My First Trip to Prince of Wales

My wife Kayley and I visited Prince of Wales Island on a steelhead fishing trip for the first time in May 2011. At the time we were both attending college and I was working at Big Rays Fly Shop if Fairbanks. Growing up in the interior of Alaska, steelhead fishing was a unique experience for us. We rented a car in Ketchikan and took the ferry to Hollis. On our way to the inn we stayed at in Craig we saw many Sitka Blacktail Deer, which was exciting for us because it was the first time we had seen deer in Alaska. We decided to take the do it yourself approach to steelhead fishing by exploring the extensive road system on the island with our rental car. Our first stop was the Thorne River. We found easy access on the lower river and we did manage a couple of  cutthroat trout, but did not have any luck finding the elusive steelhead. In the following days we explored the Luck Lake system and Staney Creek. We did see a few steelhead around but still had not convinced any steelhead to eat. With only two days left in our trip we were lucky enough to get some local intel on a creek that had received a good run of steelhead so we decided to go check it out. After finding access to the creek, we headed downstream. We saw a couple of steelhead but were striking out. We came upon a pool with a nice tailout that looked promising and began to make our way down. After a few minutes, bang. Kayley hooked up. The steelhead jumped and ran, and that's when we realized we didn't bring a net. The first time I tried to tail the fish it ran between my legs and I nearly went for a swim trying to get out of Kayley's way. We landed the fish on our next try and we were ecstatic. A little while later I hook another steelhead and we were so happy that we had finally figured it out. Catching a full grown steelhead on a creek that was less than 40 feet wide was an amazing experience. The fish would run hard downstream then jump and buck. For me the fight was like a cross between a rainbow trout and silver salmon. One of the hardest I've experienced. We spent our final days on this stretch of  water and it produced five steelhead, a nice cutthroat trout, and a nice dolly varden.  Although we were happy that we found success exploring the island on our own, we learned a valuable lesson on that trip. There is no substitute to local knowledge.