Late on a cool and cloudy evening just this past June, we found ourselves huddled around a tray of greasy hamburgers at the Northern Lights McDonalds in Anchorage, Alaska. We had just arrived after a five-hour flight from Denver on one of those miserable discount airlines which serves no food and even charges for the water – and we were starving. Nothing was open in Anchorage but the liquor store and Mickey-D’s and we persuaded our hotel shuttle driver Paul to stop at both.

As encouragement we offered to buy him a Supersize Big Mac meal, which he accepted hungrily and which seemed to only recharge his as yet non-stop prattle on every subject Alaskan, from Sarah Palin to the dearth of cruise ship passengers. We were curious as to how he saw the state’s sport fishing industry faring this season after the recent economic meltdown of the lower 49. Hotel shuttle drivers experience first-hand – and immediately – any shift in tourism and Paul was hardly quiet on the subject, blaming what he foresaw already to be a very slow summer not so much on the financial crisis but on the volcanoes.

Volcanoes? Yep, according to Paul, the reason many folks might decide against an Alaskan fishing vacation that summer is the risk (and subsequent cost) of being stranded in Anchorage. And he might have a point. A violent series of eruptions of Mt Redoubt (100 miles to the southeast) just this past March spewed enough ash into the atmosphere to blanket Anchorage with a dime-thin coating. This in turn forced the closure of Ted Stevens International Airport for several days and Alaska Airlines cancelled 185 flights. Had that occurred during the summer fishing season it might have put a serious hurt on a lot of folks trying to get into or out of Alaska.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that on August 7, 2008 an active volcano out on the Aleutian Island Chain named Kasatochi blew its top and, “stranded more than 6,000 travelers Sunday and Monday after a shift in the wind moved a giant ash plume into flight routes.” According to the paper, Alaska Airlines canceled the most flights (44), but Continental, Delta, United and US Airways also made ash-related cancellations. The grounded flights ended up "choking the airport with stranded passengers and creating logistical havoc for tourists booked on packaged cruises."

Paul claims there were two United jets grounded in Anchorage for a week, and a week-and-a-half respectfully, due to ash damage from Kasatochi, and a Delta jet was forced to land in Seattle for repairs. We were unable to verify those specific incidents, but we did find evidence of literally dozens of aircraft sustaining volcanic ash damage from volcanoes erupting all over the world in recent years. The most chilling account was that of a 1989 incident involving a KLM 747 jumbo jet carrying 231 passengers flying directly into a previous Mt Redoubt eruption. According to a report posted by the Alaska Volcano Observatory (www.avo.alaska.edu), “The plane unknowingly descended into an eruption cloud 150 miles downwind from the volcano [Mt Redoubt], losing power in all four engines as gritty ash and sulfurous gas filled the aircraft. After gliding powerless for eight frightening minutes and falling 14,600 feet toward the rugged Talkeetna Mountains, disaster was barely averted when the pilots restarted the engines and landed safely in Anchorage. Repair costs of the jet exceeded $80 million.”

Admittedly it’s a stretch to think that your favorite trout stream is going to suddenly be replaced by a lava flow, but it is curious to note almost every great trout fishery in the world is located in a region of volcanic instability, from New Zealand to Alaska, Kamchatka to Yellowstone, Patagonia to the Pacific Northwest. And the potential for even minor temper tantrums from any one of the approximately 1,500 active volcanoes on earth to disrupt or even threaten airline traffic is probably under-reported.

Of course any angler familiar with the great trout water of Patagonia knows of the recent events surrounding Chaiten volcano in southern Chile which erupted enormously in May of 2008 after remaining dormant for 9,000 years. The cataclysmic event not only diverted and cancelled air traffic across South America but it completely buried the village of Chaiten in ash, effectively closing the only arrival town and supply depot for several premier fishing lodges in the area. Chaiten erupted again in February, 2009 sealing the fate of Chaiten’s 4,000 residents who have now abandoned the village.

It is unclear just what impact the continued eruptions of Chaiten, and the additional April 2009 eruption of nearby Llaima volcano, may have had on the famous rivers in the area, like Rio Espolon and Rio Futaleufu, and their legendary fishing. John Pak, co-owner of Rio Espolon Lodge, which was forced to close after the eruption but hopes to reopen soon, claims there was never evidence of any significant fish kill in the area, but he acknowledges that every time it rains ash-laden runoff still clouds the rivers. Gonzalo Cortez, owner of Chucao Lodges (www.chucaolodge.cl) recently reported that the 2010 season has actually started off with some of the best fishing in years. He surmises that the heavy layers of ash that have finally settled to the bottom of lakes in the watershed have forced the larger deep-water trout back into the rivers where they are being caught with surprising frequency! But the real issue in the area for fishing lodges, at least from the Chilean side, remains logistics. Without the airport in Chaiten the transportation of fuel, supplies and customers remains problematic. A temporary airstrip has been constructed on a widened piece of road (which is working fine as long as the weather cooperates) but visual flight rules remain in effect and there is no shelter in case it rains.

So perhaps volcanoes should just be considered like any of the other natural events that periodically threaten our fishing, like wind and rain, droughts and floods, cold fronts and hurricanes, disrupted hatches or spawning runs, mudslides and forest fires, red tides and El Ninos. They’re certainly worth avoiding if you can, and leveraged when you can’t – because when they’re over, the fishing is usually sensational. Due to still-elevated seismic activity and a growing lava dome Chaiten remains on Red Alert by SERNAGEOMIN (www.sernageomin.cl), the Chilean government agency similar to our USGS. But just think of all that unfished water waiting for the first anglers to venture back into the area. Ticket to Patagonia anyone?