Emily & Luke's Travel Blog & more: Tangle Lakes/Delta River

Midnight fishing on the Tangle Lakes

Over the 4th of July weekend we canoed the Tangle Lakes/Delta River. We were accompanied by our friends Mike and Arrianne (who live in Brooklyn and were visiting AK for the first time), Jen and Scott, and Jeff and Heather (who also brought along Hadley and Harriet, their two dogs). It was a Jim Dandy of a trip. We had excellent weather except for the last day, although for the last section a light drizzle beats a headwind eight days a week and twice on Sunday!

Emily and I left Fairbanks Thursday afternoon and drove down to the Tangle River Inn to launch. The plan was for Scott, Jen, Mike and Arrianne to stay at the camp ground near the boat launch Thursday night (they'd be arriving pretty late after driving the Denali Hwy from Denali Park) and catch up to us on Friday morning. Jeff wanted to get a training ride in in preparation of defending his title in the Fireweed 200 bike race taking place the next weekend so he was planning to ride from Fairbanks to Delta Junction (about 120 miles from his house) where Heather and the dogs would pick him up. They planned to then launch Friday afternoon and try to catch us Friday night or Saturday morning on the float.

UPDATE: Jeff won the 200 mile race and set a new course record. Congrats Jeff!!

Emily and I had a nice tailwind on Thursday night so we decided to head down to one of the lakes and camp where we camped last year after our wedding ceremony. We got up the next morning to great weather and lounged around camp waiting for the rest of the gang to catch up. The wind had switched directions so we figured it may take the crew a bit longer to make it to us. I paddled around awhile casting for lake trout but didn't pull anything up. We decided to make an apple crisp in our dutch over as we figured they rest of the crew would be hungry after battling a headwind across the lakes. Deciding to give the fly rod a rest I casted a spoon from shore near camp and caught a nice lake trout. It was a pretty nice lunch of fried lake trout and apple crisp when Scott, Jen, Mike and Arrianne arrived.

We decided to stay another night at the lake camp and hope Jeff, Heather and the dogs would catch us later that evening. We dined on caribou hobo dinners and more lake trout (Mike's first laker). After dinner Mike and I headed down to the lake to cast for lake trout and and watch for Jeff, Heather and the dogs. Although we didn't see the rest of our party the lake trout action turned out to be pretty hot. Before too long everyone came down to watch or join in on the fun. The picture above is of me catching a 25" laker on my eight weight fly rod. We landed over a half dozen and kept one more that Mike caught (a 24-25 incher) to eat the next day. It was far and away the best lake trout action I'd ever experienced.

Jeff, Heather and the dogs caught up to us the next morning and we headed down the lakes towards the portage. The portage went well. We even passed a group that wasn't exactly packed for portaging (at least 2 large coolers, a 24 pack of 20oz Gatorade bottles, etc.). The rapids after the portage went off without a hitch and we headed down river to one of our favorite campsites, the beaver camp. At Beaver camp the water is calm for watching the beavers cruise and the fishing is good. We had an excellent dinner of venison fajitas, sat around the campfire and mixed in a little fishing.

The last morning we had a steady drizzle but, as we said earlier, that definitely beats a headwind in the final section. After a breakfast of cornbread from the dutch oven we set out on the final section. Despite the weather the scenery was excellent. Fortunately the weather broke by the time we got to the takeout so breaking down the boats/gear was a dry enterprise.

Another great trip down the Delta!