Boys in Big Country: 

A Father-Son Fishing Trip to Alaska

广阔天地的男孩们:

父子阿拉斯加钓鱼历险记

当我们从小径走到瀑布的俯瞰处时，两个孩子张大了嘴，睁大了眼睛，他们对 Steve 和我说：“爸爸， 爸爸！看！ 看！ 哇！” 十几只棕熊在河边巡逻，其中一些距离我们站立的高架平台只有几公尺距离。 较小、更年轻的熊在岸边漫步，捡起大熊吃剩了的鲑鱼来吃。 当密集的红鲑鱼群向上游冲击的时候，河流沸腾了。 巨大的成年熊占据了最佳捕鱼的地点，有的捕捉正想跳过瀑布的鲑鱼。 其他的熊冲入水中，活的鲑鱼就在它们的嘴中挣扎，惊慌失措的情景就在整个河流中的鱼中爆炸开来了。

When we came off the trail onto the overlook at the falls, the two kids stood open-mouthed and wide-eyed as they said to Steve and me things like: “Dad, look! Look! Wow. Dad!” A dozen brown bears patrolled the river, some only yards from the elevated platform we were standing on. The “smaller,” younger bears roamed the banks, picking over half-eaten salmon. The river seethed as dense pods of red salmon surged upstream. Huge mature bears staked out the prime fishing spots, some catching salmon as they leapt the waterfalls. Others charged into the water, coming up with salmon flopping in their jaws while the river around them exploded in a spray of panicked fish. 

我们在布鲁克斯营地，这是阿拉斯加 Katmai 国家公园世界著名的观看熊捕鱼的景点。 我 9 岁的儿子 Oliver 和我和我的好友 Steve McGrath 和他 11 岁的儿子 Aidan 一起，抽出时间来进行我们为期一周的钓鱼之旅，这也是 Steve 和我认为是一揽子历险的愿望。

Steve 和我在阿拉斯加和各地旅行了足够多的地方，因此也在我们身边看到过足够多熊。 但我们从未见过现在这样的事情。

源源不断的三文鱼从水中向空中跃出好几英尺高，极力对抗瀑布，要进入瀑布的上游 — 在任何一个时间，半空中至少有 10 条三文鱼 — 还有比我有生以来见过的更多的熊来抓它们。 我们看到一头巨大的野猪在瀑布底部占据了一个位置，一条一条三文鱼在几英寸深的水中滑过一块岩石。 它会用一只爪子猛击流过的鱼，咬住鱼，吃掉鱼头，撕掉一些内脏和皮肤，然后让被剥皮剩下的东西顺流而下，让鸟儿和小熊来争抢。 它不停地捕鱼，在它抓到第 36 条三文鱼后，我们就停止记数了。

我们两个都喜欢打猎、钓鱼、爬山，和露营，以至于我们每个人都在户外建立了我们的职业生涯。我们很幸运能够在北美一些最好的狩猎和捕鱼地点享受营地，但在过去的几年里，我们每个人都专注于更有价值和更具挑战性的事情：将我们对户外活动的热爱传承到我们的孩子身上。这些天来，Steve 和我没有交换关于我们的狩猎和钓鱼冒险的故事，而是主要谈论与我们的儿子们一起抓鲶鱼，或者分享离家很近的小型、不起眼的徒步旅行的故事。意识到我们多么渴望与我们的孩子分享这种生活方式，并在努力指导一个年轻人，怎么能够在工作、学校、运动、朋友，以及各种我们从未遇到过的现代生活中的各种干扰中成为一个户外运动者。为此，我们制定了一个计划。我们决定带孩子们去阿拉斯加，进行一次我们认为在他们一生中，只有在这个年纪才会有这样梦想的旅行。但是他们会意识到自己有多么幸运吗？如果没有，那又有什么关系呢？

抵达了旅馆半小时后，我们又回到了空中，这次是乘坐 Cessna 水上飞机，里面装满了钓竿（和大量的零食），前往一个小海湾，溪流涌入湖中。 这是与我们的第一次钓鱼的热身之理想场所。

Steve 和我让男孩们用旋转杆和 Vibrax 牌的假鱼饵设置好，在 10 分钟内，Aidan 钓到了一条美丽的湖鳟鱼。 Oliver紧随其后钓到的是一条肥大的北极红点鲑，然后是一只小河豚，它的帆状背鳍高高地耸立在斑驳的背上。

We were at Brooks Camp, the world-famous bear-viewing spot in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. My son, Oliver, age 9, and I were there with my buddy Steve McGrath and his 11-year-old son, Aidan, taking time out from our week long fishing trip for what Steve and I recognized as a bucket-list experience.

Steve and I have traveled enough in Alaska and elsewhere that we’ve both been around our fair share of bears. But we’d never seen anything like this.

A constant stream of salmon launched themselves several feet in the air trying to clear the falls—there were at least 10 in midair at any given time—and more bears than I’d seen in my life were there to catch them. We watched one massive bear take up a position at the base of the falls where one salmon after another slithered across a rock in a few inches of water. He’d slam down a paw, chomp on the fish, eat the head, tear away some guts and skin, then let what was left of the flayed sockeye drift down the current for the birds and young bears to fight over. We stopped counting after he caught 36.

The two of us love to hunt, fish, hike, and camp so much that we’ve each built careers around the outdoors. We’ve been lucky to share camps in some of the best places to hunt and fish in North America, but for the past few years, we’ve each been focused on something both more rewarding and more challenging: passing our love for the outdoors on to our children. These days, instead of swapping stories about our hunting and fishing adventures, Steve and I end up mostly talking about catching panfish with our sons or sharing stories of little, unremarkable hikes close to home. Realizing how desperately we want to share this lifestyle with our kids, and struggling with how to mentor a young outdoorsman in a life packed with work, school, sports, friends, and all kinds of modern distractions that we never faced, we hatched a plan. We decided to take the boys to Alaska on the kind of trip of a lifetime that we could only dream about when we were their age. Would they realize how lucky they were? Did that even matter?

A half-hour after landing at the lodge, we were back in the air, this time in a Cessna floatplane loaded with rods (and plenty of snacks), headed to a cove where a stream poured into the lake. It was a perfect spot to warm up with our first fish.

Steve and I got the boys set up with spinning rods and Vibrax spinners, and within 10 minutes, Aidan hooked and landed a beautiful lake trout. Oliver followed with a fat Arctic char and then a grayling, its saillike dorsal fin standing high over its spotted back.

Boy with an Arctic grayling

“爸爸，我们在新泽西州有这些吗？” 他问。 不，伙计，我们没有。

两个男孩笑着笑着，惊叹在他们手那条中坚硬明亮的鱼，并摆好姿势拍照。 他们每个人都在一个小时内钓到好几条鱼，也放掉了一些。 当他把另外一种假鱼饵装在钓鱼竿的线上时，Steve 微笑着说，“孩子们玩得很开心，”接着他就用他的摔竿把鱼钩摔了出去，很快就钓到了一条属于他的湖鳟。 我用了我的串钩钓竿，并钓到一袋各种混合的鳟鱼和鲑鱼。

我们告诉自己，这次旅行完全是为了孩子们，但是另一方面是指导年轻垂钓者，是向他或她展示捕鱼是怎么一回事，不是吗？ 当他们在投钓、抓鱼、大喊大叫时，Steve 和我在教导他们，一个充满坚韧不拔鱼类的荒野湖泊是世界上最美妙的地方之一。

“Dad, do we have these in New Jersey?” he asked. No buddy, we don’t.

Both boys smiled and laughed, marveling at the hard, bright fish in their hands and posing for pictures. They each caught and released several fish over the course of an hour.  Steve smiled and said, “The boys are having fun,” as he tied an egg-sucking leech on his leader. He threw a fly cast into the wind, and quickly hooked a lake trout of his own. I rigged my 5-weight and started catching a mixed bag of trout, char, and grayling.

We had told ourselves that this trip was all about the kids, but part of mentoring a young angler is showing him or her how it’s done, isn’t it? As we cast and caught and hooted and hollered, Steve and I were teaching them that a wilderness lake full of aggressive fish is among the most wonderful places in the world.

He caught a lake trout

Varieties of Arctic char

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