Fishing with the Fam, Part 1

My fishing seems to have outpaced my blogging by a fair margin in the past couple weeks. As much as I enjoy posting to this blog, fishing > blogging--and it's not even close. However, as they say, it's time to get back on that horse . . .

My first two trips since the last post were exploratory missions that netted a handful of salmon and a bit more knowledge of the local rivers. I forgot the camera in the truck on both trips.

Since last weekend, my mom, dad and brother have been up for a visit. With fish on the mind and an unusual run of beautiful weather, we wasted no time getting out on the water. The big push of pinks and chum salmon are all but over. They still line the banks, but haven't been worth casting at for a while.*
With the whole crew aboard, we headed North out of Anchorage this past Sunday to search out a few trout and see if we could find any coho loitering around. It took us a little while to figure things out, but eventually worked our way into some rainbow and a few grayling.
The grayling were a new species for me. I had fished for them a bit in Idaho, but my past efforts always fell short.
Eventually, I worked my way into some rainbow. I never got the impression there were a ton of fish in the water, but the deep pools and runs each seemed to hold a fish or two that would move for a fly. This guy topped out around 18 inches or so. At the time, Josh gave me that the fish was 19 inches; but, a few days later, Josh isn't so generous any more.
Here's Mom getting after it, with Karta supervising.
After lunch, we decided to relocate to a new stream. Here's dad testing out the waters.
More Karta supervision, this time with me fishing over a school of ~50 coho. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't do anything to move these fish . . .
. . . and neither could Josh.
Dad giving it his all--an effort I've replicated many times before after a hard morning of fishing.
After losing a gazillion flies, it was back to the bench for Josh and I.
Oh yeah, for those keeping score at home, I've evened things up with The Wife. Nice.

* As an aside, bring your dog fishing at your own risk these days. They love rotting salmon.