Happy Landings

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.

Oncorhynchus Gorbuscha

That's Greg Smith holding a dandy. Pink salmon are the smallest and most abundant of all the salmon we see, and they're one of the most interesting . They are the only salmon that doesn't reer in fresh water, these salmon come to the river and spawn and immediately return to the salt and then in two years they're back. On our river they show up on even numbered years but other parts of Alaska its every year. The pinks morph into their spawning colors quickly when they hit the river so theres about a 2 week window when we catch them ocean bright. The males grow this big hump to attract the females for spawning, it must work because theres loads of these guys. The name Pink salmon comes from the color of their meat, its a pale pink and softer than the other salmon with a nice mild taste. MP and I did a smoker full last week and it's great, the fillets are nice and thin so they take to the smoke well.  Around here there seems to be a bit of salmon snobbery at work, the ole humpy doesn't get much respect. I don't know exactly what it is but I guess its a combo of things....they're kinda ugly, theres lots of them, people think they don't taste as good as other salmon and they're easy to catch. Who'd have thought that we'd malign fish because they're to easy to catch?....well that brings me to the story here.

If anybody has ever thought being a Kenai river guide was easy work they ought to try releasing 50 to 100 of these salmon a day...I'm not kidding. as we hope to catch silver salmon and sort through the pinks the ratio used to be 14 to 1, this year the silver fishing so far is just fair and the ratio has to be twice that, 30 to 1.  My back is killing me. And being a semi-body building weight lifter I know exactly which muscles they are. My lats (latissimus dorsi ) and my ab's (abdominal obliques ) are just howling...its humpy release syndrome. Below is a series of pics showing the rubber net release. I try to teach the angler to ' cut the angle',  always hold the rod so that the hook would fly away from you and not directly at you if the fish spits. However that mostly works for the fisherman and not the releaser....its dangerous. You reach, then you lift, then you bend over and grab and then you remove hooks and as gracefully as possible flop ol slimey back into the water with a splash that generally hits you in the face and loads up your glasses.

Then theres the 'free hand' release. This one is pretty dangerous and I use it when I see that ol slimey is really hooked well. You simply grab hold of the leader, slide your hand down until you can either grab the lure of get a finger in the gill and lift. This release is hard on the back because you have to get right down to water level but the idea is that it happens quick so you can move right on to releasing the next....remember the math here, speed is important if you're going to catch those silver salmon.

The third release is one every angler knows....the 'long distance release'. This release usually occurs right after you say " holy moly, IT'S A SILVER"... then its...." mmmm, we could of used that fish". Like this beautiful one that my friend Ty Tobias caught, and killed.

Ty there is an expert fisherman and pretty darn good at life in general. He's fished with me for 20 years and he knows that when we go after these fish we go after them full speed. So, he knows we need energy food and he never disappoints.  This pic is a typical satchel of our fishing diet, its a good thing I only see him every so often or I'd be back up to the 240 pounds I used to wear.

So this week I'd give the silver fishing a 5 on the 10 scale. If you're in just the right spot at the right time you can load up on them, some days that was us and some days it wasn't....But those humpies, they get a 10 on the 10 scale. Some days if you're in any spot with any lure at anytime you can load up on those babies, this last week that was us, everyday, and my back can vouch for that. I ain't complaining, I'm just happy to be out doing what I do, what I'm about . Thanks everybody for being out this week, lots of smiles.....

What in the world were you thinking ?

I've heard that or a variant of that a lot in my life. And it happened again Sunday night. I had gone to the Freddies store to get our special meal, celebrate a great week of fishing here at Mile 14 with a nice Angus New York, a fresh caprici salad, some fresh bi-color sweet corn that came up with my friend Dave Anderson from Minnesota paired with my favorite wine, a nice Argentina Malbec....and some Limburger cheese.

I spotted it in the discount bin...I guess that should have told me something, but, I realised that I had never actually tasted Limburger cheese so I called MP to seek her counsel. Of course she agreed that she'd never tasted it also and seeing how it was just a buck we'd give it a try, what the hey. The way my mind works is that people must like it or they wouldn't produce it and  after all I'm the guy that sings the song ' I'll try anything twice', so I headed home with it. Well I did get to recalling that I new a bit about it, we'd put some on the exhaust manifold of my friend Al Mack's Cadillac when he got married 40 years ago and the car always seemed to smell a little earthy for year or so after that...but what the hey.... So after supper as is our routine MP brought out the apertife, a couple whole grain crackers with a nice pungent mound of Limburger cheese, and I mean pungent. Oh man, I'm a pretty creative guy but even I'm going to have a hard time descibing the smell. And the worst part is that is tastes just like it smells....like old socks, like the inside of my Extra-Tuff boots that I wear everyday after the dog barfed in them...its disgusting. With the first bite I was a bit repelled but the left side of my brain told me it was the smell and if I could just get past that the taste might be OK. WRONG. So please you guys help me out, if any of you know who or why they like it or what uses it must have for cooking or trapping mice or whatever let me know. I gotta know, its hard to imagine that people actually eat it....but then again, I did.....once.

That's Mick DeSantos, an example of why I have to go to Mazatlan. Its good for my psyche, its good for me and MP together, its warm, its musical and its good for business. Mick is the 3rd or 4th group I've taken out this year that I know from Mexico. He was in town with his son Geno and after seeing the river and all the excitement here at Mile 14 he just had to catch some silver. We had a great time. I even got to trade some fishing for more condo time in Mazatlan, MP kinda wanted the money but I figure its just like money except that you can't spend it. Remember...the key to happiness is to spend your lettuce on experiences and not things. Things get tired, they rust, they quit, but memories stay for ever. In fact this guy below, my friend Steve Hauser said exactly the same thing. Steve is one of the brightest guys I know. He brought his grandson up to fish and we had a great discussion, thanks for the counsel Steve. Its the coolest thing about my job, I'm exposed to so many folks from different area's, different cultures and of different life views. I soak it all in and through the years I think I've learned alot....just no body ever told me about the Limberger cheese.

Moving On

With our abbreviated King season over and the craziness of 1.5 million red salmon ending that's what we're doing, we're moving on, that's something I've always been good at. This ole river and us at Mile 14 are breathing a big sigh of relief.  And the news is not all bad, even though we and our neighbors suffered through it the escapement of Kenai Kings is not bad and bodes well for our future. Even though its not optimum we should come in with over 15,000 spawner's and following our traditional recruitment model of 3 to 1 we should have 45,000 kings from this parent year, lets hope so, that's the way Jeff's got it figured. .

And to make things even better it seems the coldest July on record has let go and we're enjoying better weather, even some sunshine. It hit on Friday.....sunny day, sunflowers. I took this pic of the sunflowers you see first when you arrive, its a pretty sign and a  pretty girl. I especially like the bear climbing the pole, it was MP's birthday present from her friend Robin, pretty cool.

It really is remarkable that we can go out and catch our supper pretty much whenever we want. Today the Nascar race got rained out early so we loaded up to see how the river was doing. So here's a pic of MP with our first salmon on the line, she's smilin again eh.

Being a health nut and finally old enough to prepare and appreciate good food, I always tell people that for me fish freshness trumps variety. So a fresh king is number one with us but a fresh pink beats a frozen king or a red for sure. These pink salmon have kind of a bad rap, they deteriorate quickly once in the river and of course the males grow the hump that makes them the 'rogue male humpy's' that get side ways in the current and wear you out. But the fresh females like this are wonderful fish, although the flesh is a little softer and paler than reds or silvers they have a wonderful mild taste, and the good news is, they come to the river in droves. You gotta admit, that's a gorgeous fish.

mmmmm, I think I just set a record for consecutive pics of my running buddy. So here's something that jumped out at me when we were walking this morning through town. I've never been into Northland Furs but judging by the looks of their place I got the feeling it would be a fun and interesting place to shop, give it a try. I mean how often do you get to see a moose with no clothes on and well....the sign kind of speaks to the Alaskan way of life, these guys are on our team I'd say.

So this week starts my favorite fishing of the year. I have many of my very best fishing friends scheduled, I even have my surf fishing guru buddy Ernie Mills coming in September so please come back to the blog. we're going to catch a ton of fish and have a ton of  fun, we're movin on.

The River Ran Red

I had a great week. For the first time in July I actually fished / worked every single day, doing what I do, what I'm about. Early in the week I finally got to meet two couples who travel together in a motor home and they're just the kind of young people I needed to meet. I had told Ben Jennings of course about the King closure but I also assured him that there were other opportunities and fish to catch....he says " we're in Jeff, we trust ya"..... Well we looked for a silver and couldn't find him but I knew with the 6 fish sockeye limit we could pretty easily find a quiet place surrounded with salmon. Done Deal. Here's a pic of Sean Ringer with a fish, that day and everyday this week was sunny and in the 70's, this was a real fisherman's trip and these guys are real fishermen, stand up guys.

They stayed a couple days with us in the campground and we've become friends. They had all the right stuff and it was fun to watch there wives Tiffany and Sara land their own fish and compete heads up with the boys who are expert fishermen.

What impressed me the most was that as the afternoon wore on and we were 15 or so reds into the 24 fish limit there wives wanted to get going, they had been promised a 'date night' and a cabin with a shower, a night out of the motor home together, so naturally they were a bit anxious to pull off the bite. So with no grumbling the guys left a few reds in the river...I was impressed, these guys are on their way to a long happy and fun future...a creedo I live by also, 'happy wife, happy life'.

The next day my friend Tom Riette also came by motor home. He fishes with his girlfriend Niki and granddaughter Shalyn. I've watched Shaylyn grow up through the years and that's a cool part of the job. As we fished a gravel bar with only one other boat a hundred yards up she recognised somebody and low and behold she got to fish for a couple hours with her best friend from Anchorage. Its one of the things we love about this State, its small enough that we run into each other in the weirdest places..

Here's a pic of Tom fishing. Even though we can't get the kings who wouldn't enjoy fishing a stretch of Kenai by yourself like this. A lot of the guides pull up in the same places, I think they like to visit. Well I do to but I like to visit with my fishing friends and that black boat always has a full tank so we go find it quiet...with people, not fish.

Meet Tom 'twitchin Tom' Duncan....Viet Nam combat vet , cancer survivor and life expert. He and his running buddy Doc Robinson heard I'd been canceled and they raced over from Seward to meet me for two days instead of the one they had scheduled. Like Ben Jennings and his crew I can't say enough about Tom and Doc....wow...you'd be lucky to meet these guys anywhere or anytime, but to meet them on the Kenai river and to get paid to guide them...well....I'm a lucky guy. Ole Tom there was hard on those red salmon , he must of caught 50 of them, and a few in the wrong place as he seemed to have a unique action to his retrieve. I'm not saying that he was snagging, he wasn't...but he assured me that if any enforcement people accused him of that he'd explain to them that he has Parkinsons disease. We all know nicknames are a sign of endearment so now he's 'Twichin Tom', my buddy. At the end of the day as he put his rod away he showed me a trick I'd never seen, instead of hooking the lure on an eye or the keeper and then reeling it tight he just simply hooked it to a loop of line and it was instant tight, man that's a real fisherman and it goes to show that even a guy like me who has made fishing his life still has things to learn, you just have to have faith, trust... Here's a pic of us fishing another spot, not another boat in sight. My old friends Ed and Carolyn Bovee are in guideboat #003 and Twitchin and Doc are in the water. Doc brought his fly rods and I learned alot from him, its a beautiful thing to watch a guy who knows what he's doing run that fly rod....Thanks guys.

This last pic I just had to post. I think I have a few readers that have some influence here on the Kenai River and I want them to see this. We have a lot of rules here and even though a few I find silly or a pain I keep them all, its how you have pride in what you do and it shows your commitment to right and to the future. With rules I don't interpret, bend or massage them.....I wish I could say the same for the people making the rules, the government.  That right there is an ADF+G work boat tied up to shore right in front of a sign that says to not tie your boat up there, in fact they might even be tied to the sign. The natural vegetation along the shoreline is critical for the migration of small salmon, so their own Dept. does not want people walking on the pristine bank, boats have to be anchored 10 feet out, nothing should be put on the land. That will get most of us a ticket...but not these guys.

I personally think its a disgrace. Government should lead by example. We wonder why  and how we ended up with a failing King run. We wonder for our future, the fish, the habitat, the wilderness, its ours, its the publics, that all of us, we want it for our kids.....but these guys  don't seem to care, they think its theirs.

What would Otter do ?

Road trip....that was his solution when they found out  that Dean Wormer had put them on 'double secret probation'. I ain't Otter but I guess I do have a bit of a leadership role around here so I told the boys at the launch that if they closed the river to King fishing we'd have us a boat launch party and I'd sing for the masses, its always cheered me up so why wouldn't it work for them. So friday night that's exactly what we did, and I have to tell you....it made me feel waaaaaay better. I mean who wouldn't be cheered up by good companions, a beautiful setting, warm weather and a home spun rendition of ' Cheaper to Keep Her'.

And as often happens when I drag out that old black guitar I made a new musical friend. Meet my new lead guitarist 'big fish Rich' . I had talked to him years ago when he wanted to get started in the guide business and I decided not to put on another boat...but if he'd told me he had some John Prine in his line up, well who knows.

Just because we're out of the game here with King salmon don't think the river is void of salmon, actually just the opposite. The sockeye salmon have arrived in force. As I write this we have 1/2 million over the sonar and most likely another 400,000 or so harvested in the 'personal use dip net fishery' which was designed to put meat on Alaskans, tables....well its certainly doing that. It feels like the entire city of Anchorage is here either dip netting or sportfishing for those poor reds. If I were a salmon I'd take the road, its just not safe out there.

 Those guys off in the distance are your varsity level dip netters. Its low tide at the mouth of this ol river and they're a good 3/4 to a mile from safety.  So even though they could get stuck in the mud or washed out to sea with our huge tides that run like a river....by jiminy they'll get to the fish first.

So everywhere I go theres piles of sockeys like this, the abundance of the fish is stunning and it begs the question....how come we have so many of one kind and not enough of the other kind ? mmmmmm....thats a tough one and at some point in time we're gonna have to get to the answer but in the mean time lets not pass up all this opportunity, right?...

So as cool as the abundance of fish is the people chasing them is part of what I notice, you know me, I'm a people person. The guy towing this ultra cool camper and I had a nice talk, his buddy is a full blown Alaska artist and the world is his easel, the guy told me that if you think the outside is cool, ya oughta see the inside, of course I'm thinking black lights and the whole shcmeer..... Then theres the guys who pulled up on their bikes today, MP thought she heard thunder but it was just another bunch of sockeye salmon chasers. They'd flown into Anchorage and rented the bikes and were off to harvest some salmon. When I asked where the fishing rods were one guy says " hey it Alaska, I'm just gonna wade in and paw em up on the bank like an old grizzly bear"...And by the looks of these guys I wouldn't bet against them.

But my very all time favorite red salmon pick I took just a couple hours ago on my bike ride, right before the toad strangler hit and sent me peddling for home. I was riding the river walk and the red bite was a frenzy, this little gal was helping her dad with the fish and as you can see, she ain't afraid of a little blood and slime that goes with the Alaskan way of life.

A little farther down the boardwalk I came across this scene. The wife was not fishing but just netting and then putting the fish in a cooler for her husband. You don't see much culture along the river during the red run so I snapped a pic and we had a good laugh. I told her husband he better hurry up on catching that limit because the next thing is the L.L. Bean mail order catalog, might add a little expense to those red salmon.

So that's a bit of a run down on 'red run 2012'. Woody used to tell me that he could feel the Peninsula sinking under the weight of motor homes, I'm almost there. It's just exciting and everyone , everywhere talks red salmon. I hope that businesses in town get a bump and not every business is suffering like us or the east side set netters who have only fished once this year. The reds are bright a spot, a gift, an amazing Alaskan phenomena.......but.....if you ever get so many that you can't get your boat off the beach, well, you've probably got enough eh?

Note to self....happy birthday

59 years ago today in Fort Campbell Kentucky I came into this world fighting, scratching, clawing and cryin...and I been doing that ever since. When you get nearer to the end than you are the start the b-days are celebrated a little different. I kinda reflect....man....I've had a lot of fun. And even though right now my humor isn't as good as usual the left side of my brain tells me " you're healthy, ya got MP, you just bought tickets to Maz, the kids are good,  the dog loves you, you're a legendary fisherman, your music is listenable and you make a great ceasers salad"..... "SO QUIT MOONING ABOUT THE FISHERY".... and that's what I plan to do. In fact yesterday morning the launch was quiet at 7 am so me and MP did something we never have the chance to do this time of year....we went fishing.

That's the launch lady herself with a nice red salmon just a tugging away. I ran for the net and as you can tell from her smile she had fun catching her first red in so many years that we couldn't remember. I know we used to fish for them, I just can't remember when...but hey, I'm 59 years old, its that memory deal.

You know life is good when your fishing partner has a smile like that. We were tied at one fish a person and then she caught her second and I was looking good and out fished. But I bore down on the slimeys and in an hour we had 5 laying on the bank, just the right amount for a canner full and some nice steaks on the barbecue....which I over cooked as usual.

So it looks like we're going to get another week of catch and release fishing for Kings, and I suspect we'll chase some of these reds. But I've learned a lot lately about fishermen, fishing and what it seems to be all about. I guess for me I was looking at this just differently than some folks... I think it was Zane Grey who said "men fish their entire lives without knowing that's its not fish they're after".....well, that ain't my customers, at least some of my oldest and best friends who have canceled because they don't want to release the King they might catch. For me its always been and always will be fellowship, the chase, the excitement of the bite, all the hope and planning that it takes, the air , the turquoise water and the way coffee tastes so good when you're cold....its about it all....and always will be.

So happy birthday Jeff.....I think you've turned into a pretty good guy.