A Fish Tail

I teamed up with my buddy Steve Hiebert for a salmon fishing adventure in Alaska this summer. He was on his way to visit relatives in Spokane, Washington so I flew up and met him there. Alaska is about 2300 miles further north so we had one hell of a road trip ahead of us but aside from some 12-18 hour days of driving it was pretty fun. Everyone should do it once.

The first obstacle was getting thru customs into Canada. Not sure what you've heard but depending on where you cross the border guards are decked out in flake jackets, fully automatic weapons, and an attitude. Steve had made a jog into B.C. earlier that week and spent and hour getting scuffed up in the border crossing. Although he didn't have all his gear at that time, we were planning to carry bear spray with us and that was one of the main things they repeatedly questioned him about. Since we weren't too keen on loosing $80 worth of spray we picked another entry point to cross at. Ironically as we pulled up to the check station the border patrolman exited his booth, walked over to the bushes, and proceeded to empty what appeared to be a can of bear spray into the weeds. At that point we figured we were just going to have to fork it over but when the guy came back to the window he pretty much waved us through without ever asking the dreaded question. The whole thing is doubly ironic since as we proceeded through B. C. you can buy this exact same brand of spray everywhere. Must be a government conspiracy, eh!

Did I mention bears? Yeah they were everywhere in British Columbia. After fishing one afternoon we drove down a dirt road in the back country and saw bear scat every 50 yards....for miles. Also saw quite a few live ones along the road, and one night had a big guy right in camp. Good thing we were sleeping in the back of the truck.

I didn't think the lower half of BC was very scenic but it gets better the further north you go. Also the further north you get the worse the road becomes. They still haven't figured out how to build a road over the perma-frost so the asphalt heaves and you're left with a roller-coaster highway that's pretty hard to drive. I think we caught some air a few times.

After several days we finally rolled into Alaska. This was my second time there and I'm very impressed. Hard to beat the sea and mountain combo. Our first trip we lucked out and had rain-free weather the whole time. Not so lucky on this trip. It rained everyday and was overcast the whole time. The moose don't mind.

One quick stop in Anchorage to pickup another friend and we made our way down the Kenai Peninsula to the town of Soldotna and our hotel, the Kenai River Inn. The hotel was right on the river and there was some fishing there, but it was pretty hard to get a good spot with all the other guests there too. We traveled around to a few other spots on the river and found a gravel bar that worked out pretty nicely. We weren't the only ones there, of course, but that's fishing in Alaska. The salmon only run for about 2 months so everyone and their dog is out there.

It was a bit hard to get into the swing of catching the fish. Spawning salmon aren't really feeding as they come up stream. Consequently you have to present the line so that it floats into their mouth where they hook themselves. Sounds easy right? Well not so much but I listened to a lot of advice from the locals (and believe me everyone has a ton of conflicting advice) so after sifting through all the noise, and with a little luck you can get hot. Well maybe not YOU but I did. After about 3 days of not catching anything I suddenly got going and limited out for a few days. Came home with 50 pounds of salmon fillets. We've been eating so much fish I'm starting to grow scales.

Well all good trips have to come to an end. I caught a flight home from Anchorage, and Steve went on to visit more kin up around Wasila...that Sarah Palin country. PS- You can see Russia from there:)