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.