text: Now, Ive caught a lot of salmon in my day, but its all been commercial trolling and commercial net fishing. Once I was in the airport leaving Alaska and I got to talking with a guy carrying some rods. I asked how the fishing had been. He said it was great, hed caught 18 silver salmon. How did you do?, he asked. Almost shamefacedly, I admitted that during the season Id caught about 120 tonnes of silver salmon. So it was a first for me to try my hand at casting a fly for salmon in a river. Matt and a local guide did their best to school me in the arcane art, and Im proud to say that at no time during my rather alarming experiments did I actually hook either a tree, the guide, or my ear.