With catch and release fishing kinda on my mind lately me and MPeasy decided to head downriver to the test fishery and get a lesson on how to do it from the professionals at ADF+G.
So first off you get a big ol net, that's right I used the word all sportsmen loath , net. And then you float it down the middle of the river where you anticipate old slimey will be hiding. Smarter people than me have developed a sense for this through the years and they even use this technique to catch fish and sell them to America in grocery stores .
Now ol slimey he don't like that net just about as much as I don't and he's fighting it pretty good so you get him kind of pinned against the boat and lasso his tail with a rope. He's a little wond up in there so take your time and get that net unstuck from his fins and gills and all that kind of stuff.
But you finally get him out of one containment device and into another...the cradle, where you measure and sample his scales and then 7 or 8 minutes later you let him go....and guess what ??? he swims off just fine showing us how hearty and durable these gorgeous fish are. I suppose by now you know where I'm going with this so I'll just stop....bet ya didn't think I had stopping in me eh ?
The River Festival this year was just wonderful. With South Central Alaska experiencing record warm weather everyone was jazzed. The Festival is all about kids and as always I really enjoyed volunteering at the Kenai Watershed Forum's welcome booth and passing out the 'passports for fun' for all the kids to get stamped at the different river educational events.
But for me, it's the music. To hear Soldotna's next generation entertain the festival is big Ju-Ju for me. This young gal for being a freshman in high school wasn't afraid to belt out a song and I have a picture of our friend Cory McKay playing with a group called the ' Whip Saws'....thanks for the tunes , it was great. MP was really excited to see her friend Cory play the fiddle so I guess I'm going to have to get myself invited to sing the Festival someday.
It seems that the wonders of Alaska just don't seem to come without a side order of misery. As we met our friends at the festival people commented that we all hope the warm weather wouldn't lead to more forest fires. Well sure enough for the second year in a row we have a huge one in the valley near Chris's cabin and another one outside of Sterling that almost borders last years Funny River Fire. This pic was taken the first day and now the river side homes have been saved and the wind is driving it onto the Wildlife Refuge where there are no human footprints. In fact for the Refuge the burn will be a good thing. So we have our fingers crossed that the ' Card Road Fire' doesn't reverse and that it gets contained. The second pic I took on my bike ride last night and you just barely tell that we have a subtle amount of smoke in town, we're real lucky.
Being about all things fish I had to get this pic of the current leader in biggest I've ever seen category. I have stuffed fish, carved fish ( we even have one at the launch that's 5 feet long), I have fish prints, fish shirts, fish dinners....well this baby takes the cake....and don't ask me what the heck the message is there because I've got no idea. I just wonder why anybody would want to add anything to such a beautiful thing ????
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