Italio River Silvers

**skifishbum** · 10-11-2007, 06:40 AM

Here is a tr and a few pics fro my trip to AK.
The Italio, actually 3 rivers, is a 10 minute bush flight out of Yakutat.
Our hosts were http://www.italio.com.
Not a lodge, but more of a deluxe spike camp.
In AK fashion the weather sucked most of the week, but the fishing was good. Close to 2 fish an hour overall. There was a few breaks in the rain and clouds and a day and a half of good weather.

A typical fish

High tides 10-7' pushed a lot of fish into the river and allowed the guides dogs to do a little fishing for fish trapped in tidal pools.

The third day brought sunshine so we headed down the beach, on the back of 4 wheelers to the old Italio for some sight fishing.
This was the my fav. although the shallower water and large #'s of fish led to a lot of foul hookups.

My pops w/ a nice fish.

A beach scenic

That evening the sunset was awesome and my dad and I fished till dark

The last hook up of a sweet day

No AK trip would be complete w/out a bear encounter and I'm kind of bumed no one got a shot of me waving a 14' rod in the grizz's face while yelling at him and trying to remain calm. I don't think they can smell fear cause I'd a been eaten if that was the case. My dad was in the river w/ a fish on the whole time. The bear circled around and snarled a few times while eyeing the salmon in my hand. I managed to back away and exit stage left.

The last day was down right brutal wind gusts ~ 50mph and sheets of rain. I could only convince one other guy to go out and fish, but we got em even in those conditions and the bush flight out was scarier than the bear encounter at least for me.
Big fish

little fish

It was sweet to feel the rods bend

And good food great company and a FKNA sweet trip