Spur of the Moment

Yesterday morning while Ryan was trying to kill some time until I woke up, he decided he would like us to go drift boat fishing.  He's been hankering to learn how to fly fish and also to go drift boating.  He found a charter that did both.  We went on a half day guided fishing trip in the upper Kenai.  The layout of Kenai river is as follows.  It starts from Kenai Lake, then turns into the Kenai river, which then pours into Skilak Lake, then turns into the river again which pours into the Cook Inlet.  The river between Kenai and Skilak Lake does not allow motorized boats.  This is because that part (called the upper Kenai) is shallow and it is a spawning ground for many different fish.  It is also for conservation purposes.  If you want to take a boat into this part of the river, you have to have a drift boat.  Today our guide did all the rowing for us.

We were lucky to go on the trip with a father/daughter duo.  The daughter was a bit younger than us and it was really cute to see such a great father/daughter relationship.  I think that's a perk of growing up somewhere like Alaska.  You're surrounded by the great outdoors and in order to enjoy it, someone has to teach you.

Fly fishing was pretty cool.  We caught dolly varden trout (pictured above with Ryan and our guide, Mike), rainbow trout, and a spawning red salmon.  We also saw sooooo many spawning red salmon.  Even spawning king (chinook) salmon.  I've really wanted to see how the reds change and I got the chance to today really close up!  If you look carefully above, you can see some red blobs.  These are the same fish Laurie and I were fishing for off our dock.  The reds start to deteriorate after they spawn, turning red and green.

AMAZING, right?!  Such pretty red and green.  I caught this big guy and as soon as this was taken, he slipped out of my hand and bit me!  He got a pretty good grip on the front part of my hood, under my chin.  He was slimy and I was nervous that I would drop him on the boat.  It's so weird that this was the same fish we were catching a month and a half ago.  The dolly varden trout were more plentiful than the rainbows.  Ryan caught only 1 rainbow.

This is not Ryan's rainbow (he was actually the biggest one caught today!).  I only had him hold it because I was afraid I would lose it like this one:

 The rainbow trout are really beautiful, they have these pink cheeks that look like blush.  The dollies have orange spots and look like they have orange lipstick on.  :)

Ryan and I are really enjoying our time in Alaska.  It's such a different life up here than I've ever experienced before and I love it.  But we do miss our family (especially our little nephews) and friends.

B.O.A.T.

Ryan and I have two weeks to figure out what we can do to fill up our time until our next visitor, Kyle, comes to entertain us. :)  Can't wait!  We decided to do the easiest thing possible, fish in a river created by run-off from snow capped mountains in our backyard.  Our target was silver salmon (coho), but it was hard to not catch pink salmon.  Above is a female spawning pink salmon (isn't she beautiful?) I caught.  She kept releasing eggs into our boat while Ryan was trying to get the hook off her.  I'm glad I've never enjoyed Ikura (salmon roe as sushi)...and I don't think I ever will.

Today our adventurous Kenai River trip faced some challenges.  We discovered we had left the bilge pump on which had drained the battery.  That is a picture of Ryan pulling the boat back into the dock.  Imagine how cold the water is!  Ryan went to buy a new battery and we headed back out onto the water.  Everything was going well until we hit a bed of rocks that hadn't been visible before.  The water level dropped drastically in the past few days (warm weather has melted most of the snow affecting the water level).  So the boat is out of commission and is living up to its acronym.    Bust.Out.Another.Thousand. 

Dad & Halibut K.I.S.S.I.N.G. and Mom's Humpy

This is Donner. Really, its name is Donner.

So we ended up not going to Denali. I was nervous about taking my parents and Jason because I've never been there and didn't know how good it would be. We came straight down toSoldotna from Anchorage. On our way down, we stopped by the asian grocery store and mom and dad couldn't believe the prices. We made our usual stops at the Wildlife Rescue and Kenai Lake. The Kenai Lake spot is so picturesque!

Since Dad LOVES halibut, we went on a chartered tour out of Ninilchik again. Our captain had a "kiss your first halibut" rule. I'm glad my first captain didn't have it! Actually, the captain with my parents ended up being the grandson of our captain with the Smiths'. I think Dad looks pretty cute kissing his first halibut!

Ryan had one day off before work after his boards on Wednesday so the five of us went out on the river with his boat. It was pretty fun! We caught a lot of humpies (male pink salmon) but mom had the monster humpy. The female pink salmon don't have the humps, but we threw all of them back.

I am sending mom, dad, and Jason on the Kenai Fjords tour tomorrow. I decided to sit out on the 4th trip. :)BTW, Ryan mentioned that there were about 50 Beluga whales on his drive down from Anchorage after his boards in Turnagain Arm. I think between the two of us, we've seen almost every specie of whale in Alaska..ok correction, we've seen 30% of the types of whales!

The Smiths' are Here!

This past week was a whirlwind! Ryan's uncle John and his kids Jim, Tory, and Paul were able to visit us. The boys did a lot of salmon fishing while Tory and I took a day to visit the Kenai Fjords. On our tour we were able to see sea otter, Stellar sea lions, horned puffins, tufted puffins, a resident orca pod, a humpback, a smack (which is a group of jellyfish), and lots of birds. We had a pretty amazing time! I have to admit that the orca pod was the coolest mammal I have ever seen! We had resident orcas flanking our right and transient orcas flanking our left. There was a baby orca also breaching! Resident orcas have both sexes staying close with their mothers while transient orcas are usually in groups of 3 with their moms and if another is born, a sibling leaves the pod. For me, the orcas were more fun to watch than humpbacks because they were in a pod and it's exciting to see their dorsal fin coming up on the water and then their whole body. The humpbacks tend to blow and show only a little of their back. Their fluke up dive is pretty cool though!

The boys caught a lot of humpies (pink salmon) which they threw back into the water and a couple of silver (coho) salmon. Alaskans prefer not to have pink salmon because they have better options! The boys were able to hook humpies on almost every cast once they figured out the best way to get them.



As a group we were able to spend a day halibut fishing at Deep Creek. Deep Creek is known for their unusual way of getting boats into the water. There is no boat ramp. Instead, a skidder (like a tractor) pushes you into the water. It's pretty cool! The water at the beginning of the day was extremely choppy which made things very uncomfortable. Once anchored, the boat did rock up and down (I am getting queasy just remembering it) for about 3/4 of the trip then finally settled down. Fishing for halibut was a challenge, but fun. Halibut are bottom feeders so you have to make sure that your line hits the bottom of the sea floor. In our case, the depth was about 150 feet and the weight we used to sink the bait was 5 lbs. Cranking the line back up was no joke! Especially when you had a fish on. It was funny to see each other struggle to get the fish up. Tory, Paul, and I were able to just leave our rods in the rod holder and just crank the reel. :) The bait that was used was also pretty ripe (as in stinky, rotting fish) and we were fortunate enough that the Captains of the boat baited all of our hooks for us.

My parents and Jason will be here on Monday. Ryan has his boards on Wednesday so I am planning to take the family up to Mt. Denali and meet Ryan in Anchorage on Wednesday. I am looking forward to seeing the highest peak of North America! Let's hope for clear skies!

Homer Revisited

Our most recent trip took us back into Homer (which is a town, not a person..that goes out to a special someone) and across the water into Halibut Cover for some clam diggin'. An ER doctor was kind and took us out on his boat. We tied the boat and had to ride an inflatable raft to the shore. On our way into shore, there were so many jellyfish in the water. I was able to see clear ones with 4 spots on top of it and also orange ones with tentacles trailing from it. It was really beautiful!

On our clam digging trip we were seeking the Pacific little neck clams. There were also butter clams, but the little necks are tastier. We went out at the lowest tide of the month into a valley. There were little streams we walked across to get to the bed of shellfish. To get to the clams, we had to remove a layer of little mussels. Under that, there is a layer of dirt. Under the dirt it's like finding what you would when you lift a rock..but a bit scarier because they are more unfamiliar. We found little crabs, huge worms, squiggly eels (really gross), these huge things that looked like a little boy's body part, and of course clams.

We had a group of 6 digging and after about 2 hours, we left with two 5-gallon bucket fulls of clams (mixture of butters and little necks). All in all, even though the mud was super stinky, it was pretty fun to play in the mud! There were also these little tide pools with lots of sea stars (starfish) of different color in them.


After we had our fill of being on our knees, we headed back to the boat for some Halibut fishing. We didn't do very well, except for some ling cod (ugliest fish ever..they have these huge heads and huge bellies) and nondescript organism from the sea floor Ryan caught. GROSS! Halibut are bottom dwellers so you have to send the line out all the way to the bottom. It was hard enough to reel the line in without a fish, I can't imagine when there is an actual fish on!





















Ryan's uncle John and his kids Jim, Tory, and Paul will be here on Sunday. I am looking forward to seeing their reaction to Alaska. Oh and Ryan bought his first boat with his first paycheck (a dream he's always had). I am so very proud of all his accomplishments! :) Here are some pictures of it. I approved of the color.

Homer with the Legners

On the only day with just 2 hours of sunshine during their entire trip, we decided to head down to Homer because the views from the Spit are spectacular. On our visit we saw a bald eagle on some sort of weather machine and enjoyed the tourist attraction, The Salty Dog Saloon. The Salty Dog is a really old bar and the inside is covered with dollar bills tourist leave messages on. There is also the occasional ratty bra. We tried the local ale, which were packaged in a recycled Sobe bottle. Another highlight of the trip was the discovery of a road that lead us to a drive-able beach.

As Alaska's goodbye present to the Legners (and a sorry for the crappy weather), the sky gifted them with a beautiful rainbow. :)

5 Humpbacks, 2 Black Bears, and an AMAZING Tide Water Glacier

Day 2 of the Legner visit had us exploring Soldotna and Kenai. We went to see more dip netters and actually saw someone catch a king salmon with the net! The video is of a Native Alaskan boy bonking the king, there are two reds near the tail of the king. Reds are what we've posted previously. We also saw an immature eagle's nest (try to find the eagle's head between the two branches). The eagle's nest looked big enough for me to make into my own home! It was truly amazing. Bald eagles get the signature white feathers on their head when they are around 4 - 5 years old.

In the evening we took a ride on the luck dragon, which then wanted to be repaid with beer. The continuation of the Legner visit led us to the Kenai Fjord Tour in Seward today. Instead of the 4 hour trip where we saw lots of birds, we decided to go on the 6 hour trip where we would be taken to tide water glaciers. Once again, we were very lucky and were able to see abundant wildlife. We saw all of the wildlife Ryan, Laurie, and I had seen before but added to this magical tour were 2 black bears and a glacier. Turn up the volume for the tumbling glaciers (the cracking ice sound like thunderclaps). Enjoy the new sights!