Beat the crowds for salmon

I cheated by going to Talkeetna a day early for the Moose Dropping Festival last weekend. You see, the Friday before the festival was the last day of king salmon season, and I had my favorite riverboat operator run me to a special place.

Fishing along the road in Alaska usually means combat fishing in a crowd when the salmon are in. Doesn't matter whether the fish are kings, reds or silvers. Guided fishing, on the other hand, gets real expensive, real fast. Figure on a couple hundred bucks a day when you add everything in. There is, however, an alternative.

Mahay's Riverboat Service in Talkeetna will run you up the Talkeena River to the mouth of Clear Creek--and bring you back whenever you say--for just $45 round trip. While there are almost always some people at Clear Creek, it is nothing like the popular roadside streams. And, if you go at the end of August, you'll still have plenty of fish, silvers and chums, with virtually no competition unless a bear wanders by. Several times in the last week of August, my friends and I have had Clear Creek to ourselves.

Some of the best fishing I can remember in Alaska has been on Clear Creek drop off with Mahay's. They've been around for more than 20 years now and run an efficient, safe operation that will get you both a taste of the wilderness and fish for the freezer for very little money.