Alaska's Remarkable Rainbows

September 14, 2006 By: Marshall Cutchin

“The trout fell back with the heavy splash that is the unmistakable sound of an Alaskan ‘slab’ — a thick fish measuring at least 24 or 25 inches in length, the caliber of wild rainbow that most fly fishermen seldom, if ever, experience.” Joe Doggett describes his annual pilgrimage to Alaska and Newhalen Lodge near Lake Iliamna in southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay regio. Besides pointing out the almost mythic quality of the rainbow trout fishing in that area, Doggett notes the increased threat of “subsistence fishing” — new rules that are being exploited because of the lack of enforcement — in this remarkable area. In the Houston Chronicle.