Grayling are part of the Salmon family and are "little" fish by Lake Clark standards. They have a beautiful dorsal fin that looks something like a miniature sailfish and stunning salmon-colored stripes on their fins.Wickepedia says that they top out at 30 inches in length. Mostly we catch fish anywhere from 8" to about 16" with a few rare ones in the 20-21 inch range. Today I caught a grandaddy of a Grayling. Really, it's not just a fish story! The tail sat at my fingertips and the nose came just short of my elbow. I'll have to get back to you on the official measurement!
We boated across the lake to reach the feeder stream and then walked across a gravel spit. As we waded up the mouth of the Kijik, the surface of the stream was dotted with tell-tale rings: fish mouths gaping, tails swirling, water boiling as fish rose to take insects off the surface of the water. The first cast that drifted onto the surface of the current was immediately taken by a fish and it was the same all day. They were rising to dry flies and would take almost anything you floated past their snouts but seemed especially enamored with Royal Wulff and tan Caddis flies. We caught fifty or sixty between the four of us, a spectacular day by any standard.
We only quit the river when the growling of our stomachs started to scare the fish off...
* I'll write more about Sockeye Salmon later in the week!
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