No fish tales this week, no pictures, just a tale. Due to
overwhelming demand, I decided to continue the tale from last week. Now you
will have….. The rest of the story. For those of you who missed it, the bolded
paragraph below was the opening to the blog post earlier this week.
You may think you recognize some of the characters in this
tale, but I assure you, that are all quite fictional. Names, characters, places
and incidents are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The dark, gray clouds hover over the Fred Meyer parking
lot, so low it creates a claustrophobic effect. Red and blue flashing lights
reflect off the wet pavement as police string crime scene tape around a lone RV
in the corner. We watch from afar as an ambulance slowly pulls up with other
emergency vehicles, lights flashing, not in a hurry, that cannot be good.
Blood, seeping across the pavement makes its way towards a nightcrawler that
recently emerged from the wet soil. A robin swoops down and gobbles up the
unsuspecting worm. And just like that another life is gone. No one notices,
time marches on.
Detective Olivieri donned her raincoat and approached the RV
with the analytical eye of a 30-year veteran of the Fargo Police Department.
While it is true there are not a lot of crime in Fargo, or even North Dakota
for that matter, she has seen a lot of gruesome things in her day. Of course,
she will never forget the Woodchipper case back in ’96. She had just been promoted
to detective a month before that case and she remembers thinking how she wished
it was her lazy, blue-beer drinking husband that had found his way into that
woodchipper rather than poor old Carl. But that case is what really made a name
for her, so if Carl had to be sacrificed to make a name for herself, so be it.
Before entering the RV, she stops and scans the parking lot.
Why Fred Meyer allowed freeloaders to camp in their parking lot she would never
understand. All it did was invite undesirables into their town looking for a
free place to stay. She notices two sets of eyes peeking through the curtains
of a Lance camper sitting on a white Ram pickup. South Dakota plates on the
pickup are prominent on the front of the truck. South Dakota scum, why can’t
they stay in their own state? She knows she’ll have to interview them and
see if they saw anything. A task she was not looking forward to.
Entering the crime scene, she sees more blood on the floor.
“Where’s our vic?” she says to Colibaba as he is snapping photos of the inside
of the RV. Colibaba was hired last month in a newly created “Forensics Officer”
position. Not for his forensic skills, but because he was friends with the
Chief. “He’s really good at taking pictures eh?” was the only explanation Chief
Roche gave for the hire. But we all knew the real reason. They were
bro-friends, have been for years, hell, the whole town knows. “No vic” Colibaba
responds, “just blood, lady in that white Ram over there was walking her dogs,
had an altercation and called it in”.
“Make sure you get a close up of that bloody boot print, we
can probably determine the size and make of it”, she tells Colibaba. “That’s my
boot print, I accidently stepped in the blood”. “Take a picture of it anyway”. Christ,
he will probably take a selfie with it, that guy loves his selfies. Scanning
the rest of the floor she sees a single Croc sandal. A huge Croc, laying next
to it is a bloody sock that looks like it had seen its better days. Damn,
that a huge croc. Who wears Crocs anymore? Who wears Crocs with socks? She
stifles a laugh thinking of her poetic skills. This case is getting weirder
by the minute.
“RV’s registered to a Harold Fury out of Pennsylvania”.
Colibaba says. “Di called the phone number listed at the DMV, got a hold of the
wife. She say’s Harold left in the RV two months ago. Said he was going to tour
the ball parks across the US, no idea where he is and she said she hopes he
never comes back”. ‘Di’ is Colibaba’s wife, also the dispatcher for the city.
Nepotism at it’s best. She’s a lovely woman who deserves so much better. How’s
that saying go; He married up and she married way, way down?
May as well go talk to the lady in the Ram, she
thinks as she heads across the parking lot. Before she can even knock, the door
is opened by this gorgeous hunk of a man. Shirtless. Piecing blue eyes staring
back at her. But it’s not his eyes she is looking at, it is the perfect 6-pack
of a chiseled chest that has her attention. She grabs onto the side of the
truck as her knees become weak. Her mouth is suddenly dry and she cannot speak.
Finally pulls herself together and asks to speak to the complainant. “That was
my wife Barbie, she was walking Dakota and Zoey when it happened. Let me get
her for you”. Barbie? Dakota? Who calls their wife Barbie? Who names their
dog Dakota? Original.
‘Barbie’ comes to the door, a perky little thing who looks
like she has had one too many lattes this morning, or is she nervous about something? “Can
you tell me what happened Mame?” “Well, I just was walking the girls, Dakota
and Zoey, when this crazy man jumps out of that trailer and starts kicking at
my dogs! Dakota hid behind me, but little Zoey is not afraid of anything and
grabbed onto that man's canckle and started shaking it. Shook his Croc right
off!” Upon hearing her name, little Zoey appeared around the corner of the
interior of the camper. An ugly dog, with a nose that looks like it ran into a
few too many walls. Shreds of a bloody sock hung from her disfigured teeth. Geez,
find a dog dentist Olivieri thought.
About then Barbie screamed, “There he is!” Pointing to a
gangly ogre trying to run across towards the Fred Meyer. “If he gets into that
store, we’ll never find him”, Olivieri yells.
“Fear not,” Barbie replies, “I have a Fur Missile, get’em Zoey!” Barbie launches Zoey who takes of across the parking lot, chomping into the man’s
uninjured ankle dropping him to the ground. Olivieri rushes over handcuffing
the man and turning him over. “Why it’s Harry the Dog Hater! Wanted in 23 US
states and two Canadian Provinces” Barbie takes ahold of Zoey who is still
shaking Harry’s legs like a little Tasmanian Devil.
Harold Fury was living up to his name and was furious! “I
told my wife that I was on a cross-country tour of Major League Ballparks, but
I was actually on a cross-country tour to terrorize dogs. And I would have
gotten away from it if it wasn’t for that dang-blasted flat-faced ugly dog!”
After getting Harold safely in the back of her squad car, Olivieri comes back
and tells Barbie, “I’ll be putting your name in for the $100,000 reward on The
Dog Hater, a lot of people will be glad to know he is off the streets.”
“$100.000?”, Barbie replies with a twinkle in her eye, “Why that’ll be perfect,
I’ve had my eye on a new Breville Espresso Maker, a new Freeze Dryer and a new
Class C!”
And that, my friends, is the tale of how Harry the Dog Hater
was brought to justice making the world a safer place for all two and four-legged creatures across the
north.
The dark, gray clouds hover over the Fred Meyer parking lot,
so low it creates a claustrophobic effect. Red and blue flashing lights reflect off
the wet pavement as police string crime scene tape around a lone RV in the
corner. We watch from afar as an ambulance slowly pulls up alongside the other emergency
vehicles, lights flashing, no siren, not in a hurry, that cannot be good. Blood, seeping
across the pavement makes its way towards a nightcrawler that recently emerged
from the wet soil. A robin swoops down and gobbles up the unsuspecting worm.
And just like that, another life is gone. No one notices, time marches on.
Oh wait, I am writing a blog, not a mystery novel! Let me
start over. When I started this week's blog, we WERE in the Fred Meyer parking lot, it was overcast and wet, but
there were no emergency vehicles to be seen, no blood, not even a worm. Salmon fishing
has been slow, but we are steadily filling up our freezer one fish at a time.
“Don’t worry”, one old-timer tells me, “Pretty soon, there will be so many fish
you can tie a line to a donkey’s ear, and he’ll catch a limit just swinging his
head.” Did he just compare my fishing prowess to that of a donkey? Rather than
ponder this thought, I give my one fish to Barb for her to vacuum seal and put
in the freezer.
The vacuum sealer you ask? We had bought a new one at
Sportsman’s Warehouse on the way up here planning on using it throughout our
trip. That is until Barb saw Susan’s vac sealer. “I want one!”. She says
sounding like an 8-year-old looking at the newest doll on the market. The
problem is, is that Barb is not 8 years old, and Barb has her own credit card.
She promptly went onto Amazon, ordered one and had it shipped to Susan’s
house. I will admit, this thing is pretty cool. Like no other vacuum sealer I
have seen before. It kind of expands the bag with air before suddenly sucking it out and sealing the bag. The problem with the traditional ones we are used
to is the moisture. Fish, are generally wet, making it hard to get a good seal.
This thing seems to seal it tight each and every time! Take a look at this
video…..
I did have one very cool moment while standing in the Kenai River at a place called Moose Meadows. I’m sitting there fishing and this bald
eagle lands on this rock out in the water and just sits there. How cool is
that? I think to myself. It just does not get any
better than this. As if God heard my thoughts himself, he made it even
better when this curious moose walks out to have a chat with the eagle!
I take a few pictures and continue fishing; the eagle
flies off to be replaced by a seagull. Now the moose wants to chat with the
seagull! I video it this time. The moose leaves and I continue to fish, 30 seconds later,
it walks right by me! I get my phone out quick enough to take the last part of this video. One
of these times, I know I am going to drop my phone right in the river!
Since I last wrote, we have added 7 more salmon to the
freezer, and when I say “we” I mean me. Barb has not been out. She is feeling
better, but it has been wet and cold. No need to tempt fate with a continued
illness. The fish are definitely here and like that donkey I managed to catch
my limit more than once.
While I am providing sustenance for our family to survive the winter, Barb is off taking pictures of flowers and Zoey is reading the signs along the nature trail.
Our big adventure for the week was a 100-mile road trip over to
Seward to meet up with fulltime RV’er friends Steve and Debbie for a two-day
visit. We met Steve and Debbie in Louisiana in January of 2015 and get together whenever we are within a couple hours of each other. The last time we saw them was in February of 2023 in Arizona.This will make the 4th state we have met up with them!
While we wait for their arrival, we took in some of the Seward sights.
We were all set up on the water at the South Resurrection
Bay Campground when they pulled in with their friends Rick and Angie about 5pm.
Hugs all around, it was really great to see these guys again! They are on day
70 something of their adventure and are just about ½ through as they are they
are staying until September!
We are all traveling in Ram trucks with campers, in our
opinion, one of the best ways to see Alaska!
After everyone was set up, we walked into Seward Brewing
Company. Good beer and food but bring your wallet. I sure wish I had forgot
mine! The next day we walked the other side of town near the
marina. So many cool boats there. We just walked up and down the docks dreaming
what it would be like to own one of those beauties.
That afternoon, Barb and Debbie set up a blind bourbon
tasting for Steve and me. It’s always fun and interesting to try new
stuff and try and guess your familiar ones out of a blind line up.
Then it was an evening by the fire!
Barb and I retired early as we had a 4am wake up call. We
needed to head 3 ½ hours west to meet up with Rich, Susan, Bob and Becky for
yet another Halibut adventure! And an adventure it was! We tried to new spot
from the other times we went out. This time the ‘buts were a little bigger
averaging over 20lbs. Bob, Becky and I each caught one that went over 30, so
that definitely puts me in the lead over Barb in the ‘but category!
Bob caught a big old skate (stingray). No good for eating, so it went back into the water.
The biggest one I caught put up a really nice fight and when
it was finally gaffed and in the boat Rich says “That’s a really nice one!”. "Does that mean, you think I have a nice 'but?" "Er, Ah, I don't like where this conversation is going."
We ended up with 12 really nice fish getting us over 100lbs to ship home.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, mayhem continues. Neighbor Jim
is still waging war on the P Dogs, but now he has a new nemesis. Calves. Those
of you who have raised cattle know that calves are incredible escape artists.
Fences designed to keep full grown cattle intend to do their jobs pretty well,
but calves have a way of finding any nook and cranny they can to escape. They
generally do not wander too far from their mothers and eventually crawl back
through, but it is a nuisance, nonetheless.
So, Jim set out to find out where these little critters were
getting out and sent me these pictures where he put a few boards up at our entry
where the little critters have been escaping. Do I have a great neighbor or
what?!?
This morning was spent in the Ross's kitchen, Barb and Susan talking all things freeze-drying. Apparently, they own 4 for their business, now Barb thinks she need one too. As Barb takes the first sip of coffee that Susan put in front of her, she stops mid sentence as says, "This coffee is incredible!" Susan shows Barb the Breville espresso maker in the corner....
.... gets a glint in her eye, looks at me and says, "I want one!"
The definition of insanity (or is it stupidity?) is doing the
same thing over and over again expecting a different result. These words echo
in my head as I am on my 6th hour of casting into the Kenai River
without a single fish. It was Monday and we had parked ourselves at the Donald E. Gilman Kenai River Center for the day. The goal was to have a down day to get Barb
healthy and back on her feet.
“I am going to walk down by the river and see if anyone is
fishing”, I tell Barb as she lays in bed with the chills. It is still a week or
two early for the big salmon runs on this river, but perhaps there are a few
early arrivers that need to be flossed.
There are very nice walkways and stairs down to the river.
Arriving at the river I see two
fishermen, one is just leaving, and I ask him how he did. “Had two on, lost them
both”. Well, that is not encouraging. I stroll down to the other fisherman and
see that he has three on the stringer. As I approach, he catches another one
that gets off after a couple of jumps that would have made the Flying Wallendas
proud.
We chat for a little bit, and I decide that I could either
watch Barb sleep or go fishing. As much fun as it is to watch Barb sleep, I
decide to get all my stuff together and go fishing. 20 minutes later I am back
at the water just as that fisherman catches his 6th fish. I start tossing
my line flipping and flossing as he cleans his fish at one of the table
provided. He then asks if I can watch his stuff while he goes and puts his fish
in the freezer. I continue flipping. While he is gone I made friends with this duck who stopped by to see what I was up to.
An hour later he returns and starts fishing again. Now being
uncertain if one can fish in Alaska after already catching a limit of fish. I
raise an internal eyebrow and carry on with my flipping. Soon enough he has
another one that he lands, and another one, and another one. By now I have been
flipping for 3 flipping hours without so much as a hit! I move my weights up
and down my leader, I cast further out, I cast closer in, I change my leader, I
sharpen my hook, I change the amount of weight I have on my line. Nothing seems
to be working. By now several other fishermen have arrived and although action
is not hot and heavy a few of them are hooking into fish. I am getting VERY
frustrated. 4 hours into my journey to hell Barb shows up with the girls. Notice that Dakota wants nothing to do with those stairs! A little while later she got a little braver.
She watches me for a bit and leave. She comes back in 20
minutes, pole in hand, wearing her waders.“Probably not the wisest decision seeing how you're not feeling well”, I say. “I married you, didn’t I?”, she responds. I am not sure how to take that response
and continue fishing.
She stands next to me and within 15 minutes hooks one! It got
off, but the pissedoffness in me goes through the roof! I caught fish in the
Kasilof, why could I not catch one here?!?!
After 30 minutes she decides that coming out fishing was not
a good idea as she has the chills again. I fish a little while longer before
admitting defeat for the day (I am a slow learner) and head to the truck.
Tomorrow comes, different day, same result. Then some lady
starts talking to me, asking me where I am from.... if I have caught anything. Nope. She says, “Go stand by my husband, he’ll help
you”. It just so happens that I saw this guy catch three fish the day before, so
I know he knows what he is going. I trudge over there and meet her husband (who
I later find out is Steve) and he says, “Let me look at your set up”. He looks
it over and says, “Looks good to me, you must just suck as a fisherman”. Okay,
he didn’t really say that last part, but it would not have surprised me at that
point. Then he looks closer and says, “Why son, you have the wrong knot on your
hook!” “You’ve got an improved clinch knot, you need to tie a snell knot on
that hook, they spin in the water and
hook the fish. Clinch knots don’t spin”.
Although he is probably 10 years older than me, I feel like
am 8-year-old as he takes my line, cuts it and adeptly ties a snell knot on my
hook in about 10 seconds. “Try that”, he says. I try it and by God I
had a fish on in like 5 minutes! I only had it on for 2 seconds, but it was on!
Maybe there is hope for me after all!
We fish together for 30 minutes before he has to go, he
caught 2 in that 30 minutes and left me to carry on. I slide over into his spot
and hook one before he is to the shore, but again it got off. An hour later I
am back at the camper for supper, fishless, but with renewed hope. It’s 8pm by
the time we are done with dinner and I tell Barb, “I’m going out until 10.”.
As I approach the water, there is a younger couple (40’s)
fishing and I ask them if they caught anything. “Nothing” is their response. I
head over to Steve’s spot and on my third cast, I hook one. Please God,
please God, let me land this fish. I grab the net and fight it, upriver,
down river, I play this fish finally getting it close enough that maybe I can
net it and it swims right into the net! I actually think even God felt sorry
for me and sent me this fish!
I put the fish on the stringer and notice the other couple
is leaving. Barb shows up a few minutes later and says, “I just passed a couple
who said a guy just showed up and caught one almost immediately”. “That as me!”
I tell her, holding up my fish, I was finally THAT guy!
The next morning, I got up at 5am went out for an hour. What a beautiful morning. As I am standing there, I look up and standing in front of me is a cow moose with a little tiny calf 40 yards aways from me. Just the other side of the dock in the picture below. No fish, but at that point I did not care.
Later that day, we headed back to Ninilchik to have supper with
Rich and Susan. I forgot to mention, last time we were at their house Barb and Susan did some stained glass while Rich and I were fishing. Susan is really skilled. Here is some of her work....
So, she and Barb set about teaching Barb how to do it. They went through different patterns and came with this mountain.
We are still a week or so away from the really from the salmon really starting to run. We need the counts to get into the 30,000-100,000 fish per day not these 5,000-6,000 we are seeing now.
We'll continue to wait for numbers to increase, in the meantime we have another adventure planned later this week to visit some friends in the area!
Salmon, one of the most interesting and adaptable of all of
God’s creations. One of a handful of fish that migrates from fresh water to salt water and back again. Did you know that after being born in fresh
water, they head to the ocean and will travel thousands of miles in their 3–5-year lifespan to only return to their birthplace to spawn and die? Did you know
that once they return to fresh water they do not eat? Their only focus is
heading to their birthplace and spawning.
So how does one catch salmon on a fishing line if they do
not eat? That is a story for later in the blog. For now, let’s talk about
earlier in the week……
We had a couple of down, chill days the first part of the
week waiting for the salmon fishing to get better. And “chill” it was, in the
40’s in the morning and upper 60’s later in the day. Man, we love days like
these! Except when the wind picks up, then she gets a little too chilly for
even us!
We walked the Beluga Slough Trail with the girls one
morning. Came across this young moose munching on the grasses. They do not seem
bothered by humans at all.
Walked the beach a bit, enjoying the scenery.
Then we went for a tour and tasting at Bear Creek Winery. They have
several scheduled tour times throughout the week. You just show up, no
appointment, and they are free! Barb and I were the only ones at our time slot,
so we basically got a personal tour. They have all fruit wines here (no grapes)
so it was a lot like our winery back in South Dakota. We talked fermenting and
wine making for about an hour. The similarities between wine making and
distilling…well, they are basically the same thing with some slight
differences. We had a lot to talk about. Very interesting.
Then we drove down the road for a wine tasting. $10 for 8
tastings, but you get the $10 back if you buy a bottle of wine. We bought two.
The server said “I think you can bring 5 back home with you”. I said: “They
will not last that long”.
From there, it was off to the one and only Harvest Host in
Homer; Grace Ridge Brewing Company. Barb had a flight, I had a pint, before we
settled in for the night.
The next day, it was halibut fishing day again! Rich had
called earlier in the day asking if we wanted to go out the next day. Why, yes,
yes we do! Arriving at the boat launch, we found Bob and Becky also waiting for
our chariot to take us fishing. It was a perfect, calm day on the water. After
launching we headed out about 25 miles to The Deep. We had great luck there
last time, hopefully it will hold true again!
Bob and Becky
We had 3 rods out; one for Bob, one for Becky and one for
Barb and I to share. Barb, over her fear of catching a big ‘but, or perhaps
daring me to write a blog and dealing with the consequences, was a woman
possessed on the rod. She took the first fish, the second fish, and many more.
In fact, she has the bruise on her stomach where the rod butt was jammed into
her belly while she reeled to prove it! I reeled in a couple myself, but I
think it is safe to say, we are probably tied in the who caught the most
halibut category.
She did take the lead in another category though when she
caught “Codzilla” The biggest cod that ever terrorized the waters of Alaska.
Well, maybe not that big, but a very nice cod. There is a little controversy,
however. I say that “Cod” does not count as it was never a targeted species.
She, on the other hand, says she is ahead on yet another species of fish. We’ll
agree to disagree on that one.
Susan even got in on the action reeling in a few. Rich, he
is content watching the smiles on other peoples faces as they reel in fish. He
kept saying “My foot hurts, you reel in it”. I am still trying to figure out
how a sore foot prevents one from reeling in fish. A mystery I have still yet
to solve.
No idea what these waterbirds were
We were joined, or I should say, we joined Royce who was out
there in a boat of his own with his sister and two of her friends.
Before we knew it, we had our 12 fish limit. Again, no big
‘buts but lots of great eaters!
Since it was still somewhat early we boated over to the
remote village of Soldovia, accessible only by boat or air. We were going to
walk the town, but it was so busy, there was no room at the docks.
Instead, we took a leisurely drive back to Homer where we
cleaned the fish before heading to Rich and Susan’s to package them and spend the night in their driveway. We now
have the 50lbs we wanted to ship some back home. We are shipping it to Kevin’s
house, hopefully there were will a few fillets there for us when we return!
Project Halibut complete, we set our sights on salmon. But
first, speaking of “Projects”. Operation PD is in full force back in South
Dakota. Apparently, the first prairie dog called in reinforcements and there is
an all out blitzkrieg going on between Neighbor Jim and the enemy. It is still
too early to tell, but I did receive this picture and coded message from Jim.
Not sure exactly what it means as I am still trying to break Jim’s code, as I
am sure, so are the prairie dogs! As you can see from the picture above his
message, he is consulting old war movies for advised tactics.
Now, to the salmon! How does one catch a salmon that does
not eat? It’s called flossing. A method where you throw your line in the river
let it float downstream for a bit and pull it back in. Salmon swim upriver
their mouths are open. The idea is to put your fishing line in front of the
salmon in such a way that the salmon swims into the line and it goes in its mouth. As you pull it
back in the salmon gets hooked in the
mouth. The problem is, is that you cannot see the salmon, so it is like
shooting in the dark trying to hit a moving target. Now this video I posted last week of Barb demonstrating how to floss
might make more sense.
Skill? Some. There is technique. How much weight, how much
line, where you throw you line, when you pull it in….
There are literally thousands, sometime tens of thousands of salmon in the water and eventually, if you are lucky, you will hook one. BUT it
has to be hooked in the mouth. Tail, side or anywhere other than the mouth the
salmon has to be released.
You also need to watch the tide charts and fish counts. They actually have sonar that counts the number of fish coming into the river from the ocean. The
migration is the heaviest during incoming tides increasing your chances for
success. You can fish for hours catching nothing, then all of a sudden, a run comes through, and it is mayhem! The fish counts tell you how many fish entered this river that day, so
hopefully you can target your fishing days on the biggest fish count days.
Confused yet? So are we!
So, we hit the Kasilof River. The counts had been good. We stood along the banks with the dozens of other fisher-people
trying to floss a few wide-mouthed salmon. Each cast, or drift, takes about
8-10 seconds, making for about 6-7 casts a minute, anywhere from 360-500 casts
per hour. For hour, after hour, after hour. You are bound to snag one of the
thousands of fish swimming up the river, right? We hooked rocks, we hooked
ourselves, we hooked each other, we hooked other fisherman, we hooked the carcass of a filleted salmon that someone upriver threw in the stream, everything but a d@mn salmon.
Until finally, Fish on! You are so shocked by this point you don’t know what to
do as this salmon speeds upriver or down river.
I hooked and landed our first salmon of the year!
I was ecstatic. Not only did I hook it, it was in the mouth
and we landed it! I was up in the salmon category 1-0! The smugness on my face
lasted exactly 30 minutes when Barb landed not one, but two fish in short
order. We went in for lunch about 2pm with 3 fish.
By now we had found a nice little sandbar that was out of
the way and secluded with 10-12 other fisherman on it. Here is the other thing
that is cool about salmon fishing. You meet some really interesting people.
Some people will talk while they are casting, others just focus on the task at
hand. Our group was very talkative. Two of the guys were from Switzerland, the
rest of the guys were a group from Lakeview Oregon. Each time we went out it
was always the same group of people and over the course of three days we got to
know each other pretty well. If one hooked a fish, the rest of us stopped
fishing, cheered them on and netted it or got out of the way of the battle.
We went back out at 8:30pm in anticipation of the next high
tide. Same group of guys, same chatter. It was not long before I had one on and
was trying to drag it up onto the sand bar to land it. One of the old boys from
Oregon was trying to net it. Try after try he missed this fish. Man, that thing
was elusive! All his kids were giving him crap for his horrible netting skills
before he eventually got it in the net! One for Jim! A few minutes later I
hooked another, and then another! We had a blast, a group of guys (and Barb)
having the love of fishing in common, chatting it up.We returned home just before midnight with my
3fish. 4-2 go Team Jim!
The next morning Barb woke up with a cold. I guess all those
long hours standing in the cold river caught up with her. But she went out
anyway! We were back out on the river at 9am awaiting the 10:40 high tide. It
was soooo slow. Same group of people, no one was catching anything. Not us, or
anyone around us. Some were wondering if the commercial netters were in front
of the mouth of the river. That does happen and they do allow it.
We went back to the camper fishless, read and napped in
anticipation of the 11:30pm high tide. I headed out at 8:30pm, alone, to meet
my friends on our now familiar sandbar. This was to be our last outing for a
few days. When I arrived at the sandbar, just the two Swiss guys were there.
They stopped fishing and we chatted for about 15 minutes, me trying to
understand their broken English, them trying to understand me, but we seemed to
convey most everything we were trying to say to each other.Soon we see the Oregon boys trudging out to
the sandbar and we decided it was time to get to work and set about casting.
Over the next 3 hours several fish were landed. One by the oldest guy in the
group. He had to be in his mid 70’s. Everyone cheered for him when it was
netted as he spends more time just sitting in his chair than fishing. Me? I landed one more too before saying goodnight to these people who I
knew I would never see again but will always have the memory of and that
unspoken bond of sharing a river with good people.
