we’d be treated to a variety of other fish, including grayling, Dollies, and char. We weren’t going to target salmon, but at this time of year a king or a chum might be had.

At our first campsite, an island at the confluence of the Salmon and Aniak rivers, I was the earliest to rise—never waste dawn’s light. Within seconds of emerging from my tent, I was on the river, rod in hand. The quiet of the early morning was broken by the piercing call of an osprey, whose nest we’d seen from the main river. I had 100 yards of prime fishing water to choose from—I could reach the upstream far bank, fish the downstream tip of the island, or hike up the small tributary.

I settled on the tip of the island. It felt like a dry fly morning, so I rigged up one of Scott’s hand tied Stimulators and began to cast. The growing light afforded me the opportunity to see the rise of the grayling before I felt the first take. From there, the fishing was just plain consistent—a cast or two, another take, another fabulously finned fish. Jim joined me, and I watched him change up his fly after every landed fish. Curious, I asked him why he wasn’t staying with a proven winner, and he answered, “It makes it harder, and I like that.” We laughed, comfortable in our different approaches.

After a huge homemade burrito breakfast, Scott took us across the Salmon, where we could fish the confluence itself. Jim got the first Dolly of the trip on a Parachute Adams. Scott, whose knowledge of these fish was extensive, made us laugh by calling it a Dolly Charden, the best way I’ve ever heard of avoiding the is-it-a-Dolly-or-is-it-a-char argument. Lyndel, ever the fish magnet, got two more gorgeous trout on white Zonkers. I fished from the far bank, where I was able to take advantage of the intersecting currents and swing a truly ugly purple leech.

Later, Scott dropped Jim and Lyndel off in the little tributary, where they continued to succeed with both dry flies and attractors, and I took up station just downstream of the tip of the island. Scott suggested I try a mouse pattern, the first time I’d fished with one in Alaska. He told me exactly where to cast and urged me to think like a little mouse that, having accidentally fallen into the river, was frantically trying to swim to shore. I managed to put the fly right where he told me on the first cast and just as I commenced my drowning mouse act, a magnificent 20-inch trout, apparently falling for my impersonation, grabbed the fly and ran like a banshee. Scott was nearly as thrilled as I was, my pleasure at having caught the fish doubling when I saw its iridescent scales and show-off spots.

If you asked Scott, he’d say we were downright defiant clients as we ignored his encouragement to get back in the rafts after lunch. This seemed like an endlessly diverse fishing base, it was hard to imagine things being better downstream. Lyndel and I made quick work of the meal and took turns tossing rodents to the far bank, muttering little mouse-talk phrases while we worked our flies. Alas, the earlier luck was not to be duplicated, so we acquiesced to Scott and piled into the rafts. Next stop, a secret spot downstream where Ty had caught a huge char on an orange spinner a few weeks earlier.

When we got there, Lyndel, naturally, got the first fish, a really pretty but slippery grayling on a beadhead nymph. Jim followed in suit, with a grayling and then an exquisite char. They stayed loyal to their fly rods, so I decided to change up and go with Scott’s spin outfit with a multicolor #3 Mepps Agila, which yielded nothing. When I changed to Ty’s orange Mepps, though, I pulled a char from the crystal clear backwaters. A few minutes later, I hooked what would I was sure would be my largest trout of the trip, except it turned out to be a king salmon! It was a 23-inch jack, but the next one was a much larger blush female, which we released after some bottom-tangle drama. Jim, a dedicated fly guy, said he wouldn’t go so far as to use a spinning rod, but he switched to his 7-weight and tried everything remotely resembling orange from his prodigious fly box .

With all this excitement, we paid no attention to the skies, which during our fishing frenzy had turned from partly cloudy to the very epitome of gathering doom. A huge band of darkest of dark clouds fringed by unmistakable sheets of rain had advanced on us while we played with the Mepps. Lyndel led the scramble back to the rafts, leaping like a gazelle over the logs, and Scott and Ty made ready and pushed off in undoubtedly record time. Lightning flashed through the storm to our right, the rain marched toward us from the left, and the skies behind us grew grayer by the minute. The guys rowed like crazy to get to that evening’s takeout ahead of the deluge—Ty’s view was that it was “easy to row fast when there’s lightening on your butt.”

Luckily, the storm turned out to be just fireworks for us, and we landed dry and unscathed. While Ty and Scott set up camp on one of the braid-forming islands, Jim, Lyndel and I looked up at the magic circle of sunny sky above us, thought through outdoor safety 101 for a second or two, and grabbed our rods anyway.

Lyndel and I worked flesh flies near the camp, but Jim headed downstream to some backwater and cast for grayling. He was communing with a passing mama goose and her three babies when the sky exploded with a picture perfect lightning bolt and a magnificent crash of thunder. He swears that the geese were blasted off the water before they had the good sense to dive, but we didn’t have that option. We couldn’t remember how many seconds between a lightning strike and its corresponding thunderbolt comprised one mile, but we figured that it couldn’t have been more than that distance away from our sunny spot. When the story was retold over the campfire, we agreed that waving our nine-foot, 6-weight graphite lightning rods with storms visible on the horizon was behavior best not repeated. Scott sent us to bed, saying we’d be off early in the morning to tackle Timber Creek, which flowed into the Aniak across from our camp.

The next morning brought cloudless skies and penetrating sun, but the previous evening’s storms had delivered enough rain upstream to raise the creek water level higher than Scott had ever seen. He strained to row the three of us up towards a favorite spot, but the almost raging current proved unconquerable. Eventually, we got out and waded the marshy bank while Scott towed the raft up the creek—we must have looked like a mule team on the side of the Erie Canal!

Lyndel, keeping up her record of a fish in every hole, pulled a nice grayling out of the very high water, as did Jim, but I just gave Scott a lot of practice unsnagging my lure from branches that were normally two feet higher than the creek. I was trying to scout with the spinning gear, but the fast water just spun out my line so I switched back to fly and eventually gave up. The float back to camp was a quick one, featuring an up-close view of a young brown bear who later watched us eat a quick lunch and pile back into the rafts for the last day of our float.

The day was downright hot, and we ached to be in shirt sleeves, but the legendary Yukon-Kuskokwim mosquitoes had kept me in my long sleeved bug shirt all morning. Once we were underway, though, the breeze beat back the bugs and allowed us to strip off a few layers and soak up some sun. From their comfortable perch on Scott’s raft, Jim and Lyndel tossed one of everything at the bank, coming up empty but loving every minute of it.

Of course, Lyndel hit pay-dirt at our first two pull-outs, a grayling at the first and an incredible char at the second. The char, a good 23 inches, was a standout effort. Using a green and white beadhead that Scott had tied with plenty of flash, she braved wading in a particularly fast, deep section of the river to reach a textbook-perfect section of swift-running stream, complete with structure and cover. The fish took the fly with a ferocious chomp, and rocketed out of the water like a Roman Candle. Staying cool, and staying with the fish, she bested it and laughed as Jim and I looked on enviously.

Jim and I didn’t match her efforts until the third stop. Scott said this was the last trick up his sleeve before we had to head to the pick-up spot, so we upped our intentionality and traipsed a quarter-mile up a side braid. Jim once again threw a smorgasbord of flies across a deep pool, eventually enticing a nice grayling. I got one out of a log-jammed pool, and Lyndel scored upstream in a shallower area. It was only after Lyndel’s success that we glanced at the horizon. Once again, fearsome clouds were headed our way, bands of rain visible in the distance in defiance of the sunny patch of sky we enjoyed. We hustled back to the rafts and flew down the river to the takeout spot, grateful that the winds had blown the storm sideways from us.

Our pilot was waiting for us when we arrived at the friendly, broad gravel bar that serves as a landing strip for single engine bush planes. I got to take the first flight back to Rob’s delightful in-town lodge, where a hot shower, hot meal, and cold drinks awaited. As I surveyed the magnificent scenery below, I sensed a deeper appreciation for the intricate system that is the Aniak River. It is vast, flat, and unbroken. Mountains edge it in the distance, but it is the very definition of a river plain. We had been privileged to partake of a small part of the system for three days, and we hadn’t seen another human being in our three-day adventure. Our only contact with the outside world was Rob’s plane, which flew over one day to check on us. It had been a very intimate and satisfying Fourth of July, one that we’d long remember.

Kathy Anderson is an associate publisher of Fish Alaska magazine.