That right there was our first over the ocean / over the beach sunset since we left Alaska 15 months ago. Having missed the Mexico winter I was struck how the sandy beach reminded me more of that than Alaska...and how much we'd missed it, you can't really be a sunset expert without a west facing beach, although here in Mooontana we get good ones from the mountains but seeing the sun just drop out of sight and the famous ' green flash ' is sooooo cool. Once when new to Mexico I told somebody that the sunset was fantastic, they replied with ' well you must have great sunsets in Alaska. I said we do but all those darn mountains and Glaciers get in the way ! Here's me and MP happy / happy.
We went to the coast to see my sister and my nieces, all Alaskan's . I have a great nephew who I haven't seen since he was just a lttle kid and like me he is driven by the music, it was great to play and talk story with Miles and his brother Connor....I'm not sure if I embraced it long ago but after the kids dad died and I was told that now I'm the Patriarch of the family but on this trip I realized....I can do that job....here's us with Mitch, Molly and the boys.
And Mpeasy on the beach with Molly and Melonie my sisters two daughters...I guess it was just a natural migration for us all and now we're reunited, a northern herd.
For me the trip was one of discovery. I've heard so much from friends and guides about the fishing culture and resources of the Oregon coast. I have to say that there was way more of everything there than I thought. If my old neighbors were disturbed when the number of Kenai Guides hit 400 they'd barf at the thought of sharing the water with guides in Oregon....there are thousand of them, they're everywhere. I had a conversation on the dock in Garabaldi with a nice lady who ran rental boats. I told her I was surprised at the number of guides....she said they're like Carnies, they'll go anywhere and do anything... I laughed a pretty good gut chuckle deciding not to tell her that she was talking to a guy who's proud that he raised a family and put two kids through school on guide money, Carney money....And promotion ?, well us Kenai people are pikers it turns out.
And why fish 4 people when you can fish 6 ? Here's an Alumaweld just like old #003 accept it's 4 ft longer and 6 inches deeper. These boats are beautiful but with the liquid sunshine the coast is known for I'll be hiring the guide with a top..
This guide came into the Harbor for a shore break. You could hear him coming with some kind of new age musi...ahh....noise blaring. It was raining and they were keeping warm with beer, we usually used coffee, and of course you notice the life jackets, but.....well just another Carney. Sure wish I'd come up with that term for Mile 14 years ago and they'd of loved it at the Kenai River Guide Academy. I can't get over the size of those boats.
This how it's done in the protected water of Garibaldi bay. They were trolling for salmon and usually there were pods of them all fishing together where the hidden structure must be and the right currents for the bite I'd guess. Like all of this fishing it looks kind of random but you can bet these Carney's are just as good at it as any in the nation....you can't make money by not knowing what you're doing.
I could kind of tell by the energy that the salmon fishing wasn't really do soing well and maybe because of the weather that kept the boats in protected water. For me the reall story was the abundance of Dungeness Crabs....they are everywhere, the charter boats service the pots while they salmon fish, the docks all have people throwing pots and rings and even snorkelers along the rocks gigging them with sticks. Here's apick of my new friends Steve and Kyle with their first one of the day off the Garibaldi dock. They told me all about the seasons and the harvest etc....thanks for sharing the experience you guys, I know you're reading this.
Although they had rings on the bottom this first legal Dungy was caught with a fishing rod and a crab snare....I've never seen or heard of such a thing and I was duly impressed. Steve had chicken in it and he cast it out for 10 minutes and then said " here we go " as he gave it a good hard hook set and reeled this guy up , entangled in the snare.
I was going to buy some crab but Steve told me that the commercial season was closed and that accounted for the current price of 16 bucks a pound ( which makes that Dungy worth at least $32.00 ) . What a concept and something unheard of in Alaska...make harvest available to the sport guys when the commercials aren't fishing, Steve said they catch so few that the management for sport is generous. Here's the dock crew, all working togther, smiling and having fun, the sport fishing culture that I know has the same value as the family owned commercial fishing culture that seems to have all the priority in Alaska. I really liked it and will be out doing that in Oregon real soon, gotta catch them because there's no way I'm paying 35 bucks for one crab when I can tow my boat out and pay about the same to do it myself...makes sense eh ? The pic below is the couple with ALL the right stuff.
As I left the dock I noticed a boat. The unmistakeable flat bow up typical of an Alumaweld sled of the 1970's era . These boats kind of swam in a bow up / stern down configuration, I think part of it was that because of Jet use they were rated for far more horsepower therefore more weight than they should have been. I caught a ton of salmon, had a lot fun and made some serious $$$$ with one just like this.
As I drove out of town I stopped to take more pics....It was raining so hard that these rocks didn't have 1/2 the normal sea birds on them, musta gone inside. But they were two young Tarzan looking guys that just came out of the water with gigging sticks and their catch was remarkable. Several different types of Rockfish and many legal crabs, including the red ones that all the locals say are taking over the crab grounds and need to be managed better.
Obviously Alaska has a huge Marine bio mass and the catches there both sport / commercial and subsistence are known world wide...But this one little bay in a populated area impressed me with the availabilty of experience and harvest by the everyday people. So a thumbs up to you Oregon's fisheries managers. And as you can see, they ain't without a few rules.
It was a great trip and part of the pay off for our life's changes. It was great to see my sister, a person that did so much to help me find the way in Alaska. So when you read this Karen, thank you ! And I'm embarrased that the pics I have of us are on my phone and I'm having a hell of a time getting them onto my computer for this blog.....yikes....We'll do it again, and again, and....
