day 25 - more salmon and ferry to Juneau

Tuesday June 27– Day 25 of trip – king salmon fishing in Petersburg – by Shane

After getting my tailfin paddled yesterday by Erik and salmon both, I returned to full glory today. J

Travis, after a long day of fruitless fishing yesterday, got tangled up in his sheets. In hindsight, maybe that was a good thing cause he slept til 8:47am.  WAAAAY longer than normal. These late nights and early sunrises will eat into your sleep pattern for sure. Anyhow, Amanda came with us today, bitter that I didn’t wake her up to fish the day before. She must have been my missing good luck charm. J

 

River wasn’t crowded, no see um’s (a gnat-like creature that bites and travels like a cloud) weren’t around at all, skies were partly cloudy, no rain, and generally speaking….. the Lord was smiling on us. It was genuinely a glorious morning. Erik caught the first big king, if I recall.  After that, I hooked 5 fish. I reeled in two, and Amanda reeled in the other two. The fifth one I hooked was lost in the fight.

In the middle of all this, Amanda is using her own rod and casting really well while perched precariously upon a river rock submerged about 6” from waterline.  Amanda hooked her own fish and fought it valiantly for quite a while, but eventually got pulled off her rock and when she hit fell, the fish spit the lure. A danged shame, cause she’d worked hard for that fish.

We shut down camp, and headed to the “fish hatchery” which is where they harvest and grow fertilized salmon eggs into fingerling, then release them into the river to return to the ocean to become big fish. Cool tour, but they didn’t have any big fish to see, which is kinda the cool part of a hatchery tour. L

 

Then we headed back to town and took the ferry from Petersburg to Juneau. Because the boat was fairly loaded already, we had to “back” the trucks and trailers down the access bridge and onto the ferry. The bridge is a 1-lane item, appx 200 yards long, and getting onto the ferry required a 90 degree turn at the end. Lynn would have LOVED this challenge. They had a guy “coach” me down it, which was very nice, but we got it in there on the first shot.  Backing a 31’ trailer with a 21’ truck is no small task, so I was glad to be involved in it. Pepaw would have been smiling, as he taught pop to back a trailer, and pop taught me.  J