Duck Soup

That's a saying I use that means 'easy' or things are going really good. I'm not quite sure where I got that but it certainly applies to how things went here this week at Mile 14. I had a week of the best people and trips I've ever experienced. I started the week fishing with my new friend Jesse Flamme from LaCrosse Wisconsin. He and his girlfriend Karma (you know you've got it going on when you have a girlfriend named Karma!) like to travel and in Jesse style started their Alaska adventure with the unusual....which I like....flying into Fairbanks instead of Anchorage. So they got plenty of road time and saw a lot of our state. I don't think Jesse got as much fishing in as he'd like as I could tell just by the way he holds the rod that he fishes a ton, but he took it for the team a bit and toured Karma. Jesse's Kenai trip delivered the trifecta, a limit of silvers, some trout and a nice 40 pound King landed on 12 pound test. Now you might think this silver is a bit on the petite side but Jesse is 6'9" and weighs 340....honest.

I also had the pleasure of seeing my old friends Dick and Loretta Hahn again and they fished with a friend of my sisters named Trina Richardson. It was weird, we spent the day talking about Kenai in the 1970's...which was a pretty cool time and place. I also got to fish with Greg Mito and his mom and dad, Ryan, Pat and his teenage daughter Tati. Greg is one of the guys who's hauling the mail for us, he's in the Air force stationed at Elmendorf. He's a great guy who's always happy on the water and his mom caught her first salmon ever, pretty cool.....

Many a time I've floated between the buoys at mile 8 that mark the sonar transducers location and wondered just what the heck was down there. I mean I constantly hear all July that the counts are this or that....Its a Diston sonar or a Bendix...its calibrated or not...its working or not... duel beam or single beam...it cost 4 million....I mean that's one mysterious piece of hardware. Well on top of everything else this week that mystery was solved, there she is , the brain center of King salmon management on the Kenai River. mmmmmm....Now I was a bit disappointed. It doesn't really look like anything I'd trust my financial future with but what the hey...Its gotta be a whole lot higher techer than it looks.  But, theres no getting away from the fact that it does look a bit like something in your basement next to the furnace.

I've seen Bald Eagles do just about anything Eagles do I'd guess. I've seen them soar, mate, fish, nest and nest build. I've seen them fight and screech and we even had ground dwellers here at Mile 14 this spring. But this deal the other day I've never seen. An Eagle stretching or drying his wings...or what?

That guy sat in that tree and held the pose for an hour and me and Hahny speculated on just what he was doing. It could have been that he was so surprised by the 3 days straight of sunny warm weather that he just lost track of what eagles do. But fishing was kind of slow here so I moved the boat downriver a couple miles and what do you suppose we run into?....yep, another eagle behaving exactly the same way.

This one here had the same pose as you see on  the Nazi eagle of World War 2 so I guess maybe its not all so unusual. I don't know why they do it....I'm just glad they do.

On Thursday I go in to have my throat dilated for the second time. Being an old pro at this deal I'm not as anxious about as I was before. I'll get gassed, MP will take me for a chocolate milk shake, I'll sleep 14 hours and then have more ice cream, get up the next day and go fishing...Duck Soup.