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

Another Day in Paradise

Minding my own business...

I was sitting at a stop light, waiting for it to turn green. The left turn arrow for the lane on my left turned green and the nice lady in the SUV behind me punched it. She caved in the back of my Subaru. She didn't want to report it to her insurance company, she'd pay for it herself.

I drove directly to my son-in-law's work to get an estimate. $2800 dollars, preliminary because none of the actual estimators were there, probably higher.

The NADA high retail for my car is $2100. I called the nice lady with the SUV with the news. She had decided to report it to her insurance after all. There is no way her insurance is going to fix my
$2100 dollar car.

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.

Obama’s $100 Million Cut

President the Budget Cutter

Today, President Obama called for $100 million in budget cuts. Out of a $4 trillion in spending this year, this is the rounding error of a rounding error:
· It is 1/40,000 of the federal budget;
· It is 1/7,830 the size of the recent “stimulus” bill;
· It would close 1/1,845 of this year’s budget deficit;
· It is the amount the federal government spends every 13 minutes; and
· For a family earning $40,000 annually, it is the equivalent of cutting $1 from their family budget.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/

34 Years ago

Yeah, I'm a Veteran.

A medic in the 101st Airborne, Kentucky 1975 and a young father with my daughter.

I've been looking at old photographs this afternoon.

Here We Go Again

Maybe...

The environmentalists won one of their constant nuisance court cases yesterday. Basically shutting down or at least delaying for some years the development of oil exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf. This is not good news for America, but good news for America is real hard to come by these days, unless your a liberal fascist socialist. Since I work for the exploration department of a "Big Oil" company in Alaska this is especially bad news for me and my coworkers . We just survived a layoff. However I was personally warned that there were no guarantees. More layoffs might come if the economic and political situation doesn't improve. Add this court rulings negative impact to Alaska oil exploration on top of the almost inconceivable liberal fascist socialist attempts of our President to destroy capitalist America and remake it in the image of the Soviet Union and I think it safe to say the economic and political situation is not improving.

Depression, both personal and in national economics is not a pretty thing.

http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/762894.html

Fascism - A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Point 1 - Racism: Remember the President's Minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Point 2 - Suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship:

Trying to remove the secret ballot from union elections with "Card Check."

Attempts to silence conservative talk radio by bringing up the "Fairness Doctrine" again.

The Department of Homeland security suggesting that to be right wing, to believe in states rights, be opposed to the current administrations policies, to be supportive of the First Amendment, to have served in Iraq or Afghanistan makes you a possible terrorist. As someone wrote recently, I guess 5 of the US Supreme Court Justices should turn themselves in.
Read:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTI1MTYwMjhmMjZkMmNiYjg1NGJhNmIyYzQ2NTk4Yjg=

Charlie

Howling Dogs and Coyote

One of the websites I visit every day is, http://www.dailycoyote.net/ The author, Shreve, posted an audio file of Charlie the Coyote and his buddy Chloe the Border Collie talking to thier friends a mile away. When I played the audio file, my Malamute, Shadow, was sleeping at my feet. He jumped to his feet with one loud bark and then immediately began howling back to Charlie and Chloe. I played the auto file three times in a row and he howled through all of them. When I stopped he ran downstair and out into the yard barking and howling for ten minutes trying to get them to talk back to him.

Sacrifice

From The Rush Limbaugh Show, March 31, 2009

"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings, Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master." - Ayn Rand

My Mother is Almost 80

And Spring Moose

We had a large family and friends gathering yesterday, a surprise party. She was very pleased. Her actual birthday is about a week away but everyone except my son the, Alaska Architect Geek student trapped in Montana, was in town this weekend. On the way home last evening my daughter, granddaughter, son-in-law and I saw 12 moose alongside the road in about 6 miles. The first four were running in single file across an open field glancing nervously back at where they came from.

Defenders of Wild Food

Defending Wild Food

Apparently Ashley Judd isn't too busy these days ... She's been out attacking Sarah Palin for supporting the "brutal Aerial killing of wolves," as part of Alaska's wildlife management program....An Alaska organization, Defenders of Wild Food, has crafted a response that's currently airing on TV in Anchorage and Fairbanks. It's one of the best political ads I've seen in a long time, and the ending is priceless:

http://www.defendersofwildfood.org/


http://corner.nationalreview.com/

Six Months

"Wait a year."

Tomorrow it will have been six months. Everyone told me wait at least a year before you try to make plans. They were right. At six months I have little enthusiasm for anything. I find myself unable to even figure out what to do each day, much less in the future. Everything I had planned to do involved Kate.
I survived, at least for now, the latest lay offs. This is a good thing because I couldn't afford to retire and really would have hated going and looking for a new job after 22 years at the current one. After the sigh of relief came the depression. I was pretty sure I wouldn't survive these layoffs and was already thinking about taking the summer off before I started looking for a new job. Now instead of that reality I have to, at a minimum for another four years, get up every morning and commute 50 miles to a job I have no interest in except the pay check. Of course my partner for 20 of those years was my Kate. Consequently everything and everybody reminds me of her all day long.
Maybe it'll get better in another six months.

"Change We Can Believe In"

Keep the Change

"Last week’s health-care summit made clear that, as far as the president is concerned, the question is not whether the U.S. will enact universal coverage but how. When Obama gets it enacted, most historians will revere him as the president who finally dragged barbaric Americans into the modern world. But some may note that the Obama system worsened results for the sick and killed the promising genomic industry, in which the U.S. currently enjoys a world-wide lead. These are the inevitable results of the Obama administration’s push for a statist health-insurance market that contains an underpriced Medicare as an option. The phony pricing for Medicare will draw vast numbers of enrollees, over 100 million in one estimate, and create a virtual single-payer health-insurance system. This system would control costs by rationing health care to the sick, especially when it comes to powerful, expensive new drugs. The U.K., for example, ranks last among the biggest economies in Europe in its uptake of cancer drugs and has the dreadful survival rates to prove it. If the U.S., which is by far the largest market for such drugs and the largest source of capital for their development, becomes a single-payer system, we can kiss this industry good-bye."