ore-a-gun , ore-a-gone , ore-a-man theres a lot of people here

 

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....

On Grieving

 

At 68 I've done my share. All of us on this trip around the sun are going to.  I had my intro at a very early age and up close and personal. It's natural , it's hard and I guess it has it's function...you never get used to sorrow.  Being a 100 % guy I've always worn my feelings on my shirt sleeve. I don't keep secrets well so I have to tell you that the passing of my friend Hobo Jim, Alaska's best friend really has me by the heart. For days now his songs have been ping ponging around in my brain and for all the times I told people if  I could wish a million bucks to somebody it would be him , I'm feeling stupid as I now know he never wanted  millions or he'd have it, he just wanted happiness for himself and all of us....and more time with him would have done that. Jim has a  way of making everybody feel special, he had zero enemies... how many of us are like that ?

I don't think you can love Alaska without loving Jim, he  is and always will be the spirit of Alaska. If any of you reading this don't know his music just YouTube his name or google him, better yet purchase some CD's off Amazon or where ever.  There is a Go Fund Me page to help his wife Cyndi , just seeing it and participating made me feel better . gofundme.com

I could tell Hobo stories...stomping a hole in the stage, our Park Ranger event, his fishing secrets...but I'll just leave it with him helping me. Right after we moved to Montana I published a video of myself singing a Hank Williams Jr. song and I said I was getting used to Montana.  Jim told me " Jeff, write that song " ....I'm going to Jim . It seems he and I shared some of life's adventures. We're the same age, went Alaska the same year , he loved fishing , music , people loving and something people don't really think about, he was about the hardest working guy I've ever met....a 100 % guy.  Here's how Jim Varsos  looked when I first met him.

I'm sure Cyndi doesn't read Mile 14 but I wish comfort for her and all of you / us / the world that's changed....And Jim, mucho gracias ,Thunder on Hobo Jim your spirit will last forever . gofundme.com

 

Ain't here for a haircut

 So me and MPeasy have been in executive session lately, we've got big decisions to make which I've never really been very good at . Jimmy Buffet once said " decision making might or might not be one of my problems "....like him I've always been a ' let it happen ' kind of guy.  But in this new world we're all working with here it pays to have a plan, even a plan B or even C. So first thing is Booster shot. Then we're going to the coast to see my sister and my nieces and play music with a great nephew that I've only met a few times and has had his share of life thrown at him pretty good. I'm anxious to see Miles and he's anxious to see me.

Then it's back to the house on the hill for the month of November, MP wants to have Thanksgiving in her new house and that's easy enough done....And then...

We just can't miss another year and Grass Valley Arizona as nice as it is ain't got fish, beach, Pacifico's , Martin's Taco's and my nice Menudo ladies on the corner every Sunday. On both trips we'll just see a few folks and be careful, basicly quarintine at our condo in Maz. Our big picture plan with the move to Montana was to make it easier to drive to Mazatlan but that will have to wait one more year as there's no since having a car there if we aren't going to be out exploring becauseof the covid. I can't wait to fish with Alejandro and Dan, see Slah and Maria's new house and have Christmas with our friends who we've missed....💚😎🐟🎸🎵

I don't mind telling you that the first 6 months or so here in Montana there was many a day I could have headed home to Alaska. I was in a funk. My friend Terry Wetzstone helped pitch me out of the slump and the move here to Helena makes me feel more like I belong here...I guess I've always had trouble fitting in and Ham Bone Montana just wasn't doing it for me...but here, well it feels right. In fact the connectivity is amazing, it seems to follow us.  MP and I were out antiqueing ( against the advice of a friend that told us when we were moving " don't bring old stuff to Montana, they've got plenty of it "....Well we end up at the Canyon Creek country Store 25 miles from here. They are having a ' living estate sale ' and literally a hundred years of stuff is laying around. Very impressive.

MP bought a nice little wood shelf for her tea cups and I got some beer cans for my collection when I told the guy we'd just come from Alaska and you just don't see old stuff like this as much because everything is so new....Well...he looks at me and say's you're that guy who went to Alaska and married one of the Brown girls. Correct-a-mundo. Here's a picture of MP with Ron Crawford who lived across the street from her when the family lived on Peosta Street back is the 1960's.

It get's better. Ron's brother Gary is a friend of ours who worked the oilfield in Alaska and fishes with my friend Keith quite a bit. Gary has been to our boat launch many a time and Ron mentions to MP that he met here there a few years ago at 4 a.m. when she took his money and got him to park in just the right place so she could squeeze in another 10 dollar parking fee.  Gary like us was migrating from Alaska two springs ago and was a month or so ahead of us. With covid restrictions getting out of Alaska took some planning and he decided to drive through Canada on 'essential travel ' and was given 4 days to do it and told not to go into Whitehorse to stay . Keith suggested I call him to see how it all went and after seeking his counsel we decided to take the Love Boat instead. Gary is now in Texas and will retire to Helena soon where we'll have a Mile 14 reunion...Great to meet you Ron and thanks for fellowhip.

We thinned the herd in Alaska but we still have loads of stuff that now we finally have room to put away. We had a few boxes of childhood stuff that had been sitting in the garage In Hamilton since we cleaned out my folks house years ago. Well, I came across my swimming trophies and medals and in with it all was a Speedo I raced in as a high schooler... and you know me, being comfortable in my own sking I had to try it on. The converstaion went like this :

JK--- C'mon MP do me a favor and take a pic of me.

MP--- I am doing you a favor...I"M NOT TAKING THAT PIC

JK----C'mon, don't be tight @#%

MP--- that is absolutely disgusting

JK---C'mon, you've done it before. 

So for the second time in the History of Mile 14 here's the pic. Now I'm not quite as fit as I was years ago for the first pic when I was a cardio King in the gym but how many people could even get there high school suit on ? I'm below my  'waterloo weight ' of 200 pounds and for 68 year old guy that ain't all so bad for a guy who likes himself.😎....and oh, I'll do you a favor and save ya the frontal shot.

So I promised ya a song....well  here it is.  Kinda tells my story. Sorry for the lack of production here at the Mile 14 Montana Bureau. But I do enjoy writing and as we move along the program I'll have fish pics and smiles to publish, we're moving on. My boat is safely tucked away in a garage over in Hamilton and when we get back from Mexico we'll get it over here and fish the big water. I was in the hardware store the other day and a guy named Marty showed me pics of his Lake fish here....oh baby, 10 pound trout and walleys, I'm in.

I wish I could change more than just my world

 We got horrible news two nights ago . My step niece Ailean was here with her boy friend Isaac and me and Isaac were playing songs and as I told him about Hobo Jim Varso's MP stopped me and read me the news, we cried....I had actually just played the Iditarod song. So please send the best thoughts to Alaska's best friend, he would like that I know....here is a link or if I'm lucky and do it right the actual Blog piece I wrote about his last show at BJ's on March 21st 2010...eleven and a half years ago. I think it's worth the read, please.

http://mile14.blogspot.com/2010/03/partys-over.html

The move took us a whole month to finally find time to write. My back hurts but my heart hurts way more and today I don't think I could let my creativity flow without just more damn sadness....But I promise I will post within a few days.....I've got a new song. Here's a pic of me and MPeasy on top of Mt Helena and the cool collection of rock hearts we found along the way, it just seems to fit.

Old is new

 And so it goes....I haven't been writing much because there's not much to report on when you're packing for another move.  But we spent over a year here in Hamilton and I have to say, it feels like a year. But we needed a bigger house, we needed to be closer to H2O that I'm interested in and being back where we know people is going to be nice. This house in Hamilton that MP loves we are keeping so we have some rent income to go with our out come and who knows, someday we may need it again. 

So we're trading this

for this

We're going from 750 sq. ft with two bedrooms and one bath to 1700 sq. ft with three bedrooms and 2 baths, one of  which is in a guest wing and the other a private master suite at the other end of the house.  It's on a corner lot with a very private outdoor covered living space and looks across the street to an open field and a view of the entire valley and mountains. 

In the year we've been in Hamilton we've worked hard on the house. It has a new bathroom, all new flooring, the grass is growing again, it has a garden spot, new lighting and has been repainted, and the garage has a new roof and over head door... as well as a nice red cedar privacy fence between us and the worst neighbor you could have the misfortune to bump into.

We're going to miss the wonderful hikes we've found along the Bitteroot River as well as the stunning views of the mountains right out or back door.  We're going to miss shopping from the local Mennonites and the Hamilton Market Place which gets the best fresh veggies and meat from the Hutterite colony. We're going to miss our new friends at Lost Trail Hot Springs and our neighbors Josh and Liz and Stevie across the street. We'll miss being closer to MP's sister Kathy and Weav who we've really come to enjoy.

What we're not going to miss is....well one thing I already mentioned but I do have to say it's been much  quieter around here ever since the cops visited a few weeks back. We'll not miss what might be the busiest highway in Montana, that would be State highway 93 or the routine 40 mile drive to the Zoo for anything we might need. Did I ever mention that Ravalli County is most likely the most conservative county in the State ? Well, we won't miss that, I look forward to being around more people like me if you know what I mean....So, hope you check in. I'll post better pics and introduce you to the water and people around my hometown. 

Now I got myself a little band 

and we're pretty good I guess

But I never learned how to wear my hair

and I never learned how to dress

So I'm leavin' for the last time honey

I'm never more to roam

Gonna pack my bags a little heavy this time

and head my ass back home .

                                 

                      thanks to Charlie Robison

Horse sense

 That's what they need on the World Famous Kenai River.  It hurts me to report that the missing King Salmon mystery ( or not ) is not only continuing but as we're now in the 9th year or emergency closures it seems to be routine. These two graphs you've seen before tell the tale, 2021 is heading for the 3rd year in a row that minimum sonar counts were not achieved, it will be the worse run ever. It really bothers me, I'd hoped that I would be on the ground floor of a cool economy that gave opportunity to young people like I was when it all started... a word you here in Alaska a lot but seldom see put into practice....sustainable.

The black line is now, the red and purple is the escapement range....so you might notice that the yellow that is 2017 isn't so bad, well that's the sonar count with out subtracting the in river harvest which puts all those lines signaling disaster.

Ya know some people were happy to see me check out of the politics on the world famous and I know for certain that staff at ADF+G used to read this blog so I got some horse sense advice for them, it's really just another beg, please, please do your job better .  

1. I think maybe we've tugged on the July Kenai King fishery so much that it will never find it's lost glory....so maybe it's time to put some hatchery Kings in there so the sport people have something.

2. Number one is reactive of course but what we need from the ADF+G is pro active and I'm talking about the starting to wobble Silver Salmon sport fishery in August and September. If this is all the sport guys are going to have in the future act now to get the science in order and a plan to actually implement the Coho management plan that says " cohoes will be managed primarily for sport use ". and this is how....

3. Come up with strategies to stop the commercial season and deliver silvers to the stream as early as possible with still allowing for commercial sockeye harvest.

4. Count the damn things  just like they do all of the commercially managed fish. Set and achieve escapement goals.

5. create in river seasonal limits on Silvers. I've preached that for years after seeing the local harvest patterns.

6. Get enforcement on the river and have it open to boating / fishing only during daylight hours.

7. In other words ADF+G, lets try and avoid losing the wonderful Kenai Silver fishery like we have the Kenai Kings, Clam Gulch Razor Clams , Cook Inlet Dungeness , Kachemak Bay shrimp .... need more examples... ?

So me and MPeasy gave it a good college try of one full year in  Hamilton Montana...So we're dragging up and have purchased a house in Helena, we've gone full circle.  There's a lot of reasons but the biggest is that this house in HamBone is just to small, we want our kids and our friends to visit and the house is awkwardly small. The house on the upper west side of Helena has a guest room and a wing with a private bathroom for them, you . Then there's the fishing. Although I'm getting used to towing I want to be closer to the big lakes in Central Montana that interest me more than the smaller alpine lakes here. I guess I new it wasn't working so good when a waitress told my friend Roberto that nobody fishes ' that lake ' because theres no fish in it .  The 3rd part is that we could have built an addition or turned one of our out building into a guest house but it made mores sense to just get a different house and then return this house to a rental so we have some income to go with our outcome....so that's the story. We'll start moving 1st of September and hopefully be in by the 15th or so.....wish us luck....

This is one thing we'll miss.....fresh local cherries for 2 bucks a pound, oh baby they're good.  Then we have the famous Dixon Melons that we'll have to find a source for and then the Hutterite Melons and Chickens and then the local Huckleberries and .....did I mention those lakes have great, and I mean great Walleye Fishing ? Gonna get me a guide, ask all the important questions as I pay attention and this time next year we'll be showing blood sport pictures on Mile 14 just like the old days.

 

Pea Brains

 One time when I was bragging about my fishiness Chick told me not to hang your hat on out smarting a fish... their brains are the size of a BB. So having yet to catch a trout on the world famous Bitteroot River I decided to work on stupider fish, like Bass. So I research the area and find that we have these filled gravel pit ponds all over the valley that are full of Bass and even 5 pounders. The problem is I don't nothin about fishing Bass and I ain't got anybody to teach me except the fishiest guy I know ( Dan Stewart ) who volunteered to do a zoom consultation with me on the challenges I'm facing.  The ponds are full of vegetation from the top to bottom, so thick you absolutely have to be weed less. So finally I've got it, kinda got it. You know that it's a fish that wants to be caught when you have them eating plastic worms and ignoring real worms....and the Frog bait ? I laughed at myself in the store and was even a little embarrassed at check out...but, pictures don't lie.

Now I can understand that on the river the bugs don't fly until it warms up so the fly guys get to sleep in but these bass are a different animal. Once the sun is on the water it's over...So ol Bass guide #003 is going to crush these Montana guys who can't get out of bed. I have yet to not be alone in the morning fishing and it's the best part....how about this sunrise pic that MP took one morning when she came along.

Every morning I've been going and have to say Dan was right about the frog when they hit it " makes you giggle like a girl ". Here's an action pic...ain't no salmon but ya know the newness and the puzzle of it all for me is nice, I like it.

We left a lot of things in Alaska, stuff as well as emotion and comfort / community.  But man am I glad I brought my old White truck. The guys at Kenai Auto have it going down the road like a new truck so I decided not to put bike rack on MP's Rav 4 and instead use the receiver hitch on the old truck. The Bike trails here are incredible, we did 15 mile in Missoula the other day and our goal is to beat Bob and Dana's 27 miles....mmmmm....without electric bikes Dana. I guess it's everywhere these days. Here's this beautiful bridge built for Bikes and we keep riding because there's 10 people living on the bridge and drinking...at 8:00 a.m. It bothers me. When I was in Seattle with Sam for a Mariner game he told me to just ignore the street people.....well, I don't ignore so well, it bothers me.

We had another pay off for this lifestyle alteration we made. Max flew over for a long weekend visit and we laughed pretty good for days. We were killing time before his flight after we ate at the famous Oxford in Missoula. I pulled into second hand store for MP and Max tried on a few new duds...that'll impress them on your new job ol buddy !

I actually came out of the covid isolation in pretty good shape. It's true that I'm at 198 but  it could be worse and I never got over my Waterloo  weight of 200 ....but I did squander a chance to stay at 185. I got to thinking my cardio might not be as good as it used to be but after the three of us did the Blodget overlook hike where we gain a altitude in the 90 degree heat I think I still got it.

Like everybody, we're ecstatic that things are normalizing . We walked by the historic Wilma theatre in Missoula the other day and they had the schedule of summer events and walla....JackPot ! On July 24th we're going to see one of my musical idols and a guy that I cover many songs of, Robert Earl Keen . And then in October right before we leave for Mazatlan it's Todd Snider who I think is maybe the greatest song writer in  Texas. We looked for Gary Allan as I got tell you, I'm a groupie with that guy but even though he's setting a personal record for tour dates to make up for canceled 2020 shows he's just not going to be anywhere close enough for us. 

This was in front of the liquor store in downtown Missoula....don't ever say that I don't try to pass on good advice.

Got me another new song and I'll record it tonight and have it on the next edition of Mile 14, Ham Bone Montana Bureau.