An Alaskan adventure

KOTZEBUE, Alaska — Growing up in Iowa, Nathan Randall fell in love with the outdoors early in life.

As the years passed by and he embraced all the hunting and fishing opportunities our state has to offer, he also began to sow the seeds of someday.

Night-fishing for giant pre-spawn walleyes on Green Bay? Mission accomplished. Snowmobiling across frozen Lake Cascade in Idaho in search of huge perch? That's where Randall, now living in South Bend, Ind., and his buddy, Tyler Lyon, felt like they had found the pinnacle of ice fishing adventures.

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"You know ... you can't beat a trip like this," Randall said, recalling what he said at the time. "Then Tyler found an online video of some guys up in Kotzebue (Alaska) catching these sheefish, and we found the new pinnacle."

Randall and Lyon began working out the logistics and in April, they joined Lyon's friends Tyler Ray and Wes Bronniman of Colorado for what would be an amazing experience.

When they arrived in Kotzebue, which is 549 miles north of Anchorage and 26 miles north of the Arctic Circle, they had to find somewhere to rent the equipment they would need to fish on the Chukchi Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean.

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"There's no outfitters up there," Randall said. "You have to get your equipment from a local or somebody. We found this guy named Lew Pagel. He's a chiropractor and a fishing guide, too. We rented a snowmobile and an auger from him and guided ourselves.

“We kind of went out just hoping for the best."

It wasn't hard to find out where the sheefish were biting.

"Lew gave us a few spots on a GPS that had been historically good, but our best luck was looking for piles of dead fish heads because up there it's not like fishing in the Midwest where everybody's trying to hide their spot," Randall said. "It's a harvest. Nobody's ashamed to say, 'Hey, you catching them? Can I come fish with you?' It's a really cool experience the way they treat it."

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Hunting and fishing are important parts of a subsistence lifestyle for many indigenous Inupiat natives. Sheefish, giant members of the whitefish family, are a key provision.

"We saw kids running around out there who were no more than 2 years old," Randall said. "They were out on the ice having a good time with their families. It was awesome.

"One of the coolest characters we met was a guy named Stan Norton. He's lived up there his whole life and is a veteran. He's an electrician, as well, so him and I kind of hit it off. We met by him just kind of coming over and fishing with us after we had caught a couple of fish."

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Randall and his group had dinner with Norton that night at one of the few restaurants in Kotzebue. They decided to fish together the following day.

"He brought out some dried seal meat, some seal blubber and then what they call muktuk, which is whale skin with blubber still on it. We tried that with him. The muktuk and the whale was very chewy, and you could tell it came out of the ocean. Would I try it again? Yes. Am I going back for a second piece? No.

"I really liked the seal. It was a better version of beef jerky, in my opinion."

Using primarily Doctor Spoons, the sheefishing was outstanding. Randall estimated the ice at 4-4 1/2 feet thick and somehow they managed to wrestle fish up to 40 pounds through the 10-inch holes they drilled.

"We didn't have too much issue," Randall said. "The average-size fish we were catching was right around 20 pounds. I was using 40-pound braid and a Whisker Seeker Whisker Stick catfishing ice rod. The locals were using anything from a caribou horn to a stout stick they whittled out of a 2-by-4. We lost some fish with the rod and reel, but you get a lot better chase and a lot better fight."

Eventually, it was time to return to life in the lower 48.

Randall gifted his rod-and-reel combo to his new friend, Stan, along with half of the fish they caught.

"He was just a real good guy," Randall said. "It was a favor that he brought out the whale and the seal and shared a bunch of his stories. I told him there was one requirement. He has to catch a lot of fish on it. He didn't have any problem with that."

Then it was back to return equipment to Lew Pagel.

"It was funny," Randall said. "When we were returning our snowmobiles and the sleds and the auger, Lew goes, 'How'd you guys do? Did you get any big ones?'

"Tyler Lyon says, 'Well, yeah, Nate caught a 40.' Lew kind of chuckles and says, 'A 40-incher, that's a nice one.' Tyler goes, 'No, it was 52 inches and 40 pounds.' Lew gets all serious and says, 'What did you do with that fish?'

"Me, I'm thinking I screwed up or did something wrong. I said, 'Well, we were going to let it go, but we were fishing around a bunch of locals and I would have been shamed for wanting to let it go, so we kept it and put a knife to it.

"Lew says, 'Well, that's a shame. You would have had the world record for catch and release if you let it go.' I looked it up on our flight back home and Lew holds the world record for catch and release."

As for the sheefish they brought home, Randall said they are excellent tablefare.

"We've fried it, pan-seared it, smoked it ... I haven't found a bad way to cook it. They're in the whitefish family, but I think the best way to explain it is if a salmon and a halibut had a baby. It's nice, white, flaky meat but it still has a high oil content like a salmon."

Lyon filmed extensively throughout the trip, and Randall can't wait to relive the Chukchi Sea adventure.

"It was hands down the best ice fishing experience I've ever had," he said. "I don't know what to do now."

There's been talk of flying to Denmark to go ice fishing for zander, a larger cousin of the walleye, but quality ice isn't always available there. Randall also has kicked around the idea of a non-ice fishing trip to the Amazon.

Then he figured it out. Those somedays will have to wait. Kotzebue is calling.