Just another springtime in Alaska

Our good friends and lifetime Alaskans, Chris and Melinda Fejes were just down for our usual springtime icebreaker.... clam digging and a little fishing at Mile 14. Chris and I are kinda kindred spirits, he exemplifies one of my motto's and basics of life - whats worth doing is worth over doing. This approach isn't always the smartest but we seem to a survive it well and have lots of fun in the adventures. Like my old brother-in law Woody, its a good thing Chris is good at getting you out of Jam because he's also pretty good at getting you into one.

So that's a pic of me stuck knee deep on the Clam grounds, 1.5 miles North of Ninilchik , my old stomping grounds. As you can see MP is doing an exit stage left after giving me the usual ' you stupid jerk, you did it again look'. But Chrisco has a winch on his other machine and we're out in no time and off to clam heaven. I find a bit safer place to cross onto the mud flat and as we pull in a weathered old, highly agitated clam digger almost runs at us.... " you can't run the wheelers out there, its soft you'll lose your wheeler"...." no I won't, it ain't mine"...." and them damn things scare the clams", " mmmm, them clams musta got smarter since last time I was here"..... " obviously you're not from around here"...."oh man, if you only knew"....but really, me and my buddy showed some real maturity for a change and even thanked him for letting us know how stupid we were, its always nice to run into an honest man. So we dug our clams, they're not as plentiful as they used to be and we must have got on the wrong end of the beach but we did OK and when we returned to the wheelers we met and had a wonderful discussion with these REAL Alaskans, our new friends.

They're a father son team and friends, they think like we do. The guy on the right said ' yup I seen ya run that wheeler into the goop, did it myself " . The one fellow has a son who is going to guide this year for his first time, I told him to tell that young man if ever needs something to just stop here at Mile 14...you guys are on the team. Heck they were so gracious that the guy on the right just laughed when Chris called him his own kids grandpa, now that's a stylish move. So the next pic is our foursome, safely off the beach  at the rest stop.

And then a pic of us setting out for the beach. Ya can't get big clams without big equipment. As you can see Chris has the best, if you're going to Detroit don't get off in Chicago. And,  he was nice enough to leave it here at the house so I can use the same wench that got me unstuck to pull some stumps and haul some wood out of the ravine in what we call the Black Forrest. Thanks Chris...very cool...but, knowing me we could have another story on our hands real soon.

It was back to the ranch where we cleaned and prepped our hard earned table fare. MP made linguine with clam sauce which Chris paired with a wonderful bottle of Silver Oak red wine...mmm....baby was that good. And the pic below was me, the grouchy gourmet frying a few of the delicate bi-valves for an appetizer. Alaska is really an amazing place, you can't get fresher gourmet food and that's for sure.

This morning it was 38 degrees and clear, 6 am me and Chris launch the Minnow 4 . Now in forty years of being here and 30 years of guiding I thought I'd pretty much done and seen it all. Well, that's the cool thing about life, just pay attention and theres lotsa firsts out there. We're happily trolling along, I've got a silver / flame magnum HotShot out and Chris is pulling an electric chartreuse Kwikfish and ....THUNK, at first I think I trolled into a rock, a real possibility this time of year but then I notice movement next to me and realise we've been Titanc-ed....struck by and iceberg.

Its the biggest tide of the year, and that's the way this Kenai River heals. The tides are so big that they run all the way to Porters, a landmark like ours but upriver a bit. The tide picks up the ice and snow and off it goes to Cook Inlet, in just the span of 2 or 3 tides the river looks completely different.  Chris and I were talking about the birds feeding on the out migrating King Salmon smolt, so, we've got the ice leaving and the next generation of our fishery at the same time, the rivers alive.....like I said, this is an amazing place.