Gonna go fishin'

Kenai River Reds

As the month of July gets closer my thoughts turn to fishing for Reds. During lunch today I was looking through photos that my co-workers had taken over the years. I found this one of Kate and I on a group Silver salmon fishing trip to Clear Creek about 4 years ago. No, that's not a Silver by her feet, it's a Chum. We were a little late that year and the creek was filled with Humpies and Chum. Kate and I limited out on Silvers in spite of spending all day catching and releasing the "lesser" salmon species.

Team Building

Fishing Trip

As a team building exercise, 7 of my coworkers and I went salt water fishing out of Seward on Tuesday. We caught a lot of small Halibut, large Silver Salmon and 1 Ling Cod. We also limited out on Black Bass. The seas were relatively calm, no one got seasick, and the weather was mostly cloudy with occasional sunshine. A good trip, and a nice break from the drudgery of office work.

Summer Vacation

"Reds"

Tomorrow I have to return to work for the rest of July and the month of August. My 2 week summer vacation is coming to a close. The first 5 days I spent doing projects around TrippingOverMoose Ranch. From the 15th through the 22 I drove the motor home to Sterling and fished for Reds in the Kenai River.
(note: For anyone who reads this and is not familiar with Alaska, "Reds" are Sockeye or Red Salmon.)
Fishing and timing were good and I probably put enough fish in the freezer to see me through the winter. But since my daughter and her family are staying with me I'll most likely need more. We'll hit the Silver Salmon run hard when it starts.

September is hunting season, 2 weeks in the back country chasing moose.

Chitina Dipnetting

The Trail From Hell

On June 26, my middle sister's birthday, (happy birthday,) my brother, my nephews and I drove to the Copper River at Chitina. The old road downstream from Chitina to the salmon dipnetting area follows an old railroad bed perched precariously on the edge of cliff. Above the road bed rises a mountain of loose shale covered with timber and top soil. Landslides and mudslides during wet wheather are common. Below the road bed is a 50 to 250 foot steep drop off into the Copper River. The lower part varies from shale slide areas, shale slide areas covered with loose soil and trees to vertical cliffs of shale. The first 10 miles of road to OBrian Creek has been maintained and actually improved slightly in the last few years. There is no problem driving a 4X4 pickup to that point. However after multiple large mud slides a few years ago the road past OBrian creek is officially closed. Climbing on our Honda 4-wheelers we continued past the large orange signs that warned you of possible death and trekked the 8 miles back to Haley creek. That meant traversing several slide areas on sketchy 4-wheeler trails weaving between Volkswagon sized rocks that are just waiting for the next rain to destabilize the mud enough so they can continue thier slide into the Copper River below. We caught 6 fish in 10 hours. (When I say "we" I'm including all 4 of us although actually the nephews caught the fish.)

It was a fun trip anyway.

First 2009 Salmon Fishing Trip

The Russian River.

Brother Glen and I played hooky from work on Thursday and drove to the Russian River to join the stampede for our part of the record setting Red Salmon run. It being Thursday morning when we arrived the fishermen lining the bank were 10 to 15 feet apart. For Russian River combat fishing that not too crowded. The wait in line to get into the parking lot at the ferry was only 40 minutes. Considering that the Alaska Fish and Feathers Department had doubled the daily bag limit to 6 fish, we actually stayed and joined our fellow fisher folk. This is unusual because as a general rule we hate combat fishing. We fished the Russian in our youth when the population of Southcentral Alaska was a quarter of what it is today. On more than one occasion in the last decade and as recently as 2 years ago we have made the drive, taken a look at the crowds and driven home without wetting a line. After our ride across the river on the ferry we found room and began trashing the water. All around us people were constantly hooking fish. Maybe 1 in 12 of the hook ups were legal, that is hooked in the mouth not snagged in the tail, back, or belly and could be harvested instead of being released. We each landed a legal fish in the first hour. For the next 5 hours or so the ferry brought another 25 people to join us about every 10 minutes. As the new people arrived the space between fishermen slowly shrank from 12 feet to 3. I gave up when the space between people got to 6 feet. I had at least 10 tangles with someone else's line. People were starting to get hooked by flying hooks and whacked with flying sinkers. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching. My brother lasted several hours longer than I but landed no more legally hooked fish. In the early afternoon an adult Brown Bear came out of the woods across the river and walked to the rivers edge creating an otherwise empty river bank as people pulled back giving him all the room he wanted. He seem unconcerned by the hundreds of people sharing the river bank with him. After a few moment he trotted back into the woods. At which time I remembered I had packed my camera in the back pack.

P.S. I forgot to take pictures not only of the Brown Bear but of combat fishing itself . If you've never seen it check out these links for pictures...

http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Combat_Fishing_Photos.htm

http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/ro/sd_notes/winter_07/russian_rv/bears_russian.shtml

http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/Management/areas.cfm/FA/kenai.russian

Summer Hours

Why does every muscle hurt at the end of the day?

With summer well under way and the weather cooperating for a change, I am attempting to get as much outside work done as is possible at TrippingOverMoose Ranch before...
a. The weather changes to crappy, cold and rainy like most of the last few summers, or
b. The salmon return to the rivers of southcentral Alaska.

Most of the work is being done by a fat, 56 year old office worker, that would be me, with occasional help from the much younger resident son-in-law on the rare occasions when he is not working at his job.

I/we are making significant progress but unless something really interesting happens the blog posts this summer will be few and far between.

Happy Memorial Day! At the very least, let's pause for a moment and give a thought and a thank you to all of America's Fallen Military Heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be free.
Let us honor them by remaining a country of free individuals, with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.