Fishing

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Ling cod"][/caption]

It’s been a busy August. Lots of fishing, lots of work. It goes without saying that I’d rather be fishing. So I won’t say it.

We went on our 2nd annual halibut trip with Jimmy Swelltime out of Seward and it was even better than last year. Once again we got lucky and the guys we shared the charter with were pretty cool. There were 3 of them up from Minnesota on their annual fishing vacation – one being on his eighth year.

They all had terribly thick accents and as Wes said, it was like being trapped in a Fargo movie for 12 hours. I couldn’t help but laugh every time Hilly said, ‘Git ‘em, Jer-mee, you can doo et!’ and I wanted to ask Jeremy if he knew his name actually has three syllables, but he was the quieter of the two and I wasn’t sure how well he would take the ribbing. But they were wild guys, I’m sure he would have taken it just fine.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Hilly & Jeremy"][/caption]

The first Busch got cracked open at 9:30 when we dropped anchor and flowed throughout the day. They brought 2 large coolers and only one had a little food in it. But they maintained and never crossed the asshole drunk line. And they didn’t even give me too much shit when I got sick.

Yeah, sick. I refuse to call it seasickness because it didn’t last. I think it was a bad combination of no sleep, lots of coffee, generic dramamine and a strange sausage biscuit thing I got from the bakery in Seward. But once I puked up the coffee and biscuit, had a couple hours of sleep curled up in the tiny booth in the cabin, I was good to go. Evidently I didn’t miss much and we changed fishing holes a couple of times while I was out, but I never woke up. I needed the sleep. We had stayed at Miller’s Landing, in one of their ‘backpacker’ rooms and they suck. SUCK. The mattress’s shouldn’t even be allowed to be called a mattress. So don’t do it. Do not stay in the backpacker rooms at Miller’s Landing. You’ve been warned.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Captain Jim bonks a Ling"][/caption]

Anyway. Finally, about noon, I woke and we were at the Chicken hole. If you don’t know, a chicken hole is a known area where large schools of smaller halibut are known to be. I don’t mind the Chicken holes – they’re pretty much a sure thing, there’s not too much work in bringing the smaller halibut up and you usually get some bonus fish like cod, rockfish or quillback. Chicken sized halibut are also usually tastier than their larger, older fish.

Ling cod are my favorite to catch, though. They come up easy and they can be pretty big, bringing lots of meat for the freezer. And they sure are ugly. Almost as ugly as the halibut. That’s fine, I love them for what they are on the inside. It’s what is inside that counts, right?

So the fishing trip was a success and we ended up with about 60lbs of halibut and cod. That should make us plenty of fish & chips and halibut tacos to get us through the winter.

So then, the following Saturday was the Alaska State Fair and rodeo.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Flag girl at the Alaska State Rodeo, 2008"][/caption]

It was fun. The rodeo was kinda small, it rained, the PA system sucked and the roping was really bad, but it was fun. And bull riding is always fun, no matter how good or bad the riders might be. And some were actually pretty good. I finally had a chance to check how fast my new camera is and I got a few decent shots, except that I’ve only got a 28mm lens! There’s a few more photos here, in the gallery.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Get that ribbon!"][/caption]

The highlight of the event had to be when they turned 60+ kids lose on a calf to retrieve the ribbon tied to his tail. That poor calf sauntered out into that ring and was quite immediately descended upon by a screaming, racing mob of children. He made a valiant effort but got cornered in a round arena and an 11 yr old girl won the contest. I lol’d. There’s a few photos of that in the gallery as well.

After the rodeo we walked through the farm & animal exhibits, grabbed a funnel cake and headed home. By that time, people were shoulder to shoulder everywhere you went and they squeezed us right out to the parking lot.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Baahhh!"][/caption]

Tomorrow we’re headed back down to the Kenai and Uncle Jim’s cabin. Hopefully we’ll hunt down some nice silvers for smoking. It’s the last big meet-up of the summer and all the friends, family and neighbors from the cul-de-sac will gather for an end of the season bar-b-que and campfire bullshit session to rehash fish stories from the summer and tease Jim about how many times we’ve all heard his stories. It will be awesome.

And finally, there’s a nice tide so we’ll be hunting down razor clams, and then back home again on Sunday to process fish and clams. We could save so much money in gas and time in driving if we could just move.

Move.

Soon, we must move to the peninsula.

For now, I will continue to tend to my micro garden of tomatoes that has taken over my entire living room picture window. And boy oh boy, do we have tomatoes. I’ll have to post photos when my new lens arrives next week. Yay! A new lens! Actually two new lenses! I can’t wait! A Canon 28-90MM F/4-5.6 and a Tamron 75-300mm. Woot!

No sun for your garden and vegetables won’t grow? Alaska doesn’t care.

Only 2 days with temps over 70 degrees this summer? Alaska doesn’t care.

Your lawn look like Potter’s Marsh, only with taller grass? Alaska doesn’t care.

$300 spent on gas running back and forth to the soggy, rainy Kenai and you still have no fish for the smoker? Alaska really, really doesn’t care.

Alaska laughs at you and blows in more rain. Alaska dusts the Chugach mountains with snow and has major lulz watching you stare in disbelief, silently weeping for the summer that never was.

The Mighty Kenai

And what can you do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s gone on so long I can’t even complain about it anymore. Not with any heart, anyway. It’s beaten me. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m living one of those “remember that summer/winter” memories that we’ll all be talking about in a few years. Like the St. Patrick’s day we got 3 ft of snow in 24 hours that everyone compares any larger than average snow dump against. This is our new ‘Worst Rainy Summer’, a record breaker. This is the yang to the ying we’ve had the last few years.

Some rainy week in 2012 we’ll all be like, “hey, remember summer of ‘08? Now *that* sucked. 2 days above 70 degrees. TWO DAYS!! How did we ever survive??” And then we’ll feel a little better about not having the perfect summer, every summer.

So, I was contemplating this while we drifted down the Kenai on Wednesday, catching no fish in a slow, soggy drizzle. And I decided to look closer, a little harder, and saw the lush green spruce and alder that blanketed the mountains, and I saw the silty torquise currents of the Mighty Kenai that despite the rain, was still very clear. I saw the huge open skies filled with clouds that just made it all seem bigger and to go on forever. And then I saw all the guide boats that we were bitching about earlier, ripping up and down the river with their hard wakes, filled with tourists seeking the very same fish we were. And having no better luck.

Captain Ron

And it was so awesome. I had the greatest day ever because I knew that even for one of my worst days on the Kenai, for many people it was the trip of a lifetime. Good weather or bad, those folks would go home and most would never return. And they will tell stories about how beautiful Alaska is but how the weather sucks and all it does is rain and though Alaska is an amazing place to visit, they could never live here. But to truly know Alaska is to truly love Alaska. Everything is bigger and more intense here, even the rainy spells. And even rainy Alaska is awesome and much preferred to anywhere else I can think of, for me anyway. The sun will be back and so will the fish.

And I had a great day with lots of laughs with some great friends. This is Ronnie, she’s been fishing/floating the Kenai since she was 6 weeks old. Alaska girls kick ass. Seriously.

Truth is, the rain is great news. We’ve had no forest fires this year. I bet the west coast would love to have some of our rain. It’s all in your perspective. And your rain gear.

If at first the fish aren’t in, well, just wait until they are. And they are! Finally!

We’re headed back to Kenai to (hopefully) get our year’s supply of reds and maybe a king or two. The weather is crappy, of course, but we’re going down in the middle of the week so maybe the crowds won’t be too bad. This is our last chance for fish until the silvers come and we’ve got Uncle Jim’s cabin all to ourselves so it should be cool. I’ve got tons of work to do before I can leave, so I’m off! All praises to the fish gods, may we get our limits! woohoo!