4 Days Camping & Fishing Remote Alaskan Wilderness

Tom here with the Outdoor Tom YouTube channel. Today, we're going to the Noco River. For the next four days, we're going to be camping, cooking, fishing, catching sea fish, and giant pike. We need more than wishes for us to make it. Stormy weather, weary eyes, hope to make it through the night. Well guys, welcome to Bethel. You are welcome Tom. We're here with Papa Bear Outfitters and they're renting us the gear and giving us a ride over to our fishing spot. We're all right guys, you want to get some food delivered? Yes. All right guys, got your food? Yeah. Yippee. No, this kid. I forgot how cold it was. Tommy outgrew his waders, so we got him wearing mine. I hope you're ready for this. I hope Alaska's ready for this. Jerky is packed. So you got your seatbelts sitting there. You can leave the headset off for a second. I'll give you a brief. Are you touching at all? No. Pretty sticky bottom or it's not too bad? No, it's pretty solid. Good, well that's something. The river is flooded, Tom. I've got what, 10 feet tall, higher than they were talking. There's some bottom. Yeah. Here. No, it's been in a bad spot. We brought the waders. Oh man, he just went for that. Nathan. There you go. Cool. I'm so glad we grabbed the chest waders. Mosquito in my sock. How did that happen? Get out. Oh. Dad, there's so many mosquitoes here. I swatted one. I took out three. It's hard to do it when there's very few. Should I push him, give him a big push on that front? Sure. All right. When I say clear, just kind of give it a push. All right, no problem. What do you think the first thing we need to do is? Find where we're going to place our tags. Take care of those. We only got three. You don't want them to get ripped. And here's more bug spray. Nathan, you want to use your new Malaysian machete? Yeah. Here. I got just the job for you then. I want you to clear away, clear away brush. Got it. Here, Tom. Here's your knife. So we know that there's firm ground up there. There was that bluff over there that looks good. So let's go up above the alders so we can see what we're doing and go find a campsite over by that bluff and then we'll use the machetes to cut a trail. Okay. Oh, look, it's a game trail. What do you think cut me in that, Tom? Moose. Yeah, it's probably moose. Yeah, it walked right up there. You see this big lake behind me? That's actually a river. We're on a big slew of the Anoka River right now. Oh no, a whole bunch just got down in my sock. Sorry. I'm getting swarmed. Mosquitoes are thick, aren't they? Take a spray and spray down your boots if you want to keep them out of there. What do you think about this right here? Looks great. Oh, that's lumpy. Let me try. Lay down on it. See if you want to sleep on it. Yes. The big thing is it's dry. Oh, I climbed up my nose. I think we can get the boat and park it right here and put a camp right on top of this little and that's probably our best option so far. What do you guys think? Bust out the head net. Oh my gosh, you have so many on your arm. Oh, look at that. Oh, I made my hand wet. Got to be careful putting on this net. I'm just going to trap lots of bugs in with me. There's a few trapped in here with me. I keep flying in my neck gaiter. Probably the reason why I'm wearing this gaiter is because I don't want to swallow mosquitoes when I breathe in. Tom, you know why there's so many mosquitoes? Why? They drink the nectar in all the berry bushes here on the tundra. So all the blueberries and crowberries, all this tundra is full of berry bushes. Instead of bees, we pollinate with mosquitoes here in the interior. And they suck our blood. Yeah. Any gas in there? Yeah, we got 20 gallons of gas. That's weird. I think there's supposed to be a floor in here. What's happening is the shaft is getting out of the water and it's cavating. Yeah, I think this is missing a floor. It's rippling the floor so bad the engine is twisting. So dad, what are you doing? Well, I'm using the inReach to send a satellite message to the outfitters and see if there's a floor missing or something. All right, we'll send that message off and see if we get a response. It'll take a few minutes. Let's go get the tent assembled so that whenever we get cold and hungry, we can get right to it. It's nice to get a break. Tom, do you know what time it is? What? It is 10 30. Shall we go and get our tents out? Are you going to poop? Do you have toilet paper? Yes, I do. You don't have a ton of toilet paper? Oh, I'm not going to use a ton. Those mosquitoes are going to have such a good time. Do you want bug spray? That boy's going to get eaten alive. This is the tent that the bear bit a hole in. Is it repaired? Yeah, I patched up the hole. Hopefully this will go better. Didn't you fight that bear off with your bare hands? Or did you scare it off? I think I prefer the cold over the mosquitoes. Yeah, you can see why I like winter camping so much. Yeah. Why are they swarming me? We need to pick our spot really carefully. The spot that's most level. Okay, this is how we're going to test. Watch out. Ready? Let's see. We're going to test for pokey bits. Look at that. I'll just sit there and let them attack me and I'll take out as many as I can. Take that stuff to the boat and I'm going to start getting all the fishing gear together. I went down in the water. Listen guys, it's about 11 o'clock. How about you guys hop out of your waders, get in your tent, kill all the mosquitoes, and I'll make dinner real quick, okay? Sounds perfect. Okay. Kill them all. Here we go. A table. I'm going to go get some water out of the lake. It's a good thing we brought this stove. There's not a lot of firewood out here. This is white gas. Hold on. I'm getting messages from... Oh, they said, yeah, they accidentally sent us the wrong boat. They said they're going to, they're going to come over and they're going to bring an electric pump and some help and they're going to get us taken care of. That'll be fine. They said they'll be here by nine in the morning. Mosquitoes have gotten burned. Excellent. I just got to make sure I don't melt our luggage. That's how I roll. I'm glad we decided on hot dogs. It is so late and it has been such a slow start to the day. It's kind of how it is usually the first day on camp outs, you know? Oh yeah, it's, it's midnight. Insert the hot dog in the hot dog hole. There's my hot dog. There's the hot dogs. Go, go, go, go. Very good. And how's that hot dog, dad? I gotta work around. Kill them all. They're trying to murder us. They're on my face. Look what mom made us for dessert. Butter coconut mochi. Mom makes the best butter coconut mochi. Do you want me to send you in some pieces? Yes. Butter mochi is so good. It's crazy, like all of a sudden the mosquitoes just kind of disappeared for a second and then they'll be back in like this enormous swarm. I think they're gathering their buddies past all of our bedtimes. Mosquitoes, you need to go to bed. Well, today was lovely and it started off slow, but tomorrow we're going to have a lot of fun. And hopefully I'll sleep well tonight and the mosquitoes won't kill me. I know what you devils want. Good morning everybody. Today is the second day and I hear dad has been up and doing stuff already. So what'd you do? Uh, caught a few pike. Awesome, how good? Some pretty decent pike. How about this, why don't you get up? I'll make some breakfast. So what's for breakfast today? Thought we'd do some oatmeal. Does that sound good? Awesome dad. Peek the mosquitoes out. Dried strawberries and a bunch of raisins and a dash of mosquitoes. Adds extra protein. There we go, let that simmer for a while. That's good hot mosquito water. Oh, I just swallowed a mosquito. A little bit crunchy. You know what, I think this is done. Oh, that's a lot of mosquitoes in Nathan's hot chocolate. Oh, there's mosquitoes. Don't worry. I hope it doesn't bug you too much. Wow, this is actually really good. It's bulgy. Tune in, I'll put the transom on. You guys have a good time. We'll see you in a little bit. Hey, that was a long trip to bring that out and I appreciate it. Thank you. We will do both. Will you guys do the dishes and I'll put away everything else? Is that cool? Yeah. Can use this as a scrub brush. Nathan, can you get on that far side pontoon? Let's see if we can get on stuff. Yeah. Try to work the shore and me and Nathan, we try to get more of the open stuff. All right, Nathan. You got it? Oh, the she fish. Come here. Oh, I saw that thing jump. She fish loves to jump. Holy crap, Nathan. I'm so jealous. That's awesome. Oh, great. Hooks it. Look at that. Here, Nathan. Okay. That is so sick, Nate. Smile, Nathan. Smile. Yeah. During the winter, this fish lives in the salt water. Then they migrate into the rivers to spawn and feed. They're like called the tarpon of the north because they like to jump. I've caught them ice fishing before, but it's not the same doing it on rod and reel. That's awesome. She fish run in schools. That means there's usually a lot of them. All right, get Adam. My buddy hooked a comrade at once. Guys like this? Yeah, it's really nice. I don't even care that I haven't caught a fish or caught a bite yet. I'm just glad that there's no bugs. No bugs. It's sunny. Not right now, but most of the time it's sunny. It's just relaxing. Oh, no. That's a fish. Oh, look at him. That is a big pike. Oh, look at it. That is the biggest pike I've ever seen. Look at that. He ripped off. Oh, there he goes. Nathan, high five. That was like a 40-incher. That was a big pike, Nathan. That was like bending my rod here. Where was the net? Not bringing a bigger net was a huge mistake. I can see we're going to pay for that. Yes. Look at that. There's a big chunk taken out. It's torn there. It's torn there. It's like attacked there. That looks a little angry. I can literally see the rain. Retreat to the tent. Let it pass. Hurry, get in. Well, the rain's passed and it's searing hot in here. Lizzie, you guys want to go fishing? Yeah. All right, let's do it. I'm getting out. God, it feels so nice outside. Caught a pike. What do you catch it on? Dad, what do you catch it on? Oh, nice one. Not as big as Nathan's, but bigger than the one I caught this morning. Nice, about 35. Yeah, he had a bite. Nathan, do you want to go and just cast out? All right, Tom, hold that. Keep him out of the engine. Keep him out of the engine. He's off. I saw him. He wasn't here. I got snagged on the boat and got away. Sorry, Nate. Yeah. Good. Good job. Got him loose. Oh, got one. Yeah, they're so aggressive. They'll hit it just again and again. I left it raking. You got one? This is like the average size ones, but still. Oh, well, if you want to eat one, that's a good size to eat. Here, you want to get a picture of them? Oh, yeah. Nathan's right there. There's one. Let's get him. There's Nathan's fish. Oh, there you go. Hit that little thing. Put him on this side. Oh, he ain't going nowhere. You okay if I just let him go? There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a bad pike. Is that as big as mine? Nope. Get it in there. Okay, look at that. It's not as big as Nathan's, but that's a pretty decent pike. Tom, what are you using now? A baby duck. It's a baby duck lure. Over here, put that in the water. I'll show you what it does. Oh, he's bringing it over here. It's so cute. It's so cute, I'm going to die. So cute, I want to eat it up. Literally right after I said I want a big fish, I got a fish on. Purple. That's a nice. Oh no, it nailed that. Sounds like it broke something. You got him? Yeah. Okay, look at the teeth on him. All right, should we let him go? There you go. Oh, look at that. Look at that. It drops off right there. The nice sea fish. Look, it got a squirt mouth. This is the fishing rod and reel I bought in Kyoto, and it is working great. Look at that. That is a nice sea fish. Thomas, come on, join the party, man. Oh, I got one. Yes, yes, gobble. Oh, I see that. Oh, please, Tommy, catch that one. I think it's smaller than the other one. Oh, that's a pike. Oh, I got one at least, so that's something. I'll let him go. I just hope he doesn't bite me. I don't want him to bite my family. Reel, reel, hit, snag. All right, fish. You lost vengeance. Oh, he's off. Oh, spin him. Oh, hook him, hook him. Oh, he touched him. Yeah, I touched him. Dad, what are you talking about? That's the best cast I've ever seen, Dad. How's everyone? There we go. Oh, there we go. Well, it's about six o'clock and we skipped lunch, so we're heading back to camp since we're hungry. You guys want to come back here and fish some more? Definitely. Mosquitoes, stop photobombing. Yeah, Tom, you want to try pineapple tang? Oh, don't mind if I do. Oh, man, that is amazing. Yeah, I like that. There you go. Thank you. Nathan, you ready for food? Do you know what day of the week it is? Taco Tuesday. Look, we're covering the mosquitoes in nacho cheese sauce. See, look at that one right there. Oh, there he goes. Got him. Here. I don't like the mosquitoes. Filming this is going to be a bad reaction. Do you want any of the green stuff? Yeah, I do. It tasted really good. Just do the same thing you had last time. Oh, you got new water? Yeah. Oh. You guys want to go catch some more fish? Yes. Listen, we need to get a little more fresh water before we do. Sounds great. Now we eat brownies. And this is called not sticking to your diet. Diet don't count on camp outing. We don't want to drink the lake water because it's got so much tan in it. We want to look for a fresh creek that's dumping in. Looking at the landscape, where do you think the best place to look for a creek is? If you see a notch in the hill, what does that mean? Oh, it means creek. It means a creek is cutting through. Now, Tom, do you see a notch in the hill right there? Grab the empty water, all the water bottles and the water filter. Is that where a moose was eating? Yeah. You guys, can you hear it? Yeah. Give it a taste, see what it tastes like. No, no, don't drink it, but you can give it a taste to see if it tastes good. Some water just tastes like garbage. What do you think of it? That's fine. Better than lake. There we go. Filtered water. And of course, there's cottonwood right next to it. Yeah, there's some big ones. All right. You ready to get some wind? Yes. She fish like brass spoons. You really need to. But we're in the main current of the Enoto right here. Oh, right there. Oh, another she fish. Brass spoon is working good. I've got a bunch of them left over from ice fishing. Are you trying to kill them all? I wish I was a fish. Outdoor boys review. It's 10 o'clock, guys. You want to go and watch a movie or something? Get ready. Get in there. You still have your boots on, young man. Yeah, let's make some room. We got to try your knee. Well, it's late. We finished the movie and I'm tired, so I'm going to go to bed. I'll see you guys tomorrow morning. Well, good morning. Today is our third day and it's pretty nice out and dad's cooking breakfast. Hey, Tommy. Good morning. Hey, dad. Morning. It's a beautiful day. It's a little bit of a breeze. Sweetened condensed milk and cinnamon roll frosting. That looks amazing. You want that? There you go. I've got a chocolate croissant, if you guys want to. Here you go, Tom. Dad, did you get back from pooping? They bit me in my no-no place. Oh, it's so itchy. Well, breakfast was lovely, but funny thing actually, it's super hot here and I want to strip down in my t-shirt, but I can't because of all these bugs. I have to keep layered on. Otherwise, they'll start getting me. Dad, you're super hot. Yeah, I'm getting hot too. I'm looking forward to getting on the boat. We can take our jackets off. You know, one nice thing about mosquitoes, they keep the bears away. Really? Yeah, I'd rather have bears. Yeah, some days, I agree. You ready to get away from these bugs? So ready. You guys want to take off your layers? Oh, heck yeah. All right, you guys good? Yeah. Oh, it was more of like... Dog's got, what do you got? Pike or sea fish? Don't know yet. That is a nice pike, buddy. Like 31. Yeah, 31, 32. That one's hefty. We should have brought a scale and some measuring tape. That works. You gotta... The wind's being kind of nasty. Let's try fishing for shore for a little bit. Absolutely. And just... Oh, you see it? Yeah, I saw it. Oh, gee, heck yeah. Oh, right in the... Oh, come over here. Walk backwards. Oh, Nathan, that's a big one. That's the... Holy... That is the biggest pike we've landed in the net. That's 40 inches, I swear. This is more on par with that other one, but let's see. That's 10 inches. I think he's 41 inches. Look at the size of him. And there, and there. You got him? Yes. Okay, that was some sick photos. Okay, you ready? Release it, buddy. Whoa, look at this. Get a little cleaner water, just like this. Oh. Oh, dad got one. Look at all the cotton on the line. I hate the cotton. The wind was blowing, it blew all the cotton, wood tree cotton into the line. Oh, looks like we got some marks. Seal, maybe? Yeah, yeah, probably a seal. See all this white stuff on my line? This is cotton, and there's so much on it that I can't reel in. All this cotton comes from cottonwood trees. Here, try reeling that in now. Look at all the cottonwood tree cotton. No wonder my rod's getting so jammed up. Oh, dummy. Got another one. Geez, I've cast three times and it had three fish Oh, cottonwood. No. Dad, dad, dad, pull on the line. Look at that. That is a nice sea fish, Tom. All right, should we let him go? Yeah. Look, he's ready to go. Didn't let him go. There you go. Five. Ah, the cotton gummed up my rod so bad I had to hand line the fish in. Oh, look at all the cotton on Nathan's line. There's so much cotton at this spot. I think we're going to end up having to cut our lines and move to a different spot. You guys want to go try to move spots to find a place with less cotton? Yes. Let's get a little bit of down here. It just died. Motor just died on me. Uh-oh. Now, here's the thing. Let's try to get back while it at least starts up. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, that's like three-quarter throttle. We should be up on steps. There we go. Oh, you see how it just kicked? Yeah. All of a sudden, it just started doing what it should be doing. All right. Well, that was sketchy. Yeah, you don't want to break down out here. They can only come and rescue you if you break down in a place they can land a float plate. Otherwise, it's rough. So, you guys want to go back, eat some lunch, watch a movie, whatever? Sounds fun. It does sound fun. Here we go. Hey, Nathan, come here. Nathan just got back from his fourth time pooping today. So, you guys want these? Yep. All right. We'll do a mountain house for lunch. I got some cookies for dessert. Do any of you guys want Tang in the water, Nathan? I feel like that might help you drink more. Oh, I'd love some. Me and Nathan bought this in Palau. Is that good? Is that good? It's really good, but hot. Like that? It's not home-cooked, but sure is easy. I like dehydrated meals for like one day. Yeah. More than one day in a row, then I'm no good. I used my inReach to contact the owners, and it turns out it was just the cowling was messing it up. They walked me through it, and now it's running pretty good now. So, I think we can go out and fish. How about you guys? Are you guys running well, or are you guys tired? I'm doing great. I'm wide awake. I'm out of gasoline. Well, how about this? Do you guys want to go just take a little break, watch a little movie, and then once we've rallied, go out and hit some more fish? Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. You know you got to use the pillow. Get him. Get him. Look at that. Subias or something. Holy cookie. Well, how about this one? Yes, sir. I think that's it. Well, that was a good movie. So, Dad, what's the plan? Well, you want to grab some snacks, hit the boat, and finish the day fishing? Yes. Oh, it's a lot warmer out here today. So, Dad, why are you taking the hood off? I think it's overheating, or it's not getting enough air, and when we take the cowling off, it seems to run smooth. So, it seems to be working a lot better. Nathan. Nice one. That's a chunky one. That is all these pike are super big. I've never seen a small one. Oh, yeah. Watch your rod. Oh, it got loose. He's putting a decent bend in the rod. Oh, look at that. He was going for yours while he's got mine in your mouth. And this one's kind of silver. Yeah, I think. Oh, the biggest one we caught. Oh, there he goes. It's off. Oh, Nathan. Yes. Oh, I want you to take it. Nice. Nice fish. Back he goes. Oh, you almost took it. Here, get the net. Oh, he got it barely. That's a nice one right there. Okay, let's send it back. I think it's about 10 30. I think it's time to go. Yeah, I'm getting a lot better at that. Well, we're just putting away our stuff and getting ready to go to bed. Hey, Tom, do we have any drinking water left? No. You go filter some drinking water for us? Yes, I will. Yeah, the silver side reflects your heat. So, if you want it to be warmer, flip it over like this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's 11 o'clock and we decided to watch a movie. You guys begged me to watch a movie. Well, the movie was fun, but it's currently the middle of the night. I'm tired and sleepy. So I'm going to go to bed. I'll see you guys in the morning. Well, good morning. It is currently 1130. I slept in that much. The mosquitoes finally decided to eat me last night. But anyway, I'm going to go get up and start packing things up because in two and a half hours, the plane is going to be here. So, Dad, what's for breakfast? Well, I figured something simple. I'd make some hot chocolate and we got a bunch of leftover cookies, brownies and pastries. We kind of just eat that. Lemon cake, croissant and cookies. Dad, why do we bring up so much food? You never know what the weather's going to do. And if the weather's bad, they can't land the plane. So you always need to bring lots of extra food just in case you get stuck for an extra couple of days. But we ain't going to be stuck today. So eat up. Can we eat breakfast in here if we're good boys? Yeah. Look at all the dead mosquitoes from the getting burned up. You can't fly with any gas on a commercial flight, which we're doing tonight. So this thing has to completely evaporate out. So, you know, we've shaken out all the gas, but it's still a little wet. There's fumes in there. Yeah. Burn off the fumes. Sometimes when you do it, it shoots a flame out like a rocket if there's a lot. There you go. All the fumes are out. Here. Is that a spoon? There's that. Nathan, what do you want? Brownie? Cookie? Oh, I hear a plane. Oh no, I'm going to go deep. Yep, I can. Thank you. Well, I really enjoyed that trip. And if you want to go do that trip for yourself, make sure to go and check out Papa Bear Adventures. I'll put a link in the description. I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you'd like to see more videos from the Outdoor Town YouTube channel, make sure to click subscribe and I'll see you next time.