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About 50 miles to the west of Fairbanks is a region called Minto Flats. It is a vast area of lakes, wetlands, 'floating land' and swamp grass. It is home to huge flocks of ducks, geese, Sandhill Cranes, black bears and moose. The area reminds me very much of the Everglades Saw Grass region of Florida. The lakes are very shallow and many are not inter-connected. Most of this area can only be accessed by airboat, but that's ok....I have one.
This is also home to some of the best Northern Pike fishing in Alaska. I have a few photos of Pike that were caught there by my daughter and myself when she was younger. On one trip we made, the water was really high and the fishing was not good at all, it seemed like we could not buy a strike. I had given up for the day and was sitting in camp sipping a good cup of coffee. Kids being what they are, my daughter was down at the boat 'messing around' with a pole which had a small mouse lure attached to it. She had about 2 feet of line out and was just sort of 'slapping' the water with the mouse. All of a sudden there was a huge splash as a monster Pike took the mouse. She gave a scream of surprise as the line screamed off of the real. I ran down to the boat and offered to reel it in for her, it was obviously too big for a little slip of a girl to land. HAH! she would have none of it...this was her fish and she was going to land it! Well after a pretty good tussle she did land it and it turned out to be just one inch shy of four feet. What a trophy for a young girl. Unfortunately Dad did not bring the camera so there were no photos of it. But I do have some of other pike she caught. One strange thing though, from that time on, she would never fish for Pike with anything but a small hairy mouse lure. She would wear out a particular mouse, I mean literally wear it out....no hair and long jagged tooth marks down the length of the lure before she would give it up.
Photo on the left shows the run of the mill Pike that are caught here, they are usually in excess of 2 feet. Photo on the right is a good example of how you make your own barbeque grill when you leave yours home. I had to make this one out of green willow twigs, but when there is steak to be grilled you have to make do.
This next photo was taken at the outlet to Summit Lake in the heart of the Alaska Range. This is the beginning of the Gulkana River, which is a world class fishery for salmon as well as Rainbow Trout. The amazing thing about this photo is that it was taken so high in elevation, Summit lake is at the 5,800 foot level. These fish had to come a long way to get here from Prince William Sound.
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