You know I have always thought the chase is better than the capture.  The capture is sweet, but I love the chase. I love everything about sportfishing in the Matanuska Valley.  The glaciated Susitna River has so many world class, clear flowing tributaries.  I spend a lot of time, that’s an understatement, fishing and guiding salmon and trout charters on the Deshka River, Willow Creek, and the Talkeetna River. Also, the lower Little Susitna River because its silver and chum salmon fishery is out of this world good, and will rival most flyout opportunities in the state.  Not only do these places provide great fishing, but the scenery is awesome!  Getting to be in these special places on the river and embracing the PROCESS of what it takes to have the best opportunity to catch salmon and trout, is what is most important to me.  For me, I have several years and thousands of hours of experience and put some fish in the boat, running laps around most of my competition, but I don’t define a successful trip or measure my happiness by how many fish we catch, rather the overall experience. So many Alaskans and visitors define a successful trip by how many salmon they killed or how many rainbows they caught to put on their Instagram.

 It never gets old! The variety, the different conditions, the different species.  One year, I could barely get my boat upstream on the Deshka River due to low water. We were catching extremely fickle light biting silver salmon on my custom #6 pink nymphs.  The following year, the water was raging. I could barely get my boat to anchor, a lot of the other guides had called it quits, and we were absolutely crushing silver salmon on sardine wrapped K13, K14 and even K15 Kwikfish. I think I could spend the whole summer just driving my Alumaweld supervee jet boat on braids of the Susitna River. Seriously, the river is pushing 3 miles wide in spots and is composed of hundreds of braids and it’s always changing.  Imagine driving your jet boat through an old growth spruce and cottonwood forest. Sometimes after guide trips I push the limits to see what the equipment can do.  

I want to be on the river all day and have a good time. I want my customers to have a good time, by enjoying fishing. I enjoy being on the river so much, not only because of the clean air, the wildlife, the awesome boat ride, wading in the water, netting fish, fishing with my custom rods, but because all of the hard work has been completed. I enjoy all the hard work, because I love fishing. For every guide trip I provide there is at least 3 hours of prep I complete, in order to give the customer the best opportunity.  Pretied leaders, planning, strategizing,scouting, boat maintenance, rigging rods ect…  I sometimes bring 20 pre-rigged rods on my powerboat trips. I want to be ready for every situation! These are all things I love. To be honest I can’t wrap my head around seasoned anglers and guides in this area being sourly disappointed because they didn’t get to kill any salmon or rack up numbers on trophy trout.  What’s even more dimmented in my brain is the number of guides here and everywhere, who define a successful trip by how fast they limit the trip and get the customers out of their boat and back to the hotel room.

Today, with social media, the internet and online forums, everybody is looking for a short cut.  I mean everyone seems to want directions to the sweet spot. A pin sent from an iphone and then they’ll make sure they are there before everyone the following morning. Astonishing the number of people trolling social media pages looking for a sweet spot. If you blatantly plagiarize someone else’s work vs. learning and experiencing the river for yourself, you are missing the whole point of sportfishing in my eyes. If you are depending on someone else’s sweat and time, just understand that you are avoiding the PROCESS of what it takes to be the best fishermen with the best opportunity to be successful on a consistent basis.  The PROCESS of fishing the river is what I love and cherish. To be blunt, I really don’t care what the other guides or anglers are doing. That’s an intangible factor that is not going to affect how much fun I am having on a trip.  So many people get negatively affected, when they find out someone else caught more fish than them. Are we kids in the sand box?  You get one chance to live, enjoy every fishing trip and never take it for granted! The best fishermen are very instinctive and know how and when to adjust to conditions and changes in fish behavior.  The best time to learn is when you make a mistake or have a poor day in terms of numbers of fish to the boat. I want to go out and fish hard, cover water, explore, bring a variety of techniques/baits/flies and be creative. I definitely enjoy learning from others and I am very observant. Nothing wrong with asking for info, but there is no substitute for on the water experience and time, and it’s the journey and PROCESS I love!

We live in a society now that has an attention span of about 90 seconds. Everyone now seems to want an instant response, instant results and that’s not how sportfishing works. If you have to have fish in the cooler in order to have a smile on your face, call me! I’ll show you how to have a good time on the water, regardless of how many fish are biting; and you know what? You’ll definitely find out that Ben Allen knows a thing or two about catching trout and salmon in the Matsu Valley.

Fish On!
Ben Allen

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