I took the lead as the biggest looser in the fishing category yesterday.  Jeff and I lost my only king salmon to a seal 100 yards from the dock at the end of our fishing trip earlier this spring.  After blowing me off for a month not accepting any requests for fishing or berry picking, I was assigned babysitting duties of one Samuel Conteh yesterday, and therefore he could not decline the request this time.  The trip did not start off well.  The boat stalled about 1/2 mile from the dock.  Water in the fuel – again!  Hopefully this is just a remnant of the early trouble.  I got the small kicker going and figured we’d just troll out to George Rock and back for the time we had on the little motor.  Near the rock, we caught a big coho.  Samuel tried to hold the rod but was too scared so he had me land it.  A big, fat 10 lb coho.  As soon as I got the gear down again, another fish was on.  Then the downrigger drag slipped, and 150 feet of line went out and the wire jumped the pulley and it took quite a while to get it back on the pulley – this is a flaw of Cannon downriggers. I had put the first fish on a stringer, broke a gill, and was towing it alongside the boat.  Then I put the second fish on the stringer after fixing the downrigger and we trolled on.  Then the little motor quit.  I could not get it started.  Again, looked like a fuel issue.  In drained the fuel filter, pulled the plugs, and as I was doing so, Samuel was pulling up the line that held the fish in the water and letting it down, pulling it up and letting it down.  After I was worked up into a lather both physically and emotionally trying to get the boat going for 15 or 20 minutes, Samuel says “hey, where did the fish go?”.  I look back and he’d work the double half hitch loose.   The line with the fish were gone.  A short outburst Samuel’s way led to laughter as now the trip was complete.  Two motors out of service and the only bright spot so far -the two fish- were now gone.  I told Samuel this story would now replace his first trip to the cabin, where he announced he wanted to go home as there was no video games or TV at the cabin.  I finally got the little motor going and we idled back to the dock.  –

Just got back from dipnetting on the Kenai River.  We got 72 for 4 of us, which is the lowest in 3 years but still pretty darn good.  Keith had taken two trips for single digits days before, and the fish just hit the river a tide or two before we went so we lucked out.  I had to go from Anchorage to Cordova before heading to Juneau, so I rented a vac packer in Anchorage from Alaska Butcher supply and it worked great to fillet and pack the fish at Todd’s and put them in his work freezer until Sara goes up in a few weeks and can bring them back.     I went out on a boat in southwest Prince William Sound for several days, and when we weren’t working, we caught some rockfish.  A school of coho came in under the boat when we were at anchor and we got several of those mooching with salmon flashabou hootchies and flies on a banana sinker. As we were checking a string of shrimp pots, we caught squat for shrimp in the first 3 pots clipped to the long line. I could see the 4th pot coming up and a flash of white around it I thought might be an octopus.  When it got to the surface, up popped the head of a 100 lb halibut.  From the looks of it, the fish was caught on an (illegal) three hook sport fishing set up, and broke off.  When he went sniffing around the shrimp pot bait, one of the two free hooks not in his mouth got caught on the shrimp pot. I got in last night and Kurt picked me up as Sara is still south playing.  He said fishing was good here, and he got a big king salmon, too.  I vac packed fish in the evening and dropped off salmon fillets at the fish smoker this morning.  Lorraine and Michelle said they took their kids fishing here over the weekend and got 9 coho.   Sounds like a decent year for salmon in most of Alaska, although our local Taku River sockeye return is not so hot.  Maybe the fish are late like they were in Bristol Bay. –

I entertained 5 off the cruise ship, 3 of which who were sisters that were friends of my cousins back in Olean, NY. We went fishing and caught salmon steady for an hour. Then took one of the fish to our cabin for lunch. The pilgrims all got wet feet on the way in to our cabin. It wasn’t that they forgot to bring boots. They didn’t even bring them on their 2 week cruise which ends with a land portion up in Fairbanks. One of them had some plastic bag booties to go over their sneakers, which I knew would not make it to the cabin. I asked them that if we happened to meet anyone along the trail to our cabin, to please indicate they were not with me. This cannot stand, people. It’s turning a cruise into Disney World where each stop is another ride. The cruise lines should charge everyone an extra $100 and include Xtratuffs in their travel package. That way every time people leave the ship in their boots they’ll be ready for whatever weather or conditions happen, rain or shine. Xtratuffs are comfortable to walk in, so they can shop all they want and make a fashion statement at the same time in some of the get-ups we see around town. Happily, my new friends were not put off in the least. They loved the salmon and scenery and Alaskan harassment for choice of footware and tolerated the wet feet. Pretty hard to be too demanding if you grow up in Allegany, NY. I hope they come back.

Went to our cabin and picked about 12 lbs of blueberries with a berry rake in 3-4 hours and didn’t walk more than 20 yards to get most of them they are so thick.  I’m starting to notice the differences between blueberries and blue huckleberries, a main one being that blueberries come off the stem alot easier than huckleberries.  Checked the crab pot on the way in and the way out and nothing so moved it to town.  Pouring rains here but not wind. –

Switched to blueberries now.  Picked 12 cups in 2.5 hours.  Kind of a downer after getting 20+ lbs of salmonberries in the same time.  Funny how there are lots of blueberries where I went but no berries on the plants in the forest behind our house.  Maybe they will show later.  80 degrees today and way too hot for me.  Jeff and I fished for kings from 4a to 6a for nada. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

Kurt and I headed out the 4th to fish the tip of Admiralty as I’d heard some cohos were being caught. We left at 4 am and were fishing about 445 on a flat calm morning all by ourselves. We had continuous action bringing home 3 coho and 6 pinks and we released a few pinks and lost several fish. The first coho was about 14 lbs. Fed the whole crowd at Jeff and Teri’s 4th party with fish to spare. There were pink salmon, mostly, jumping as far as you could see in any direction. Funny how it seems all we hear about are poor salmon returns, etc and we are looking at yet another banner year this year, I think. And by banner, I mean runs as big as they’ve ever been in some areas since fishing began in the late 1800’s. We’ll see. Today, I got around to some chores. I figured out how to replace Sara’s van’s motorized window crank with a manual one after the 2nd motor went kaput. Took a couple hours of figuring it out but got it to work and now we’ll do the passenger side, too. Also getting the house back together after repairing for rot in the spring. I had it replaced from studs, insulation, sheathing and tar paper, and just needed to replace the siding. I bought it on Friday and cut it today and Sara is painting it so should get it up soon. 70+ degrees today and near 80 yesterday. What a summer.