August....gone.

Have you ever met one of those people that everybody wants to be around ? One of those guys that you like the very instant you meet them ? One of those guys that seems to know more people than know him ?....Well, this guy here is that guy, Jose Reyes DeLa Cruz, my buddy Joe Ray.

As you can see Joe Ray is a guy that smiles and laughs easily, I like that. He's a self made guy growing up poor in Texas and now is a nurse anesthetist in Abilene. He's an expert tex-mex cook, the bottom pic he's grilling Mexican flank steak for fajitas.

Every other year for the last 20 years or so I get to see all these guys that our friend Gary Blinn brings to Alaska. They're mostly doctors or friends of the group that get started and welcomed in like dawg and the bunch I reported on last week. I didn't take as many pics as I should have this last week, it was raining so much I had the camera stowed away but even without the pics I want you to know how cool it is to have this kind of loyalty and friendship in my guide business. As the years have gone on we've counseled and been counseled, my buddy Will Robertson turned me onto Texas music and now my song list reflects him. Chuck Sanders has my interest perked on the banjo and Dr. Mike Rowe showed me a song that's sure to be the hit in Mazatlan this year, Todd Sniders ' Beer Run'. So its been a pretty cool 3 weeks with all these guys, theres to many to mention so let me just say thanks to all and we'll see you on the next humpy year, 2014. Here's a pic of Gary, an organising genius.

The fishing for the last 3 weeks has been steady, not good, not bad. I think the best we did was maybe catching 3/4 the limit of silvers and I'd guess most days we caught about half. I guess with all thats happened this year it just figures that silvers would be slower than normal, no biggy, we just work a little harder and fish a little longer. Here's a pic of Dr, Drew with a gorgeous silver salmon caught on their last day in their last hour, it was real 9th inning rally.

That last day they had to leave early so we had only 4 hours to fish and you can see by Drews attire that we endured a constant cold rain. That's part of fishing this time of year, its either cold and clear or warm and rainy but the fish are gorgeous and the river uncrowded. Here's a pic of the guys as I left the dock, the end of 3 weeks of fishing the group.....

On the left is Ken and in the middle Samuel White, my record is intact....I've never met a guy named Sam that wasn't a cool guy. On Thursday night we had a big party for the group and all of us that know them. I guess we're getting a little older because it was like I heard Jimmy Buffet say one time, " Its a big party, a huge party,....it just doesn't last very long". Yep, I was home in bed by 9 o'clock. Here's a pic of my running partner so you get a feel for the scene.

On Saturday I fished a wonderful family from Minneapolis, the Jacksons. I didn't take any pictures because it was so wet so Tom if you have a good one please e-mail me. We didn't have a bite until late in the day and then again staged another rally. They were upbeat and interesting, a great way to end the week. Tom who booked the trip is and engineer that works in the office with an old fishing friend Tim Herr. His brother Blake is a Naval academy grad and an aviator so you know it was fun for me....Anyway thanks to all , what a way to close out August...