Alaska Adventure - Part 2 Hunting in Alaska and fishing for grayling

Hey Luke here with the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel and welcome to part two of our Alaska trip. Excited to go get a fish Nathan? Well my brother and nephews showed up and uh we're going to try to see if we can't catch a salmon or two before we uh take off and do a little hunting. So you're doing a great job keeping them away from the water there Ransom. I really appreciate that. You want to catch him? Use your hand. I'm like how'd you miss that? You see that? See this is what happens after they spawn. Yep or she's about to spawn. That's it. Pacific salmon they they swim upstream spawn once and then they die and you see how she's got these little yellow spots on her skin she's starting to decay already and you'll see this there'll be thousands of them dead along the river by the end of the run. Well we were hoping to pull out one more salmon before we headed off on our hunting trip but uh yeah you know that's how it is that's why they call it fishing right? So uh but we got to pack up and do some driving because we got to get to the Denali highway. Hey Nathan are you stepping on my rod? You're doing a good job getting up that hill. Before we take off and go hunting need to load up on some protein. We are going to we're going to make some serious steaks here. Oh yeah that's what we're talking about right there. All right you guys want some steak? Yes. Tom you having a good time? Like your dinner? Good. We got enough gear you think? This is wrong right here. I brought a suitcase hunting. Oh look at me. Got my mani-pedi kit in there you know my facials. Oh yeah that is so wrong. Are you still too busy with the cat with the uh? Filming you work yeah. Okay this trip hunting trip just got started. Where is he? Yes. Is it one in the chamber? Yeah one in the chamber. It's on safety. Okay so a spruce grouse ran across the road and flew up into one of the trees. Well he got away this time but uh that's a really good sign when we've made it only a couple hundred yards and we already saw one. This trip is off to a good start. We're gonna drive for about two hours up to Cantwell and then we're gonna camp and hopefully tomorrow we're gonna shoot ourselves a caribou or something else. We'll really shoot pretty much anything. Oh there's an octopus. It's time to go to bed. It's midnight. I'm exhausted. This is one of my favorite fire starters. It's a potassium permanganate and a little soap glycerin. It's a one-to-one ratio that's just magnesium that you use in a in a uh water treatment. A lot of people use it in their house to remove iron. But it's a it's a oxide. It looks like black powder. And you stick a little glycerin on top of it to do that. Is that oil? No we made an awesome chemical reaction. Oh that was awesome. That was awesome. We gotta do that more often. Okay I got a little bit of a confession to make. Last night I ended up eating like two whole steaks. Huge ones. Yep and it was awesome until I woke up in the middle of the night with this horrible like heartburn the flavor of steaks and I got out of the tent and just threw up everywhere. So I'm taking it a little easy this morning. I may not eat steak again for a little while. The worst thing in the world is barfing your brains out and then having Montreal steak seasoning go up in your nose. It'll turn you off. All right let's get going. All right you guys ready to go get some caribou? Let's do it. All right so I'm here with my brother and we are on the Denali highway and our goal today is to shoot something. We are hoping for a caribou but we will take a spruce grouse, some bear, wolf. I mean this is a big list. It's a big tent. Everyone's welcome and the Denali highway is an interesting place. This is the Denali highway. It's a two-lane dirt road that's about what 120 miles long. 140. 140 miles long connects two of our highways and there's not really anything on it. There's no cities or anything in between. There might be a gas station somewhere on this highway but as you can see we use the term highway very loosely here in Alaska. So but anyway we're gonna spend most of the day driving through stopping and glassing for a caribou and maybe catching some grayling and we're gonna have a fun time. All right we're gonna get on top of this little knob here start glassing see if we can see anything. See those tracks down there? Those might be polar bear tracks. Well we found an airstrip that's Alaska for you. Just random airstrips out in the middle of nowhere. Blueberries everywhere here. Just pick it up with your fingers. Another one? Watermelon berry bush. There's so many berries. Crowberries down here. What are those? See those are watermelon berries. Here put it in your mouth and spit out the seeds. Yeah oh look there's a dead caribou. All right just need to find the rest of it. Oh I haven't fly fished for grayling in forever. One of my favorite fish to catch on a fly. So we're gonna see if there's any in here but this is a good looking spot. Look at this. Isn't this a beautiful fish? Oh they are so gorgeous and they are just amazing fun on a dry fly. That's the first art of grayling I've caught in many years and it was just as awesome as I remember. I'm gonna get some more of those. I can see the grayling down in here. The water is so crystal clear. I bet if I stick my gopro down in the water you guys will be able to see them too. Look gorgeous. Switched over from an elk hair caddis to a mosquito pattern. Nice. Look at the colors on these fish. Are they not just incredibly gorgeous? Tapping I get a little excited. This has just been amazing but uh we've got to go get set up. We've got 40 miles yet to travel so better get back on the road. This is a lovely diversion. Tommy you feeling warmer? Can you say salam alaikum? Very nice. All right let's let's catch a fish. Okay so this is like muskeg. And this is what tundra looks like. And you can see right there that that cut area right in there that's where permafrost has been exposed and is melting. All right pull up a little bit. That's a good looking creek. We are going to go and do a little grayling fishing. Well this looks pretty awesome. Let's see if we can't get a grayling or two. Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! It's officially a hunting trip and a successful hunting trip. Nice. Oh yeah. You got it. There I flushed up two others. Yeah look at that Tommy. Tommy is that pretty cool? Yeah. Here Tom, Tom you want to see a little prize? Surprise? Okay here you go. I saved the head for you. You want to hold it? And check this out Tom. See look how he's he's starting to turn white. See they turn white in the wintertime and in the summertime they're brown and right now it's the fall so he's half and half. He's half white and half brown. Alaska state bird right there. Mom's be so proud. Don't don't lick it. Don't lick the head. Don't lick the head. No kissing. Don't kiss it. Don't kiss it. I'm snuggling with it. You're snuggling with it? That's a dead head. We went hunting and we killed something and shot the gun a whole bunch. We didn't like that one. But what is that? He's talking about what is that? Here Tom you want the claw? I need a collection of claws. You want a collection of claws and bird heads? Yeah. There you go not a ton of meat but there's a ptarmigan. You can always eat the gizzards and the hearts and some of the other organs but I'm not really gonna do that today. We're gonna try roasting a ptarmigan like we do marshmallows and we're gonna season the ptarmigan with some of this Montreal steak seasoning which after last night I don't know if I'm ready for but it's all we have. I'm not much of a chef when it comes to wild meat but one thing about it is they're very lean. Ptarmigan has almost no fat in it so if you slow roast it like a chicken I think it's going to end up pretty tough so instead I'm going to try to sear it a little bit. I could be doing it completely wrong though. We're gonna find out. Over there looks pretty good still still pretty soft. Not too bad still a little pink on the inside but not too bad. That's really good. That's good? Nice. It was really quick to cook I mean I think it was only in the fire like two three minutes max. Yeah yeah I think that's the key just go real quick. Yeah come on I'll show you the pump. See that big handle? Grab that handle and start pumping up and down. Tommy are you upset that I threw the ptarmigan head away? Yeah. Were you going to collect it? Oh well I'm sorry buddy we had to throw it away. Mom doesn't want us bringing that home. Feel a little better? Yeah. Good. Good marshmallow Tom? I'm gonna make you one. Well that was a block. Well it's 6 30 in the morning and I'm the only one up. I'm gonna go do a little fishing here. Let everybody wake up on their own time. This looks promising. There we go. Nice. You know they're just an amazingly beautiful fish and they always love to take dry flies. Let's get you back in the water. We used to come here all the time as kids. About once a year our family would take the motorhome up here. We'd camp and pick blueberries and catch grayling. When I think about this place I think about eating homemade pancakes that my mom would make with blueberries we picked the day before. Oh he's got such stinking small mouths and he's got all three barbs in him. Geez. Okay let me get my forceps out. Oh look at that. Got him out. Let's let him go. That takes me back man. That's old school for me. This is how I grew up fishing. Right here. I gotta tell you I'm really excited about breakfast. I've got a big thing of fresh berries and some uh oatmeal. I'm really looking forward to it. It's gonna be good. Yeah I caught a couple. I caught a couple grayling. Well Tommy have you had a good trip? Yeah. You'd like camping? Yeah. All right Tommy you ready for some blueberry oatmeal? All righty. Okay let's make sure we don't put it away that way. Is that good? Yeah that's good stuff. Look at this. Rose hips, watermelon berries, crowberries, blueberries. This is breakfast a champion. That is so good. Well we've had a good time here on the Denali Highway but it's time to break camp and get headed home. We have about a five and a half six hour drive back to Anchorage and I'm looking forward to seeing my wife and little Nathan. So we're gonna we're gonna get going. There's lots of places in the U.S. where you can go and see nature. The difference with Alaska is the sheer volume of it. This is pretty much what we've been doing for the last two days and nothing. It's just gorgeous. Yeah still stopping and checking for caribou. Hey there's the Alaska pipeline up on the horizon. The uh forensic. Go follow him back in there. If there's a clearing back in there you can get a shot. Souvenir. Dad what is that? Oh dad there's a skull right there. Pulling the teeth out. This is crazy. We saw three caribou run across the road right in front of us so we get out of the car go chasing after them see if we can find an open spot. We ran across probably seven caribou kills just in a short period of time. There are tons and tons of caribou oh droppings caribou trails over here but it's so thick. Yeah I just doubt we get an open shot um but man there's tons of them in here and we're supposed to be home in a little bit so we're gonna pile back in the car and keep driving down the road. Was that fun? Yeah. Yeah I'm wet how about you guys? Tommy I think you're one of the few people in the world that has gone caribou hunting in their pajamas. All right let's get some food. Y'all have a good day and enjoy. Thank you. So let me show you what $14 can buy you in rural Alaska. A Hawaiian burger. Tommy you like your hot dog? All right we stopped in downtown Eureka to get some gas so uh there you go. Well hopefully you like this video and if you'd like to see more videos like it check out part three of our Alaskan adventure and don't forget to click subscribe to get more videos from the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel. We put out new videos every week. Also if you'd like to learn more about how to catch, clean, and cook wild Alaskan salmon don't forget to check out this video from the Catfish and Carp YouTube channel. I'll put a link in the description. Thanks for watching.