Trip Report - Silver Salmon Creek Lodge 2007

Lake Clark National Park, Alaska
August 24 – September 1, 2007

The Alaskan trip was a bit different than in past years with 1 night in Anchorage, 2 nights at Wind Song on Twin Lakes and 5 nights at Silver Salmon Creek Lodge. Half of the group arrived in Anchorage on Thursday. The group enjoyed this bonus day with a glacier cruise on Prince William Sound on a rare Alaskan beautiful clear day highlighting the top of the mountains.  The cruise folks had not seen the sun for 3 weeks and it had rained 10 of the previous days. For the remaining five of our group, 3 arrived Friday. Unfortunately, Pete and Perry had travel problems and became separated from their luggage. That problem was resolved between Alaska Airlines, Lake Shore Motor Inn, and Silver Salmon Creek Lodge while we were at Twin Lakes. 

Our guide, John Hohl met us at the LSMI 6:30 Saturday morning and helped get everyone to the Lake Hood Airport. Mark Madura of Madura Air had his Dehavland Beaver ready to take 5 of the group along with John to Twin Lakes, with the other five flown by wheel plane to Port Alsworth on Lake Clark.  After flying through a hole in the fog bank at the pass, Mark dropped the first group off on lower Twin Lake so we could fish Grayling on the Chilikadrotna River which is the outlet for the lakes. The Twin Lakes are located about 120 miles across Cook Inlet at the western boarder of the park north of Lake Clark.  Mark readied the cabins at Wind Song on upper twin and then flew to Port Alsworth to shuttle the other 5 to the river 3 hours later. At the end of the day, we all had our fill of grayling catches and were at Wind Song ready for the first of 18 hours of the best internal medicine from Mike Willard, plenty of adult beverages, and a wonderful dinner.  Most of the supplies had to be flown in by Mark and John ahead of time.

Mark stayed with us for the 2 days at Wind Song preparing meals with John’s help to create a special time for all of us. The next day, we fished rivers entering the lake and then traveled to Dick Pronneke’s historical cabin located directly across the lake.  Dick started work on his cabin in 1967 and completed it a year later. The cabin was built by Dick when he was 50 using only hand tools, many of which he had fashioned himself. Throughout the 30 years he has lived there, Proenneke created homemade furniture and implements for daily living. He not only filmed construction of his cabin but kept detailed journals, recording everything about his activities and weather at Twin Lakes. His story is captured in the book “One Man’s Wilderness”, first published in 1973 and reissued in 1999.

Early Monday morning, Mark shuttled the group in 2 shifts to silver salmon which required about 5 hours overall. We fished for silvers that afternoon and then settled in at the Iliamna House for another great session on GI diseases by Mike. Our days for the rest of the week started early with the outgoing high tide, 3 hours of GI diseases middle of the day and case discussions before dinner. We had 10 total registered for this program: speaker Mike Willard, Organizer “Martha”,  4 Texas Aggies (Mike Willard, Pat Breen, Jerry Ford and Mike Godin); Richard Burrows (Kingman, AZ); Pete Esterline now known as P2, and Perry Ragon both equine practitioners from Fowerville, MI; Cory Cherrstrom (Loomis, CA); and Eric Herrgesell (Sacramento, CA). The unique part of this group was Dr. Herrgesell, who is speaker for the Belize 08 program. Eric is a board certified radiologist who not only excels in his specialty but thinks and talks like an internal medicine guy. Mike used a lot of x-ray and ultrasound images in his case discussions, and the interaction between these two really added a new dimension to the sessions. I could not have planned it any better if I had the chance and we can thank Corey for inviting Eric on this trip. There is never a dull moment when Dr. Willard does his thing, but it was even better for all of us when Eric got involved in the discussions which often were quite “animated”. 

We had a special award for this program----the Folded Turkey Foot plaque. Everyone was eligible except Willard and Sawyer who served as judges. There were a number of qualifiers including P2 for being P2, Jerry who fished with a fly for about an hour without a hook, Richard who had a real encounter with a bear and others, but the winner was Eric. Not for his interaction during CE sessions but for ---- well you just had to be there. 

We will do Alaska again next year with Mike Willard as speaker, but about 2 – 3 weeks earlier with a different venue.  Fly out to Twin Lakes will be a part of the trip for grayling and pike, but the base will be King Salmon for bows, reds and dollies. Details will be provided in the winter issue of FLYLINES.  

I rank this as one of the best programs we have ever had in IAFFV history. It is tough to match with the variety of fishing experiences, Mike Willard’s expertise, accommodations overall, flying experiences, fantastic weather, and development of great friendships.  We were all sad to leave but are looking forward to next year.

Don Sawyer
Organizer

A released Arctic Grayling	Guide John Hohl with SS buck