River Life

After spending all of the next morning on the river with no luck in pulling in a trout I decided that I would use my time to explore the area with my camera. There were a number of paths throughout the 500 hundred acre ranch that one could use for this endeavor. I'm pretty sure I walked everyone of them during our 4 days at the lodge.

About a 2.5 miles stretch of the property is used specifically for trout fishing. As one walks about the property the discovery of a number of natural springs feeding into the river seemed liked finding the secret to this place. Along these natural springs the diversity of wildlife and plant life was simply amazing.

As you walk along these springs one couldn't help but notice the wild water lillies growing along the banks in certain areas. If you looked long enough within the little pools of still water beneath where the lillies grow, small tadpoles could be seen swimming in between the roots of the lillies.

Every now and then you attention would be diverted by the sounds of wild birds flying about in the surrounding fields. Seems like they were calling you to come explore the field with them.

Going further down the path one also notices a group of flowers that dots the pathways along the edge of the fields. This particular time I was able to capture a picture of the numerous butterflys that we've seen darting about in the woods and fileds.


Along the river edge we saw ground hogs, muskrats, snakes, countless insects darting in the air and on the water. There were also a set of mallard ducks and Canadian geese that would fly-by ever so often waking you up out of fishing slumber.

As the sun rose higher in the sky it did get a bit warm for this Alaskan visitor. As you can see by the photo of the butterflys I wasn't the only one who was thristy. Every 20-30 yards I would come across a group of butterflys drinking from the wet river banks. This group was thirsty enough to let me get a shot of them. The yellow ones were much more cooperative than the dark blue butterflys.

Here are a few shots of the river taken at various locations. The river was very shallow in most places but every 20-30 yards there would be these deep pockets of water. Most of the larger trout were taken from these type of holes as the water was much cooler.

Portions of the river run through grass lands and along several pastures as well as at the base of a mountain.