Anybody that has followed this blog from the start remembers that we've had some weird stuff happen in our neighborhood. I don't know what it is about this place but we seem to have our share of slime balls around, and you know...our neighborhood watch is up to it. The flat tire on that suburban didn't just happen, my neighbor shot it out with a pistol right after he stopped a young man from breaking into his neighbors house, broad daylight on a Sunday morning. That takes some cahooonies. When I got home from fishing the Troopers were everywhere as the guy has made his escape into the woods so here we are...another manhunt at Mile 14. They never found the guy but he's as good as caught. You can't just leave your car parked with all your info in it after you lean a ladder up and try to crawl into a persons house in the middle of the day....and he kinda picked the wrong neighborhood, but I guess that's not unusual in Alaska, everyone has guns.
These 3 weeks in august are the time frame that I get all my Doctor friends out fishing. I've known a guy named Gary Blinn now for going on 20 years and he acts as a tour guide to show his friends an outstanding Alaskan fishing vacation. They all stay down at the cabins in Beaver Creek that I ran my boat from in the 90's . A friend of ours bought the place and its pretty cool to see that no matter how things change, they sometimes really stay the same. So every morning just before sunrise I run the boat 4 miles downriver to meet them. Theres something about being in the boat alone and the air is fresh and damp, I wear a life jacket and have my navigation lights on. I pump my bilge dry as I run at about 1/2 throttle, looking for logs and picking my way through the patchy fog.....man, it just makes me feel alive, and these are the views I get when I'm one of the first in our town to see the light.
Then theres the unusual daily. How often do you get to see 3 bald eagles all on the same tree. They're this years fledgling crop from the big nest at Eagle Rock and this morning they were all busy motivating each other on how to fly. They were screeching loudly and just figuring out how the whole program works, they've got to, winters coming.
But no matter how much I notice and love it all, this deal is about people and fun, and this week the bite was on. Below is a picture of Roger Case and his two sons.....Dawg and the pups. These guys were upbeat, fun, colorful and just wild about Alaska. With folks new to the State I always ask if Alaska is like they thought it would be , if it was more or less than they expected. These guys answered just like everybody else " Jeff, this place is waaaaaaay more than we thought it would be", and gorgeous.
The picture below is Dawgs youngest with a nice silver he caught. We all had to agree that after it jumped and tried to saw off on the prop that it fought just a bit better than those crappies these guys are used to in Tennessee. And that mans name is Justin Case.
With a perfect week almost in the books I got to fish with my Montana friends on a sunny and warm Saturday humpy / silver trip. Kyle and Abby Volf grew up in my old home State and after graduating college accepted the challenge of Alaska. Abbey is expecting their first baby so her mom Fran was here in support. They know my brother in Great Falls, I can't tell you how much fun I had with these guys. We chatted up old times and of course our alma maters football....the famous Cat-Griz rivalry, of which we generally win Kyle. I screwed up and didn't get a pic of them but I did snap this one of Fran doing battle on the poup deck of guideboat 003....Thanks for coming you guys, happy landings.
No comments:
Post a Comment