Free Extreme Fishing by Robson Green Page B

morning, and Keith is very confident we’ll catch.
    I raise a toast: ‘To good king salmon fishing!’
    ‘Slammin’ salmon!’ says Keith, and we will be.
    At this time of year, millions of Pacific salmon of all species, including the king (or chinook), pink, chum, sockeye (or red) and coho (also known as silvers), are making their epic journey
back to their freshwater homes after years of feeding in the ocean. And what’s more amazing is that they are returning to breed and then die. This life cycle is known as semelparity –
from the Latin
semel
, ‘once’, and
pario
, ‘to beget’ – although no one knows why Pacific salmon (
Oncorhynchus
) expire after breeding while Atlantic
salmon (
Salmo
) survive. It’s one of life’s eternal mysteries, but without their sacrifice the ecosystem in Alaska would struggle to thrive. These fish not only support human life
in this winter wonderland but also the lives of birds, otters, bears – and the forests themselves. The salmon bring with them vital nutrients from the ocean, such as nitrogen, sulphur and
phosphorus, which, via the wild animals that love to feast on them, fertilise the trees and plant life. Almost every organism around the river basin of Alaska has salmon in its DNA.
    After a breakfast of tinned hot dogs, waffles and cream at our Travelodge-type hotel, I meet up with Keith and his son, Ross. We are going out on his boat, the
Ocean Hunter
, in pursuit of
piscatorial royalty, and I’m excited. We drop anchor near Yukon Island in Kachemak Bay, part of the vast estuary where the Yukon River meets the mighty Pacific. Keith begins to explain the
method of fishing we’ll be using.
    ‘We’re running a twenty-five-pound test line with a flasher. This is gonna be like a school bait fish. All it’s going to do is attract and get their attention and they’ll
come up and look at this and they’ll see the bait dragging behind it,’ he says in his rugged way.
    ‘You give them a little tease and then they bite,’ I say, nodding.
    We’re also putting on a downrigger, a weight to keep the bait at a depth of fifty feet.
    Almost immediately Keith shouts, ‘Fish on!’
    ‘You are kidding me!’
    The line is away. I take the rod. The odds are stacked in my favour because unlike the fly reels I use, which are basic storage facilities for the fly line with little or no tension at all,
these reels provide up to fifteen to twenty pounds of tension along with a line that has a twenty-five-pound breaking strain. Nevertheless, if you don’t keep yourself focused and the line
tight, you will most likely lose your prize. I land the fish.
    ‘King on deck!’ says Keith.
    In over thirty years of casting a line for salmon and trout, this is Keith’s fastest bite ever.
    ‘That took us, what, a minute?’ says Keith.
    Thirty seconds, more like. I try in vain to deliver a PTC that will enlighten, educate and inspire the viewer but what they get is, ‘Hey . . . Woo, man, that’s a FISH! You’re
the man, Keith! You’re the lad!’ I present my catch to the lens saying, ‘This is the number-one salmon of them all. You’ve got your sockeye, your pink and your chum salmon
but this is why we came to Alaska. Every salmon fisherman’s dream is the king salmon.’ I then drop the fish. I bloody drop it. Keith and his son share a look of incredulity. Their
silence speaks volumes.
    Some time later, I manage to mend bridges when we start talking of our shared passion for fishing. Ross says, ‘Once you get addicted, you’re done.’ And he’s right: it is
an addiction, but what a healthy one – and you don’t need to spend months in the Priory to get over it, which is a key point to underline to loved ones when explaining long absences and
substantial financial investment in the sport. ‘Yes, I know it’s expensive, darling, but if I gave up fishing and took up crack . . . In the long term, fishing would be cheaper.’
Google the cost of the Priory. You could