Tony and Kristen from Kodiak Custom Fishing tackle, and Ty Wyatt, Glacier Bear Lodge's halibut captain took me along with them for a fun trip walking along the banks of the Situk. While wandering upstream in belly-button deep water, I hooked a hen early in the morning that caught the attention of a large otter that swam across the river to steal it from me. I found a small perch tucked into some willows where I could get out of the water and try to quickly land the fish. As I was leaning down to grab it by the tail, the otter popped it's head up only a couple feet away to my left. I tried to kick it in the head to send a message that I wasn't giving up my fish that easy. It showed it's teeth like an angry dog and lept back into the water, swimming upstream. I managed to land the fish downstream and safely release it away from the otter, but it was definitely humbling to know I was meddling with the local wildlife's territory.
In the evening, we headed back to tidally influenced water, and on my first cast, I landed my first ever tidally influenced steelhead on a bead, a mission I had been working at for some time purely out of curiosity how soon the feeding instincts of steelhead kick in and they begin viewing eggs as a food source.
Tony's fish was a redeeming note to end his visit, having been out-fished by his partner Kristen most of their time in Yakutat. As we continued to push the limits of the rising tide and a hot bite, we eventually turned around to notice the ground we were standing on was underwater, and so was our gear, so it was time to head back to the lodge.
