Other than that, it’s when the tides let us. “The season is more when it’s warm, not so much the frozen ground. “Depends on the tides, really,” Brooks said. “How much time do you think you spend out here, and is there a season,” Wright asked. His name is Nathan Brooks, and he’s game to answer Wright’s questions over King’s protest. “What if they don’t want to share their secrets?” Wright wondered aloud.Ī pitbull named King is keeping watch around a fresh pit in the sand. His owner is in hip waders, spraying seawater from a hose into the pit. We head over so Wright can ask one of these DIY dredgers about what they’re doing. The rafts are tied up to old pilings and big rocks that’ll be underwater when the tide comes in. The beach itself is pockmarked with unnatural pits about as deep as a bathtub. The combination of improvised, DIY stuff and special gold-sifting gear probably ordered off the internet looks real janky, like something out of “Mad Max” or “Waterworld.” The rafts themselves are made of pallets, wood and big foam blocks lashed together, about the size of a big mattress. It’s weekend warriors’ gear for recreational gold dredging. On this day, we count seven different rafts on the beach with motors, pumps, hoses, ropes, wheeled sluice boxes and plastic tubs. Nathan Brooks sprays seawater into a small pit on the beach near Sheep Creek in Juneau on May 15, 2019. And you know, I’ve just always been curious.” “And then one day, there was maybe one? And it just seems like, within a couple years there were many. “If I recall correctly, my first years here, there were no dredgers here,” Wright said. Ferocious,” Wright said.Ī few years back, he says he started noticing someone showing up on the beach with a different hobby. “This is probably one of the first places I fished when I moved here, and the first place I broke a rod, here as well.” I’m 32, so that’s a good chunk of my life,” Wright said.

“I’ve been fly fishing in Alaska - Juneau specifically - for seven years.

It’s after work, and the summer sun and the tide are out at John Wright’s go-to fishing spot in Juneau: the wide, sandy beach where Sheep Creek meets Gastineau Channel. The slurry gets pumped to the top of his sluice box. Nathan Brooks sprays seawater into the sand at the beach near Sheep Creek in Juneau on May 15, 2019, while his pitbull King watches.

Can you use a small dredge in alaska