That old white line
is friend of mine
And it's good time
we've been making
Right now I'm rollin' down
the open road
And the daylight
will soon be breaking.
-Neil Young
We stop in Hope on the Kenai Peninsula on the first day to watch people fishing for the incoming salmon.
In the afternoon we take a three hour raft trip out of Cooper's landing on the Kenai River.
So today I walked seven miles in the morning down a lonely frontage road near Ephrata, Washington on I-90.
We discover in Homer that halibut fishing is not possible without a reservation this year, so we take an all day trip to the fishing village of Seldovia.
Carol, Danny, Doris Les and Susie. Danny and Susie are my younger cousins.
The tides in Seldovia can be 20 or more feet.
The Ocean House Inn in Homer has a nice view of the Homer Spit, Cook's Inlet and mountsins with glaciers.
We take a drive up the Skyline drive looking for picyures.
Kenai, Mouth of the Kenai River, Cook’s Inlet, Alaska
Cook’s Inlet runs along the Kenai Peninsula for about 150 miles. It’s lined with 12,000 foot snow-covered active smoking volcanoes. I used to fly up and down here once a month to deliver supplies out to a radar station at the end of the Aleutian Chain a few miles from Russia. The trip from Washington State to the end of the Aleutians took 20 hours. After a 100 hour trip to Southeast Asia, you could just squeeze in an Alaska supply trip at the end of the month before running out of hours.
Seeing the volcanoes again from our perch on a bluff brought back the old memories. I remember falling asleep with my face in a radar scope cowl over the remote Pribilof Islands. I remember flying here between pink and purple fantasy cotton candy cloud layers at dawn.
The fishing regs here are incredibly complicated. I read a sign this morning on the Kasifof that says King salmon with adipose fins can only be taken on Thursdays and Saturdays. There is a picture of an adipose fin but no other explanation. I go to Google and learn that hatchery fish have adipose fins removed before release. The fish with adipose fins are therefore wild salmon that get extra protection five days a week.
For part of the season, kings between 44 and 55 inches in length must be released. As I understand it, this restriction has expired, but Kings over 55 inches must be presented to Fish and Game within three days before they are filleted.
The residents are lined up shoulder to shoulder now along mouth of the Kenai with dip nets. They stand in lines of about fifty waiting for a turn to run down the beach and scoop up the reds. It’s called subsistence fishing.
A resident is allotted 25 reds annually plus 10 reds for each dependent. We see a family, cooking jars of red flesh chunks in pressure cookers, preparing for the winter. Reds run about 10 pounds each. This is a big event in summer. Tomorrow is the weekend and with the news of the run, the beach should be even more crowded as the 24 foot tide and fish come in.
I buy some rubber boots that come to my crotch so I can stand on the shore and attempt to snag a red or two before we continue the trip. About 40,000 reds a day will enter the river for the next two weeks. They swim along the shore making them easy to scoop up with dip nets. You have to be a resident to use a net. I'm nervous about catching a fish that violates regs. However, no one seems to be checking.
This morning, I walked down to the quiet Kasilof River. A moose waded out a few feet from me and then swam across the river. These are the moments that a volunteer nature photographer lives for. It’s a job. Someone has to do it.
Finally I’m in a place with enough bandwidth to post pictures to my blog. I catch up on about two weeks worth of blog pictures.
I must have had a feeling when I put on my Pink Floyd shirt this morning to get on the boat. Syd died yesterday at 60. Pink Floyd won't be getting back together in this world.
after the service when you're walking slowly to the car
and the silver in her hair shines in the cold November air
you hear the tolling bell
and touch the silk in your lapel
and as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
you take her frail hand
and hold on to the dream
We had another fisherman on our small boat named Otto yesterday. He talked incessantly as we fished for king salmon. He's on the cell phone six times. He whistles when he runs out of things to say. Otto has 12 kids. He tells about finding his naked wife in the snow with blue nipples after the last one. He warmed her up in the shower. I'm not surprised at her behavior after sitting next to him for six hours. We caught nothing. I snagged several rocks and logs. It’s very cold when the boat moves.
Danny caught and released a seven pound king salmon. We kept a two pound rainbow trout for dinner. You only get to keep one king a day and we were hoping for a 90 pounder later in the morning.
Last night the moose came back in bright daylight and I snapped way too many pictures. Since Carol is not here I get to drink as much bourbon as I can handle every night. I woke at 3AM as the sun rose. At five we headed downriver again in search of Chinook (king salmon).
I hook a big one...about 50 pounds...I work him slowly to the boat over a 30 minute period...he looks at me and dives under the boat, circling the prop and breaking the line....by the time we are back to shore he has grown to 75 pounds....I think he may be a new world record by the time I return to Tampa..
We leave Soldatna and drive down the peninsula to Nimilchik to watch several hundred people digging clams on the 28 foot low tide…the tide here is only six feet less than the Bay of Fundy. We continue to Anchor Point and talk to Captain Tim about our Halibut charters…he is a nice man and gives us a 3 pound chunk of fresh Halibut for dinner tonight.
We are checked in to our new home in Homer... The view from the front porch is spectacular
There is a Billy the Kid 24-hour movie TV extravaganza going on here Billy has been the subject of more movies than any other human.
The wind died down today and we and we went out again 20 miles into Cook’s Inlet on a small boat. Danny loved it…we are shipping 100 pounds of flash-frozen, vacuum-packed halibut back to his house. He just called me out on the cliff in back of the Inn to show me the sea otters working the clams a few yards way at high tide. A bald eagle buzzes the cliff about once an hour but I can’t get my camera cycled up quickly enough for a photo. The tide here varies by 28 feet over a six hour period. Just pulling up four pound weights from 200 feet down for a bait check is a workout. When the tide is ripping they don’t hold on the bottom. I catch the biggest halibut taken on the boat both days. One is 75 pounds. It’s a workout to bring him up. Limit two.
A black bear trotted by the back door last night only ten feet away. My camera was off. On the trip back we spent an hour watching fly-fishing anglers catching 15 pound sockeye salmon. They take a fish every four casts on average. The bag limit is three. Last year an emergency order lifted the limit to six as too many fish entered the river. The plane left Alaska at 9:40 PM. We gradually flew into darkness as we headed south…the cloud cover was broken by brightly illuminated snow-capped mountain peaks. I arrived home at noon today.
A bumper sticker observed on the back of an Alaska fishing Captain’s pickup truck:
