08:00 came around early after my accidental Bluegrass music ambush that I walked into last night.

We packed up at the hostel and left Talketna with fond memories and anxious to take advantage of a sun that was trying its hardest to break through the cloudy sky. We armed ourselves with a map and some locally tied flies and headed to the mouth of the Montana River, where it joins the Susitna River.

According to some local fishermen, the Susitna, which is so gray with silt that when you stick your hand in the icy water it comes up looking dirty, the salmon that are swimming upstream stop off at the mouths of the fresh water rivers to wash the silt from their gills. Of course, wherever the salmon are, the trout are not far behind, hoping to make the eggs their lunch.

After bushwhacking down several unmarked trails from the road, and walking some train tracks past several no trespassing signs, we hit the rocky beach and fished. After an hour, it was obvious that not only were the salmon running, they were doing a good job at running from us! Some other guys we were watching who were brave enough to wade out into the strong current did manage to catch a huge salmon. It is hard to believe that we came 5000 miles to fish and did not land a living fish, but hey – neither one of us noticed we were having such a good time!
Fish…what’s a fish?