Mary's Fishing Update

Quick update on fishing in Alaska! Ginger and I took the dogs, two friends (Karen and Joey) and the motorhome over to Kasilof River on the Kenai Peninsula to go dipnetting for sockeye (red) salmon this past weekend. We were out at the river from about 10:30am till 9 pm on Saturday. We caught 8 fish total. Not a large amount considering we had 2 to 4 nets in the water at any one time. People were catching but nobody was limiting (25 per head of household plus 10 per family member) out.

We did have a good time and met some nice, some weird, and some interesting people. One guy makes his own nets and loaned us two. He uses copper pipes which are heavy but the size of the net is effective. Although 12 feet long, our new nets still aren't quite big enough (diameter) so Ginger plans to make use of the shop at school to construct some bigger nets for us this winter to use next year.

There was some excitement when two people caught king salmon in their nets. The kings have to be released since it is illegal to catch and keep them when dipnetting. The first was probably a 20# fish but the second was the size of a miniature horse or at least a goat (60 to 70#). Imagine having the animal swim into your net (you feel the hit at the end of the net) and than pulling it out of the water and up onto the beach. Wow! The guy who caught it worked really fast to get it out of the net and back in the water. Even if he wanted to keep it, I am sure it was too big not to be conspicuous.

The weather cooperated and we actually had some blue sky and we all came home with sunburnt faces. (yes, even in Alaska). We are planning another motorhome camping trip with the boat over Labor Day to a place outside of Anchorage called Big Lake. The lake has rainbow trout, silver salmon and the evil northern pike which tends to eat the other fish and take over. So we will see how good the fishing is.

Rainy in Anchorage today but I'm back to work so who cares. Everyone is complaining that we aren't having much of a summer but the weather forecasters are saying this is more on the normal side, cloudy, rainy, etc. rather than 70 degree days Anchorage had last year. What I find is activities like bicycling, baseball, softball that when it rains, would stop people in So. Calif., folks here just keep on going. Otherwise we might never get outside to play if we wait for the rain to stop! Those of you who have visited know what we mean. Those of you who haven't visited, get your bums up here.

Ok folks that's it for now. Back to work, lots to do...!

Time passes so quickly

Can't believe that my last post was June 22...the days have been busy - I hope you all had a great 4th of July. Mary and I traveled to Cape Cod for the 4th to visit with our best buds - Sue and Susan. It was a great trip!

There were many highlights - including a trip to a working organic cranberry bog...learned lots of cool things, such as - cranberries are "dry harvested" and "wet harvested." The wet havested technique is a second harvest and these berry can only be used for juice and jams. The berries found in the produce section as whole berries and/or cranraisins arrive in stores through the dry harvest.

Back in Seward and Anchorage - our friends at Puffin Charter were nice enough to take me out on a combo trip that was not full last week (halibut and silver salmon) as always when I am fishing it was a blast (and a beautiful day). Summer is quickly passing with lots of fishing, gardening and Alaska Baseball League games...plenty to keep us busy. Gotta run for now - I hear through the grapevine that the King Salmon are still at the water fall - high tide is 11:30pm and my snagging hook is begging to hit the water.

Dipping netting this weekend complete with camping (full hookups) - report to follow...

Later Ginger