A young Yukon on the Fly

My pops just sent me some pictures from my first experience on the fly. It was a "family" trip to Alaska. During the trip, we had a stop in Skagway and my dad hired a guide to take me and my sister fly fishing. The guide, who was apparently trying to start a hunting/fishing lodge in British Columbia, took us to a stream that connected two lakes that were located adjacent to the south of the Klondike Highway just across the border in BC.

The guide put us on to some (in retrospect) ridiculously good dry fly action for grayling. I can recall making 10 to 20 foot casts upstream with a big bushy dry fly in a stream that seemed to be maybe four "Ivans" or in this case "Yukons" wide. The excitability of the grayling was impressive. Many of the takes seemed to occur at my feet.

Unfortunately, if my memory serves me correctly, I brought the most grayling to hand, but my sister caught the biggest fish of the trip. Outfished by my 10 year old sister. Needless to say, I am used to people I fish with getting bigger fish than me. (It will change, it must)

I remember feeling extremely uncoordinated as I brought the easily fooled grayling in. Afterwards, I told my mom that I felt like I left a piece of myself in Alaska and I had an interest in picking up fly fishing. Flash forward about 12 years and I have been fly fishing for about two and half years and I have a what some might call a crippling addiction to the sport.

A young yukon wading the waters of B.C.

the seed has been planted - my first fish on the fly - a grayling.

Apparently, I have had life long issues with good hero shots.

Welcome to Yukon Goes Fishing

To my many (maybe two or three) future followers,

I am graduate student studying fluvial geomorphology, applied hydrology, and environmental geochemistry at a fine institution in Missoula, MT. Originally from the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the eastern US, I have always been a fan of all sorts of fishing. However, during a "family" trip up to Alaska when I was in high school, I fell in love with the sport of fly fishing. Now, what I did up in the great north, B.C. to be specific, could hardly be called fly fishing. "Casting" a dry fly about 10 feet upstream and witnessing six gullible arctic grayling take my fly literally within a foot of my feet over the course of an hour was technically fly fishing, but it has occurred to me that those were a unique set of conditions. Not knowing how to cast, the hydraulics of open channel flow, and information about the life cycle of a mayfly, I consider myself lucky to have caught anything that day. But, I guess that is what guides are for. Since my first experience fly fishing in Alaska, I have yearned to learn the art and skill of catching trout on the fly. I went back to east coast, ventured to Ohio for college, and the dream took a backseat to other pursuits. But, upon arriving in Montana two Augusts ago, I made it a goal of mine to learn how to fly fish. Under the guise of field experience, I set out on what I hope is the life-long pursuit of fly fishing this past summer. With the help of a fellow grad student, the internet, and local fly shops, I am now fully immersed and/or obsessed with fly fishing. This blog will serve as a personal fishing log for this and many more fishing seasons to come and a general outlet for my fly fishing obsession.

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