Katmai N.P. Trip Report

[Steve K.]

Just returned from my annual sojourn to the Last Frontier. Having floated the Alagnak River last trip….we opted to make this year’s base of operations at Brook’s Camp on the Brook’s River.

As we made our decent, we could see the sockeye stacked up at the mouth of the river (Note the dark mass….mid-photo right.)

The welcoming comittee:

I never imagined that the unloading of our gear could be so intense:

Our living quarters for the next seven days:

Fortunately our campsite was tucked within an electric fence. Kind of like Jurassic Park:

We had to constantly vacate a good fishing spot to make way for the omnipresent bears.

My son Jon, looks on with apprehension.

The bears weren’t the only excitement. A floatplane crashed about 200 yards from our campsite during a nasty rainstorm. I think pilots call it “coming in high and hot”. Furry investigators arrived shortly thereafter to examine the wreckage.

Some of the locals preferred to watch from a distance.

We caught plenty of these:

….and these

We weren’t the only ones doing all the catching…..

I can’t speak for the bears….but all of our fish were released unharmed.

This trip came to an end way to soon but will provide a lifetime of memories. Katmai is a special place.

[Corey Kruitbosch]

Wow! Absolutely fantastic photos! I love the shot of the 3 bears! Great story .. Lots of bears, BIG pike, BIG ‘bows, and a plane crash! Plus, time with your son! That sounds like a hell of a trip.

[lee church]

Great report!

[Neal Osborn]

Fantastic!  Enough said.

Thanks, I am going to revisit this post often and just daydream.

[none]

This looks & sounds like one of the trips you make and will remember till you are gone…

Great pics.

Thanks
Jay

[Zach Matthews]

Lord, some days I am so thankful I put a bulletin board on this site.

[Mark Landerman]

Very nice…….I have to get back up that way…….maybe next year.

Thanks for sharing.

[David Anderson]

Awesome photos !

I love the out of focus foerground with the bears sharp in the background – it really makes the point.
Also, the bear in the tree is excellent..

I don’t know if I could relax enough to fish with all of those bears around.

www.dsaphoto.com

A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

[Tim Angeli]

Drifter,

Excellent report, thanks for posting it!

[Steve K.]

Thanks guys. I’m glad to report that everyone emerged unscathed. As long as you didn’t look and smell like a sockeye salmon, you were okay. We did have to vacate our fishing hole on several occasions….especially for a bear that we dubbed Pyscho Bear. That’s him in photo number seven with my son in the foreground. Pyscho Bear had a nasty habit of hiding in the grass, only to come bounding at you when you hung a fish. The splashing of the fish seemed to really excite him. He would bust through the run with his head underwater, looking for the fish on the end of your line. Of course by then, we would have intentionally broken the fish off. Light tippet was a must when fishing around Psycho Bear.

Extreme Alaskan flyfishing at it’s finest! 🙂 Be sure to add this place to your bucket list.

[Cameron Mortenson]

Drifter…great trip post…and photos.

[Aaron Otto]

Drifter,

Great work, your new handle should be ‘Steel-Stones’.

[Rich Kovars]

That is one trip of a lifetime.

[Neal Osborn]

More Pictures . . . Please.

[Tim Angeli]

Be sure to add this place to your bucket list.

From the looks of it, it better be at the end of my bucket list just in case psycho bear decides to pay me a visit.

[Steve K.]

A couple of more…..

Psycho Bear in action….

The end result….tastes like chicken.

[Andrew Wright]

Unbelievable! I am insanely jealous at the moment. That trip looks incredible. Thanks for posting.

[Author]

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