Day 42 Friday July 14th– Kenai

Friday July 14^th – day 42 – Kenai

Once we finally rolled out of camp at 11am, we headed to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Soldotna.  The guy working the counter gave us maps and encouraged us to do a couple hikes, which is what we wanted to do in the first place. Didn’t see “big” wildlife, but we did encounter a local hoard of mosquitoes that must have been running low on type A- blood, cause they took a couple quarts out of me and the family. We packed VERY poorly, as only one of us brought a mosquito net, and no one packed “OFF” or any equivalent.  So after about 1.5 miles of our ~4 mile hike, we were in a slow jog through the trails, and if I killed one, I killed 200 mosquitoes on the way. This is a mistake I won't repeat soon.  I might sleep with my can of OFF and wear a headnet for insurance….

Then we went over to the Soldotna Visitors Center, where the rod/reel world record king salmon mount is on display, showing off 97# of delicious glory.  That fish was 7 years old, putting on an average of 14#/year. Nearly as much as me in my college years……

World Record King Salmon caught by Les Anderson on May 17, 1985

Then we went on a walk down the Kenai River boardwalk.  A handful of guys were fishing, and Deanna encouraged us to fish a bit, so we did. Shortly after we got started, the ladies decided to go visit the local market.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have Deanna's phone.  Eventually, Travis and I moved down river a bit, and thus got separated from the womenfolk.  Two hours later, we got tired of not catching fish and called them, only to realize they didn’t have a phone, so…….. not everyone was happy about how that went.

Then we came back to camp, had leftovers for dinner and then Dee and I went for a walk to see how the dipnetters were doing.  We took a count and roughly 28% of the dipnetters were female.  Attagirls!  The seagulls are all over the place cleaning up fish parts that us humans don’t eat.  We met a guy from McKinney and got to shoot the breeze with him for a while. 

Mine! Mine! Mine!
After filleting their fish, the dipnetters throw the fish carcasses into the water.
The seagulls have a field day with this.

Travis and I plan to hit the river again tomorrow mid day to fish the outgoing tide on the river. Hope we catch a few!!

day 41 - Erik heads to Anchorage, we head to Kenai

Thursday July 13^th – day 41 – moved to Kenai

We were supposed to be in Homer still….. but Homer doesn’t have a transmission shop, and I needed one (again). Truck torque converter is locked up and won’t “idle” at stop signs, etc.  It wants to plow through the intersection really slow, which is kind of a bad feature.  I’d been shifting in and out of neutral to manage velocity. Reverse does the same thing. So….. we drug the camper to Kenai two days early and put the truck into the local tranny shop- “Duke’s Transmission”.  Hopefully this will get the truck running correctly.  When your vehicle has 236k miles on it, you need to expect (and budget for) stuff like this….

Our campsite in Kenai is on the bluffs above the famed Kenai River.   It’s legal for AK residents to “dipnet” for salmon. So, they just hold a gargantuan net on a long handle in the river (best on an incoming tide) for hours on end, and when a salmon swims into the net, they flip the net over to “lock” it in the net.  The reds are slowly coming in but should be at full strength in the next week or two.  There are probably ~100 dipnetters along the shoreline within half a mile of our camper. There’s a seal about 10 yards further offshore trying to catch salmon too.

Dipnetters along the north shore of the Kenai River- right below our campground

A fisherman makes a catch

There are more and more fishers every day

We went to Three Bears and got more groceries, malted beverages and terminal tackle for snagging reds.  Kids and I plan to hit the river in the morning to try and catch some.

Dinner tonight was grilled salmon sandwiches.  Life is pretty good.

day 40 - Homer

Wednesday July 12^th – day 40 – Homer

Erik is loading his stuff to move on to Anchorage today. They’re winding down the AK experience, and in trying to “ditch” stuff at this stage. Sell, gift, etc.. I took some of his fishing stuff since it was an improvement over my own (his milk crate, dipnet and stringer were all far better).  While inventorying his stuff, Erik confessed to having brought a few too many items. “For instance, I brought twenty fishing poles.”

“Twenty?  Dang Don.  You thought each member of your family would need 4 rods each?  And at least 1.5 of your family members don’t hardly fish at all?” - Shane

“Twenty….. I thought we might need ‘em.” – Erik

Erik ended up taking everyone out to a restaurant called Two Sisters for dessert after dinner. 

Quote for the day:  (when Erik offered to leave the “beanbag” board game) - “No thanks, there won’t be a Matt to play with.” - Travis

the Homer Spit

A spruce grouse that we saw while hiking at the Carl E Wynn Nature Center

On a hike at the Carl E Wynn Nature Center

day 39 - guided hali + salmon in Homer

Tuesday July 11^th – day 39 – guided halibut/salmon fishing in Homer

Erik booked a halibut trip for 6 of us and we’re sure looking forward to it.  Shane, Amanda and Travis joined Erik, Victoria and Matt for this endeavor. 

Okay….. we’re back now, and WOW, what a day. Our trip was booked through Homer Ocean Charters, but the boat was owned and operated by Bryan Baker of Slippery Fish Adventures guide services.  He and his deck hand, Ben, did a great job and had us on fish in very short order. It took about an hour to get out to “the spot”. 

http://www.slipperyfishing.com/captain-bryan/

We setup to troll in about 60 feet of water, using 3 downriggers and flasher boards, trailed by “coho killers”, which are a long skinny spoon, which mimic the action of a “cigar minnow”, upon whom the salmon feed.  Simple setup, and Ben kept them out really well. No major tangles, and good tackle/gear. 

I should add here, that we were fishing within seeing distance of three volcanos. Mt. Illiamna, Mt. Redoubt, and Mt. Augustine are all right there in the Cook Inlet/Kachemak Bay area, and really something to behold. That you can admire them while retrieving salmon dinner makes their sighting all the sweeter.

  

The first salmon, a big silver (coho) was on within minutes. Amanda caught it and did a great job. Shortly thereafter, Victoria was on a nice silver too, and it was netted and in the livewell, which continued to crowd throughout the day.  J

By 10:30am, we’d collected a mix of silvers, pinks and a few kings.  We’d also caught a bunch of smallish halibut, one of which was big enough to keep (Travis’ work here…). The tide was approaching it’s 11:20am “low”, during which there would be a “slack” tide, so we headed to the halibut grounds about 30 minutes away.

Halibut fishing is entirely different from salmon fishing, so a change of tackle and gear was required. Halibut are bottom feeders and are typically found in deeper waters, so you use a huge weight (ie 3#) and a huge circle hook with a mongo (redneck term meaning “substantial”) chunk of herring for bait. The halibut bite was steady and productive. We never caught a HUGE fish, but we caught a lot in the 26-35” (called chickens) range, all of which are good eating and still tons of meat.  Each person was allowed to keep one fish under 28” and one of any size. In an effort to keep this more entertaining yet, I offered $5 to whoever had the fish closest to 28” without going over. Amanda won the money with a 27 1/2” porker. J In an effort to win the money, Erik threw back a nice 26” fish early in the day, as we were catching fish steady, but the fishing slowed down after that.  This was his “albatross” moment, so we made fun of him the balance of the day.  Cause that’s what “friends” do.  He ended up keeping a 24” fish later.  Meanwhile, Victoria caught the big halibut of the day. :)

 

shane masters the photobomb

Once we all had our halibut, we returned to salmon fishing. By this time, Amanda was already “limited out” on both species, cause she’d harvested a big king salmon. At first she was mad that she couldn’t fish any more, but got over it when she realized she could lord it over us that she was “tagged out”, and did so with fine fashion. J

Victoria caught a big king shortly after we started fishing for salmon again, and so both ladies were tagged out and had a good time on the upper deck observing the men who were trying to tag out too.  Then Travis hooked onto a HUGE king salmon, that put up the most entertaining fight of the day, by coming to the top quickly, only to TAKE OFF headed up the left side of the boat while we all watched and yelled.  It must have not liked the yelling, cause it turned around and took off back around the rear of the boat and over to the right side. Eventually he wore the beast out and brought it to the boat. It was a fantastic fish, and one of the last for the day.  Travis normally does a pretty poor “forced smile” in photos.  He’s just a genuine kid, and he doesn’t do well when “made” to look happy.  In fact, this has been a bit of a family joke for years.  Well…. NOT TODAY!  Travis natural smile is fantastic, and he was beaming with it after that fish. 

Bryan said that Travis’ king was the biggest of his season so far, and he does this every day. It was a 35” king, which should be about a 17# fish, according to online sources.  Having held the fish, I swear it felt heavier, and the fillets were beautiful.

Erik, Matt and I fished for another half hour or so, trying to catch anything like Travis’ fish, but failed to do so, and at 4:15, we pulled up lines for the hour long ride back to harbor.  Matt had a rock cod on the rod he reeled in, so that was some “bonus” fillet meat for the burgeoning live well.

The deck hand, Ben, drained the bloody live well and pulled all the fish out for pictures, and then filleted them all while Bryan drove to harbor. In all, we had 12 halibut, 12 salmon, and two rockfish.  I’m estimating that collection made for about 80-100# of actual eating meat, once filleted off the bone.  We kept out three halibut fillets (3/4 of one fish) for dinner and had the balance bagged and frozen for Erik to transport home on Sunday via plane.

All in all, one helluva day of fishing and I will absolutely return someday to try and repeat this performance. The planets were aligned in our favor, between good weather, good tide timing, great guides, strong bite and well behaved kids.

(From Deanna) Meanwhile, back on shore…… Lilly, Luke, and I spent the day on an array of activities, including a visit to the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, tidepooling at Bishop's Beach (checking the shallows and pools created when the tide is low to look for critters), and enjoying lunch at a local restaurant called Two Sisters. While tidepooling, we found jellyfish, crabs, sea anenomes, etc and had a great time.  With one type of jellyfish we could actually see light flashes as electrical currents pulsed through its body.  Very cool!  The weather was perfect for a stroll on the beach- so relaxing!  The only problem is when you're not paying attention when tidepooling, and you walk a little too deep into the water, and your boots begin to fill with water (don't ask me how I know).    After lunch we did some walking around town, visiting local thrift stores and a really cool yarn shop.  While thrifting, I found a great nylon “fishing” shirt from Sportsman's Warehouse for Travis for $6.50. It’s a men’s medium, and it fits him eerily well. He looks like a fishing guide in it and was walking tall between the shirt and that chinook…..

Once back in camp, Erik and Lilly cooked up the halibut and Deanna made rice + veggies to go with it.

After dinner, we sat around a small campfire retelling fish stories (mandatory).   During that event, we needed to relight the fire, and Erik used some surplus tiki torch oil. This turned out to be FAR more flammable than expected, and Erik had to jump back from the fire, spraying fluid (from the Ozarka bottle he’d used for its transport) all over the place, including his britches. 

As bedtime approached, we got ready to hit the hay, but Erik, while walking through his camper accidentally kicked the bear spray and it discharged about two seconds worth INSIDE THE CAMPER!  This added some drama to an already busy day.  I’m not sure if bear spray is effective on bears or not, but it sure as heck works on me!

Quote for the day:  “honey, my pants smell like bear spray and lighter fluid”- Erik

day 38 - drive to Homer

Monday July 10^th – day 38 – road to Homer and trailer sales effort in Anchorage

The only big event of the day was a stop at the Cabelas in Anchorage to “sell” our stuff. 

We agreed to terms with a local guy to buy our camper for $6k.  It was on Craigslist for $5500.  Either I’m a stellar negotiator or Alaska is a sellers market.  Methinks the latter.

Erik topped us though.  He managed to agree to terms with one guy to buy:  his camper, his van, and the Porta-boat as a package.  What a relief! 

Upon arrival in Homer, we called tomorrows fishing guide, and found that the weather for tomorrow is flat out perfect.  Hardly any wind (less waves = less hurling), and nil chance of rain.  The moon is full and that means bigger tidal shifts, which is better for halibut fishing.  The guide further said that they have been catching substantial quantities of king (chinook), silver (coho) and pink (humpy) salmon.

Then both families drove into town and parked on the “spit” which is a long skinny rock road protruding into Katchemak Bay. Upon arrival, we went to find the charter office, where we meet them tomorrow, and lo and behold, the boat had just come in with a substantial haul of those fish (minus coho) but some yelloweye rockfish, and a big lingcod. Definitely raised the bar for tomorrows expectations…….  It’ll be hard to sleep tonight, thinking about all those fish, all those fights, and all the dinners it will provide. J  they we walked the beach, and Amanda found yet more rocks to add to her burgeoning collection.  If rocks were shoes, Amanda would be Amelda Marcos….

day 37 - flightseeing Denali

Sunday July 9 – Day 37 – Talkeetna – flightseeing tour of Mt. Denali

Everyone slept in after yesterdays long haul. 

Erik, the boys and I headed out around 9:30am to fish (Lynn is crying as he reads this…..), stopping at a local tackle shop first.  The lady running the shop said the fish were in, but you couldn’t fish at ALL in the area next to the road (easiest access) and salmon were catch and release only.  Further, all fishing must be done without bait, with a single hook (not treble)

Then she showed us a rig that was endorsed by the local guru. These rigs are “bottom bouncers”, very similarly to my normal setup for catfish, with a weight, then a barrel swivel, followed by a leader and a hook.  Upstream of the hook, the “guru” had a blue floating ball, and on the hook was a ball of string, or imitation salmon egg.  It all sounded reasonable at the time….

Rigs were cheap, so we bought several and headed out to the river to test their performance. 

She showed us how to get there, which was a bit involved, since you have to hike ½ mile from the road before fishing, per Fish and Game regs. 

It wasn’t til we got to the river, that I realized we didn’t ask her “how do you fish these”?  Also, we didn’t realize the route to get there was a poorly worn rabbit trail tracing the ragged edge of the river, and it did so right along a series of private properties, all of which had a bunch of abandoned houses, cars, etc. In short, it looked like a rarely worn trail through great bear country, with a couple meth labs thrown in for good measure….

Once I tied up my rig, I realized it looked very much like a Christmas tree ornament, and I have no experience using anything like it.

As a bonus, once we got out to the fishing location, I also realized that I’d left in camp:  mosquito net, bug spray, bear spray, and 38, all of which I was in desperate want of. 

The river flowed very fast, so casting the rig out “bounced” quite quickly straight downstream, ending about 3’ off shore, maybe 40’ downstream. I felt no more a threat to the salmon population than when I was asleep on my pillow hours before.  Indeed, all the “bites” we got originated from mosquitos, not salmon.  After about 45 minutes of this, we headed back to camp to prep for the far more exciting afternoon activity.

Said afternoon activity was a flightseeing tour of Mt. Denali (formerly called Mt. McKinley), the highest peak in North America.  This was an incredible experience. Our flight took off at 3pm and lasted til 4:30pm. The single engine craft had room for our 9, one more passenger and the pilot. The pilot asked the group if anyone, preferably tall, would like to sit in the copilot’s seat, and I (Shane) was quickly elected. It was an honor and tremendous advantage to have that chair.

The views of the mountain cannot be described with any level of accuracy, because it was just too incredible. We saw glaciers, mountain tops, etc.  Between the 9 of us, we took tons of photos, video, etc, but none of it do the experience justice. I was continuously reminded of Morgan Freeman's character in “The Bucket List” describing Mt. Everest, when he said it was “indescribably beautiful”. That’s the best I can do.  It was an indescribably beautiful experience.  Deanna asked the family for one word summaries of what we saw:  me: Majesty, Deanna: majestic, Travis: complex, Amanda: can’t

day 36- bus into Denali

Saturday July 8 – Day 36 – Denali National Forest and drive to Talkeetna

Our 8 hour bus tour of Denali National Forest started at 7:10am, and it was a 2.5 hour drive (and the boys refuse to be anywhere near late to a scheduled event), so we planned to roll out at 4am. Until Erik woke us up at (seriously) 3:18am. Ugh. We made it out of camp at 3:30am sharp and arrived none too soon at 6:30am, which allowed for breakfast before the tour started.

Between Fairbanks and Denali is virtually nothing.  No towns of appreciable size, nothing.  Just the occasional moose (We saw 4 en route, including a momma and her twins).

Should you be travelling this area (the northern portion of the Parks Highway) and find yourself in need of refreshment or lodging while halfway between Fairbanks and Denali park, you can stop and stay at Skinny Dicks Halfway Inn. They provide malted beverages and sketchy lodging to the weary traveler. https://www.skinnydicks.net/ should you find yourself in need……We didn’t stop, but did giggle. 

Our tour guide, Peter, had been driving a bus in Denali for 20 years now. That’s a lot of experience and familiarity. He provided tons of background info on the area’s history, its development (or lack thereof) and local flora/fauna. Excellent tour, and well worth the money.  Along the way, we saw 4 of the “big 5”-2 moose, one wolf, about a dozen caribou, 6 grizzly (grizzer bear, pilgrim), ptarmigan, and lots of small game.  The one we missed were the Dall sheep.

Unfortunately, Mt. Denali was covered up with clouds (as it is ~60% of the time, so no big surprise).