From David Miller, fishing with Mike Gorton at the Goodnews River Lodge

A few months ago, our good friend David Miller fished with Mike Gorton (who also guides down here) in Alaska at the Goodnews River Lodge.
He supplied the following report and photos from his trip, and while it’s taken me too ling to post it here (with all of my long-winded musings about braking off fish and cloud cover, it’s hard to keep up sometimes…) I hope you enjoy the following photos and report.

Nathaniel,
My first trip to the Goodnews River was in 1982. I have fished 16 weeks on the river.
Here are some representative pics. I have lot of them:

We fished for silver salmon (Coho) for 7 days. There were also dolly varden and rainbows, but we concentrated on the silvers. They are indeed the predator salmon. We took fish everyday with poppers on 7 weights. When the wind and rain came (daily), we switched to 8wts. I used my Shilton reels.
We were at the Goodnews River Lodge in western Alaska. The village of Goodnews is 500 miles west of Anchorage on the Bering Sea.
The Goodnews River is in the Togiak Wildlife Refuge there are 3 rivers in this refuge. Mike Gorton -yes the guide from Big Pine- is the owner / operator.
One picture shows sea lice on a salmon to indicate they have only been in the river 24 hours. Aug 29th had the full moon ( it was a Blue Moon), and the fish surged in on the high tide.
We fished in heavy weather most days, as you see from my raingear. We traveled to the Goodnews village (population 285) on this 1950 vintage DC-3, fully restored (see above photo)
I only wish I could have been the pilot!

The Angling Company would like to thank David Miller for a great guest report, and maybe next time he’ll get to drive the plane. From what I’ve heard this is a pretty amazing place, and if you want any more info go to their website: www.goodnewsriverlodge.com

ncl