fishing

This one goes out to Mark Becker, the only person I know who can't read this for lack of a computer, let alone a internet connection. Today I caught a 35 pound king salmon. It was a blast Mr. Becker!

I went out fishin with Dan, a 62 year old fisherman who mostly fishes by himself. He has been here his entire life and it was great fun to sit and talk. The day began with him calling me an hour and a 1/2 before we were to meet, 5:30 and he had got up early and was gonna catch a cup of joe at the Diamond C, so I was just gonna roll down the hill when I could. So I get there, mind you I have never met Dan before and I walk in and there are a good 25 fisherman sittin around drinkin coffee and here is the city kid. Intimidating doesn't even come close. So I look around and nobody moves like they are lookin for me so I sit down and get a cup of coffee. I started reading the local paper, The Wrangell Sentinal, the oldest newspaper in AK, started in 1902. Our downstairs neighbor, Lisa, is a reporter (she also hosts the radio show before mine). After 2 cups o joe a gentelman walks up and says, "am I supposed to be meeting you here?" And off we go.

At the boat we pull up the crab pot and grab 5 or 6 good sized crab out, lunch! Then we fire up the boat and away we go. Out on the water, it is fishing talk, which revolves around the place, the weather, who each of us are and anything that is amusing. We set up on the mouth of the river, drop anchor, toss in two sport rods and cook up breakfast. Aboard he has a kerosene stove and he has brought us a feast! First some more coffee then sausage, eggs and summer sausage and toast. Did I mention that we ate a chicken on the way out? We go out and check the lines and the first hit. He lands that one. Then just as we get everything all set, second hit, he lands that one. The next one will be mine......

We boil up the crab and enjoy some crab and beer while sittin on deck. This was my first day in the southeast where it did not rain!! It is even more gorgeous. Then as we are debating about calling it a day, the next hit and I land it. Now I have gone river fishing before, but this was the biggest fish that I ever encountered, it was quite a rush to reel that guy in. At first I thought it was puny or something, then when he got up close I realized how big she was because that was when she started fighting. In the boat and away we go.


On the way back we saw a school of porpoise off of our bow and the sky went beautiful blue. At the dock, there was an eagle no more than 5 feet from my head as he swooped down to pick up some fish guts. I passed up the opportunity to have feces dropped from on high by an eagle, but I thought the fishguts on my leg and blood on my shoes was sufficent.



Oh and cleaning the fish. This was my favorite part!! I didn't clean them, but I did get this video of a heart that kept beating after he put it on deck. It must have gone for 4 minutes or so. A heart, crawling back too the body it was just taken from, when was the last time you saw that?