read a fish study about Kagvik and planned on hiking up it a ways to see what holes lay above. All the months of planning and checking/rechecking our gear made it seem almost surreal that we were back on the river. As we pumped up the raft and started assembling the frame rails and the cross bars, we noticed we didn’t have everything to assemble the frame. We couldn’t find the bag of U-bolts that hold the chairs on the cross rails or the setscrews that bite into the frame tubing to keep the frame from shifting. We rechecked all the bags and had an inkling of emptiness, that punch-in-thestomach moment that makes you sick. As any raft owner knows, those parts are critical. They are used for setting up the cargo rack properly, holding the seats down, and keeping the oars from sliding left to right and up and down. You can imagine what was said after realizing we had forgotten those critical parts, considering we were 85 miles from the nearest town and not wanting to initiate a rescue operation. After some strategizing, Chris realized that we had a bunch of para-cord with us. His thoughts were to use it to fasten the cross bars so that they wouldn’t slide front to back, and we had the left to right covered by tie downs we hadn’t forgetten. With the midnight oil burning, he quickly ran the cord under and over, left to right, and repeated that pattern until the length of cord he had left was short enough to tie down. We had to make adjustments, including not using the front passenger seat. Instead, the cooler represented the passenger seat. The captain’s seat
Chris Dankmeyer uses a little Alaskan ingenuity - some para-cord - to help secure the raft. (CHRIS COX)
was utilized, but only because it leaned against the seat bar pushing against the back of it. After what should’ve been a stressfree evening, we hit the sack well after midnight and it appeared our jury rig was going to work. There would be no stopping us from completing this adventure, hell or high water.
THE NEXT MORNING, WE broke camp, loaded the raft, and then walked a mile, perhaps 2, upstream into Kagvik Creek to fish our way back down. We caught many Dolly Varden and Arctic grayling, even a chum salmon or two. We worked our way back down to the raft and set off downstream late in the afternoon. As we navigated a few bends after some stops to land a few beautiful Dollies, Chris saw what he thought were caribou on the mountain. We pulled the raft over to the bank and climbed a small bluff to confirm the sighting.
BE PREPARED FOR EVERYTHING We overcame our small setback by having the right tools with us. Always, always write yourself a gear checklist before departure. It’s recommended to have separate lists for the raft and parts, the fishing gear, the clothing, the food, and finally the camp gear. For this trip, we brought 7- and 8-weight fly rods and casting and spinning rods for medium- to large-sized fish. Great lure choices include spinners,
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ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL
beads, Dolly Llamas, Egg-sucking Leeches, and, if you want to fish the topwater, the AKGurgler and Mr. Hankey mouse flies from Alaska Fly Fishing Goods. You don’t want to be on the side of the river without the tools to get you home, trust us. The Noatak watershed is bear country; always practice good camp habits and be bear-aware of your surroundings when fishing or floating through this region. CC
OCTOBER 2017 | aksportingjournal.com
Through our binos, we viewed what appeared to be a couple hundred caribou in the distance, roaming across the mountainside. It was a real treat to see a different species, and this was only day two of our adventure. Back on the river we departed after a few successful casts for more Dolly Varden. As we headed downstream and around another bend, caribou were suddenly all around us, some crossing the river in front of the raft, others behind us, and even more to our left and right flanks. We could see and hear caribou in every direction and quickly maneuvered the raft over to the riverbank to get some steady pictures with the camera. Some walked 10 feet from us not knowing we were there. We held our breath and tried to be as motionless as possible as a few hundred passed by. Some were just a few feet from the scrum of brush we hid behind. The fishing around the next stop was pretty slow, and we ended up staying a couple of nights at Trail Creek, roughly 10 miles from our starting point. We hiked up the tributary a bit and worked our way back downstream, crossing the tundra in a few places while capturing the scenery that was all around us. We found our starting point upstream at the end of a rockwall that protruded a few hundred feet above the creek. An osprey’s nest sat perched precariously on the rockwall and two of the raptors flew above us as we worked the pockets below the nest. We headed down along the banks after not finding