The fish are Biting!

The last couple days here have tested me, and today was a great day to have off. I now live in a wall tent and might have to for the rest of the summer...time will tell I guess. I went fishing today with Cullen and Tom and we had a great day of fishing for kings. We each landed and kept a king salmon and also lost many more. I had the bonus fish of a much smaller sockeye which will taste very good over a fire! The king I caught today was the toughest battle I have ever had with a fish! It was about a 30 pounder and was fresh out of the ocean in the river with lots of power. It gave me a great battle and now I am going to butterfly the fillets. Even for there size,king salmon taste great and look great on a plate. Fishing will only get better and I cant wait! Ive been told about the crazy runs of sockeye and silver runs that will begin in the upcoming month. If it is what it should be it should be a great time of fishin. I have to pull some crazy hours this week, and then I get my first two days off in a row. I hope to get out to bear camp to see the bears, or maybe a little halibut fishing. It depends on open seats and what our clients are doing.

More photos from Homer trip

Road trip to Homer

My plan for today was to go fishing, but all of the guide boats were filled up with a huge group of Russians. My plans changed and I spent my day off going with guide Johny to Homer for guided sightseeing trip. Only one lady client was going, so the more staff on the trip the better to make her experience better. It will be a trip I will never forget and makes my journey to Alaska more fullfilling and will make it harder for me to leave at the end of August. I took many photos, many of which everyone will have to wait to see, since there are so many.


Our first stop was near deep creek off of the Sterling Highway at a Russian Orthodox Church. It had a great view overlooking the Cook Inlet. Here we saw 3 moose, which I was unable to get a photo of. Moose are like deer here and I have seen and had many close encounters. Here we could also see people down on the beach digging for clams at low tide.

Next we drove for a little while and stopped at an art gallery. I never saw myself enjoying an art gallery, but I was surprised and would say that everyone should stop here. The artist was Norman Lowell and all of his paintings were outdoor related. It is a place to see because he moved to the kenai peninsula in the late 50's from Iowa and raised a family in AK. His original homestead is still on the property and by all means is rustic. There seemed to be thousands of paintings by him in sizes from a 1 foot by 1 foot to as large as 20 feet by 20 feet. They were all originals and prices were only listed on some of the small paintings and I saw prices over $40,ooo. The cheapest prices were in the hundreds for prints of the originals that were from all different types of mediums. He is still alive and was told that he does not like to sell his stuff online. He and his wife have a large log home that they didnt stain, so it would retain a natural rustic look.

After that it was on to Homer, which in total was about 70 miles from fish camp. Here we first stopped at an overlook where we could see many mt ranges, which included active volcanic mts. that form the ring of fire.

Then it was on to a museum which showed alot about alaska. It had info and mounts of the different animal, fish, and bird species of the area. Much more also that is too much to write about. From here we took a hike down a scenic trail. To my surprise we looked to our side and a 2 year old bullwinkle was bedded along the trail. John took the our client (Adriane) ahead, while I stayed back and took some great pics. I wont tell how close I got, but the pics might give you an idea.

From there we headed to the homer "Spit", which is a penninsula that sticks out into the bay infront of Homer. It is a major boat harbor for fishermen, and is lined with shops, restaurants and camping. I had prawns and calmari rings for lunch here. They were good and were served like fish and chips, so prices weren't too bad.

After the tour of the Spit, we headed for the Homer brewery. They had 7 different brews and allowed for 3 samples each. I had a hard time choosing between an Irish ale and and a scottish brew, so I convinced the hippie behind the counter to give me another round of sampling. I would have liked to have bought a half gallon of the Irish ale...but the scottish brew was too good! Sorry walsh's.....tasted too good!

The beer was for later, so we still had to stop at a local winery on the hillside of Homer. Here we got to sample 6 of their alaskan wines. Most were sweet wines from the berrries of alaska. John was driving and Brian(another employee) was underage, so Myself and our guest (Adriane) did the sampling. The wines were good and I had a good time with Adriane. Her husband and son went fishing, while she went with us. My favorite wine was an alaskan port and a gooseberry wine. They werent too bad in price either. I think they were about $20 a bottle.

Our trip ended with a stop at the visitor center in Homer. They was some detailed exibits on the history of alaska and our country for that matter also. There were displays on the attack on dutch harbor by the japanese and other war related facts as well. We finished off at the visitor center with a 30 min video on the alluetan islands and on the war in alaska.

It was a great trip and now my Get'er'done list includes the Adventure camp with the kenai fjords, fly in bear camp, and halibut fishing in seward. Hopefully I can see them all, but I think I will at least see 2 of these before I leave. Long post, but well worth it! My suggestion is that everyone should see alaska!

Fron the Kitchen

Last night was the busiest night so far. Still not busy enough for me though. We had 2o guests for dinner. I pretty much did everything for guest lunch and dinners. For dinner I made fruit and veggie platters for appetizers for happy hour at 7pm. Happy hour here is a time for guests to meet their fishing guides or adventure guides for the following day. This goes on for an hour and then we serve dinner at 8pm. I prepared blackened salmon with a white wine hollandaise, wild rice pilaf, and cheesy cauliflower. The only thing I didnt make for dinner last night was the dessert. Lisa, the head chef, was gone most of the night, but came back and made blueberry breadpudding with rum sauce. I also whipped up some last minute fettucinne alfredo for a lady that was a vegetarian.

After getting done with work at about 10 I headed back to room when fishing guides Tom(from Iowa) and Jessie(from Georgia) called me over to their cabin. Sushi was on the menu. Jessie had all the fixing for sushi and had caught a couple of sackeye salmon. Jessie made some Philie rolls and I made some sushimi with wasabi and soy. It was delicious and everyone that was around had a good late night snack. It doesnt feel so late though, because the sun doesnt set till after midnight and it comes up at about 4. It never gets pitch black though.

Fishin the Kasilof

Yesturday I went fishing again for king salmon this time on the kasilof river. It is about a 45 minute drive from the lodge. Im just starting to figure out some of the many regulations that there is here. On the kasilof river some days you can keep any fish native or hatchery, while some days you cannot keep native fish. We think the regs are strict in MN, they are much more strict here. While drifting the kenai there are certain sections that you cannot fish, so we would pulls up our lines and row past certain sections that are posted as closed to fishing. I guess these are areas were they are trying to protect some spawning fish from being harvested. Well anyway back to the trip down the kasilof. We had a slow day for kings and we didnt catch any. We had a few bites and saw a few landed in other boats. We were only a few miles from the cook inlet (ocean), so the area we were fishing was affected by tides. We would use plugs during the inflow and outflow of water, and we would bottom bounce eggs during times of slack water. Ive learned alot already when it comes to salmon fishing, and I can see how it will make me better at catching other types of fish. The big runs of other types of salmon are to come, and I might even get a chance to go claming for razor clams. They are big and and you can keep 60 of them. I hear they are pretty tasty too!