With all the rivers blown out, and me arriving in Alaska 4 weeks before Mike Kuczynski told me I needed to be in Anchorage for the silver salmon runs, I have to entertain myself in Alaska for a month. Ideally, there will be lots of small lakes, full of trout and grayling. That is my quest and I searched the web for two hours last night finding all the lakes with campgrounds in the area.
I drove from the town of The North Pole into Fairbanks. Four bars of cell service and every big store one would want. Costco gas is only $4.69 per gallon so I’ll try to stay near that gas station. I made a 3 nights reservation at the Russian River Campground near Seward, about 700 miles away. With my America the Beautiful lifetime pass I only have to pay 31 dollars for 3 nights. The Russian River is a CLEAR river that has hundreds of thousands of sockeye salmon coming up the river in June and July. My reservation is in a week or two, so I have to find some places to stay, even if I’m only camping UGH!
After lunch, I headed south back towards Delta Junction, checking out campgrounds and possible fishing opportunities. The first 3 lakes were huge, and the 4th campsite wasn’t near a lake. As it got later, I had gone all the way back to Delta Junction, 100 miles away. I found Quartz Lake, much too large a lake for me, and the campground was a parking lot with picnic tables. Desparate, I drove back to Delta Junction for cell service, and did some more research, to no avail. On my way back to the “camp site”, I notice that there was a more normal campground just before the parking lot. Since I had picked and paid for site #8 in the parking lot, I spent the night in the normal looking campground.
Camping for a couple of weeks is my reality. My goal is to find lakes that I can fish near campgrounds, but no luck today. Maybe tomorrow.
Tight Lines!