8-6-01 Today we left College Station at 9:30AM headed for Dallas to catch the plane to AK. With about 5 malls under our belts, we headed for the air port. Minneaopolis/St.Paul was our first stop. We had a 1 and a half hour layover, before our plane departed for Anchorage. We around 9PM Central time and were supposed to be landing in AK at 12:30 PM, Alaskan time, which is 3:30 CT. We left viewing an almost set sun, but as the time went by, heading into the West, the sun seemed to rise. It was the longest sun set I have ever seen, almost 6 hours long. I passed the time by reading “Tales from Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet and “Wallstreet.com” by the guy that started Wit Capitol. Got half way through “Wallstreet.com” and it is really interesting so far, I am ready to read the rest. It really messed with your mental clock with the 3 hr time difference and the setting sun thing. After a LONG flight we finally made it to AK and got settled in the RV park around 1AM. I was beat. All times from here on out will be in Alaskan time.
8-7-01 Today we slept in till around 10AM, and went out to get some breakfast, came back, showered and got ready, then went to take a look around Anchorage. We went to the Ship Creek, where there were many people fishing right off the bank and they were catch a lot of Silver Salmon. We also walked across a dam where there were lots of big salmon waiting to swim up river via a little detour around the dam. It was a really awesome sight to see. You could just see the salmon swimming along the river, which was clear and shallow. After getting over the awe of the salmon we headed over to the float plane air port. This is where all the float planes take off, land, and dock at. It was really something to see all of them. There must have been 500 planes there. We walked around a little and watched a few planes land and take off. This airport is right beside the main airport where our 757 had landed the day before. We could see the big planes from the float plane airport. We then left and went to the grocery store here, which is outrageously priced, and then went back to the RV park. We hooked up the Nissan Truck to the RV and headed out of town down the Glen Highway for a ways, turned onto the Parks Highway, and into Wasilla. A fishing license, a few things we forgot at the grocery store in Anchorage, and a bag of ice was needed at our stop there, the Wal-Mart. After finally finding a place to park the 50+ft vehicle, RV+4dr Nissan Truck, we went in. The locals didn’t seem to be very friendly. I guess the weird daylight hours and the harsh winters make one bitter after a while. The area that we are going to be fishing in is the Sheep Creek / Montana Creek area.
As I was writing last I got cut off because the battery on the laptop went dead. We are currently in the RV park here, in the Mat-Su Valley, about 25 miles South of Talkitna and 6 miles or so North of Wasilla. It is a little place kind of off the road a ways, but it is nice. The people here are extremely nice and were very welcoming. We now have an A/C hook to power the laptop and I can get back on and continue. It is currently 7:00PM and we are taking a little rest before we head out to do some fishing.
So far Alaska has been a beautiful place like no other I have ever seen. Mountains, vast marsh like areas along rivers and the Cook Inlet, and beautiful weather. Currently it is around 60 degrees, sunny, and a light breeze. It is a very welcome change from Corpus and Austin where the temps are between 90-100+ degrees. The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse later in the week, so we are trying to get in some fishing here before that happens. We will probably be here at this RV park for at least the next two nights, possibly more. From there, who knows. Most likely we will be making our way up to Denali before heading down to the Kenai Peninsula.
It is now 12:15AM and we just got back in from cleaning fish. We fished where the Susitna River and Montana Creek converge. There were tons of salmon there jumping and boiling all over when we showed up. We were throwing green Pixie spoon and catching lots of Chum salmon, Pink salmon, and a few Silver salmon. Lots of them were snagged, which made for a great fight if you hung one in the tail, which I did many times. Chum Salmon, also called Dog Salmon, are not good to eat, neither are the Pinks. The natives here use the Dog salmon to feed their dogs. The Dogs that we were catching were all between 6 and 9 lbs. There were lots of ‘em to be caught, but we didn't keep any. I caught one nice Silver, but it was snagged in the back, so I threw it back. If you snag a fish you can not take it out of the water nor can you keep it. This is because you could go out there and just throw a big treble hook and yank the crap out of it and snag a salmon on every cast. There was a pair of Beavers that swam right up to where we were fishing and one of them came within 10 yards of me to grab a salmon carcass. On our hike back to the truck we heard a gun shot close by. We are not sure what they were shooting at, but we think it might have been a bear. It is illegal to shot a bear this time of year unless your life in endangered. We have a 44 Magnum, loaded with 265 grain bullets, with us at all times for this very reason. We cleaned the fish and left of the carcasses out close to the RV, gona see if maybe we can get a glimpse of a bear tonight!!
8-8-01 Day three- Well our fish carcass was still there this morning, so no bear came to pay us a visit last night. This morning we woke up around 7AM to cloudy skies and low 60 degree weather. Fixed a quick breakfast and headed back to the same place we fished last night, the convergence of the Montana Creek and Susitna River. There were already quite a few people fishing, not as many as last night, but more than expected. We made our way down the river a ways, hopped into our waders and got into the cold water. I was fishing beside a young guy, about my age, that was fly fishing. He was doing pretty well catching quite a few Chum Salmon. I hooked a few, but lost them all. There weren’t too many people catching fish, and the ones that were caught were mostly Chums and Pinks. The Pinks are only supposed to run upstream every two years, the even numbered years, but people were still catching them. I moved down stream a ways and fished off the bank where the water got deep pretty fast. I caught a few Humpies, also called Pinks, along with some Chums, also known as Dog Salmon. There was an older guy that was fishing beside me on the bank and he was from Vicksburg, Mississippi, he went to Mississippi State University. My dad graduated from Miss. State and that is where my oldest sister goes also. He was a nice guy, and helpful also. We eventually got tired of not catching any Silvers, so we packed up and made the long hike back to the truck.
It is now nap time before we head to our next fishing spot.
We fished at the convergence of the Susitna River and Sheep Creek this afternoon and caught a few fish. I caught one really big Chum Salmon and a nice Silver Salmon, about 7or8 lbs, and lost a few others. I had on one big fish that I fought for a while, then all of a sudden he took off and jumped a few feet in the air and spit the hook. It was a really big Silver Salmon. The Silver run has not hit its peak yet here, but hopefully in a few days we will be catching our daily limit of 3 salmon.
For dinner tonight we cooked some buffalo steaks we bought at the grocery store and one of the Silver salmon that we caught yesterday.. They were really good. That was the first time that I had heard or, much less, eaten buffalo. I guess that is one of the things that you can only get here in Alaska. The Silver Salmon that we cooked were really good. Jim performed a little experiment in the cooking of the salmon, he cooked one filet entirely on one side, then the other filet he cooked half on one side, half on the other. The filet that was cooked half and half came out much better.
8-9-01 Day Four- Today we slept in late and got to the convergence of the Montana Creek and Susitna River around 11:00AM. I got in my waders and was able to slip into a spot near where the two currents from the two rivers meet. There is a distinct color change where the waters of the two rivers meet, the Montana creek is snow fed, which is very clear, and the Susitna River is glacier as well as snow fed, and is really dirty colored. The spot I was fishing at was right along a building gravel bar that dropped off pretty steep right at the color change. I was using my fly rod and throwing a green and yellow clouser. I was catching salmon after salmon on it, but they were all Chums. They were not the good eating Silvers, but were a hell of a lot of fun to catch on a fly rod. After about 4 hours of that I quit, because I was getting kind of tired, and also because there was some stupid people that were right behind me on the bank fishing casting toward me and getting tangled in my line all the time. I also had this stupid kid that was running around yelling, out of control, the entire time, hit me with his Pixie spoon. I turned around and looked after he hit me and he yelled to his dad “I just hit this guy with my lure dad!.” I was pissed. He then moved down river, cast, and got his line tangled around another fly fisherman's rod whom had a fish on at the time. He was livid. Another guy was telling him “hes just a kid man.” That kid drove everyone nuts the entire time we were there. Well, after I put up the fly rod I went back to my baitcasting outfit with a yellow Pixie spoon and caught Pink and Chum Salmon one after another. It was a great day of fishing even though we didn’t catch a single fish that was good to eat. We also got to see a wolf that came out of the woods on the other side of Montana Creek and walked around for a while. I guess he was looking for some Salmon carcass from fish that had died already. It was really cool.
We are currently on our way to Denali State Park where we are going on an 8 hour bus tour tomorrow at 6AM. It should be a lot of fun, but 6AM is a little too early for me, but I guess I will be able to do it, after all, its not every day that I get to come to Alaska! We will be staying in the Denali area just tonight, then we are heading back to the Mat-Su Valley area again for a day of fishing, then we are going to head down to the Kenai peninsula to do some more Silver Salmon fishing and Halibut fishing.
We just arrived at the RV park right outside Denali National Park. It is pretty nice and has a great view overlooking the Ice worm Gulch that is wedged between two mountains. As we got closer to the Denali on our way up here the mountains became more and more clear and got much bigger. The weather here is real cool with cloudy skies, but is very welcomed. In a few weeks after I get back to school at UT I will be wishing for the much cooler weather when the temps are pushing 100 degrees in Austin, TX. We stopped at a gas station to see if they had propane and there was a State Trooper there pumping gas and he had a 6x6 4-wheeler in the back of his truck and it had there weird looking tracks on the two tires of it. When we got out Tracy asked him what the tracks over the two back tires were for and he said that Caribou and Sheep hunting season starts tomorrow and that he uses the 4-wheeler for patrol. The tracks are used for going over swampy and soft areas. Simple physics explains the tracks, increase the surface area, decrease the pressure on the ground, therefore you can go over softer areas w/out sinking. The State Troopers patrol the wildlife and fisheries as well as traffic and highway he said. Alaska along with Oregon are the only two states where both wildlife and highway patrol are in the same department, much different than back home in Texas.
8-10-01 Day Five- Today started bright and early, at 5:15Am to be exact. We had reservations for the 6AM Eielson bus tour at Denali. It is an 8 hour bus ride that takes you 66 miles into Denali National Park. With in the first 15 minutes we saw two big moose cross the road in front of us. The bus stopped and we all took pics and observed for a few minutes. Both were males and had a nice rack of antlers on them. We then continued and saw some caribou, one was a yearling that was with his mother. The mother was spooked by the bus, but the yearling stayed w/in close view till we headed on down the road. The next animals we saw were some Dahl Sheep that were on the side of one of the mountains. They were a little to far away to get a pic of video of, but they could be seen with binoculars. We continued on and saw alot more Dahl sheep and caribou as well as one 400-500 grizzly bear. Our last stop before we turned around was at the Eielson visitor center. It sat at the base of a mountain and from the observation deck you could see Mt. Eielson along with a bunch other mountains and glaciers. It was really cool. You could also see just the very base of the famed Mt. McKinley. After a 30 rest we headed back for our 4 hour,66 mile, ride back to the entrance. Just about 2 miles down the road we saw 3 bears down the hill side over 400 years from us. We stopped and watched them for a while and noticed that they kept moving closer towards us. After about 15 min they were right up next to the bus. It was one mother and two cubs. One cub passed in front of the bus, and the mother and other cub passed behind. They moved across the road on up the hill about 15 yards, and found a bunch of berries to snack on. They acted like we weren't even there and just kept eating. It was one of the most awesome sights I have ever seen. I got some great pics as well as some great video. The mother bear had a tracking color on her. Our tour guide was telling us that one of the cubs was almost killed last week when another bear attacked it, and took a big chunk of fur and meat out of him before the mother bear came and attacked the other bear back. The aggressor bear then backed off and ran away. This all happened in front of a bus load of tourists, that is how they know exactly what happened. They think that the aggressor bear may have been the same bear that killed another bear just two days before in the same area. You could see the place right beside the gravel road that we were traveling on where the fight and death of the other bear happened. We continued on our tour and saw more caribou, moose, a fox, Dahl sheep, and a few others before we made it back to the headquarters. The mountains and landscape were absolutely beautiful. It was unlike anything I have ever see, no words can describe its beauty. After the tour was over around 3PM we headed back to the RV park, hooked up the truck, and headed to our current position, Anchorage. It was about a 250 mile trip from Denali to here in Anchorage, after the already 8 hours we spent on a bus, so me and Tracy are beat. Jim didn’t go on the tour because he went on it a few weeks ago. On our way from Denali to Anchorage we stopped on the side of the road and picked blueberries. We picked a lot of them, but it was tough work yet we had a good time. With the cool weather and snow topped mountains, it was hard not to be enjoying yourself. We will be leaving here tomorrow headed to the Kenai peninsula to do some more fishing, for salmon and halibut.
8-11-01 Day Six- Today we got up and ran a few errands around Anchorage. The weather is more than beautiful, with sunny skies and 65 degree temps. I got to see the bp (Beyond Petroleum), formerly BP (British Petroleum) offices and Phillips offices today. The bp building looked brand new and the Phillips building looked nice as well. I think they might have been the two tallest building in Anchorage. It sure would be great to work in Anchorage for a while, and with me majoring in Petroleum Engineering I can do it if I want to. With a day like today it would be hard to turn a job here down. We left the RV park here in Anchorage and headed to the Cooper Landing, which is right on the Kenai River, about 50 miles from Soldotna, which is on the Kenai Peninsula. On the way over here we went around the Turnagain Arm, which was really cool. The tide was moving out as we were passing by it. The tide moves around 30 feet at the high and low end, it was almost like a swift river because the tide was moving out so fast. We stopped at the Beluga point, which is where you can see Beluga Whales sometimes, but there were none today because the tide was too low, but we could see lots of Dahl Sheep right across the road up on the mountain. We also got to see a big Dahl sheep as we were waiting in traffic during some construction. As we went down the Steward Highway, from Anchorage, we got to see the Portage glacier, which was pretty cool. We headed down the Sterling Highway for a while then turned off of it onto the Sterling Highway to our current destination, the Cooper landing area. The drive was beautiful. Lots of beautiful Fireweed growing along the highway, snow capped mountains, a winding road through the mountains, little creeks and lakes along the highway, lots of waterfalls coming off the mountains, along with great company made for one great drive. It was the most awesome drive I have ever driven, nothing but breathtaking.
After we got here we unhooked the truck, put some meat in the smoker, and headed to the convergence of the Kenai River and Russian Rivers. You are not allowed to fish in the Kenai River, but you are allowed to fish in the Russian. There were quite a few people fishing and catching a lot of red salmon. Tomorrow we are going to get up early and go try and catch some reds. It should be a lot of fun.
8-12-01 Day Seven- The weather today is just absolutely beautiful. Clear skies, just a light breeze, low 70s, just perfect. Today we fished for Red Salmon at the confluence of the Russian River and Kenai River. We took a boat across the Russian River to the other side to fish. The boat was not motorized nor did it have any type of rudder. There was a cable that was strung across the river and there was a rope attached to both sides of the boat, that were connected to the cable. To make the boat go one way they would shorten one rope, which would turn the boat and the rushing water of the river would take the boat across. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. After we got across we started fishing for the Reds. These fish are not feeding and you can not get them to bite, the only way you can catch them is to snag then in the mouth. What you have to do is to use some type of fly, we used a clouser type, along with about a 2ft leader and half oz of weight. You then cast upstream about 10 feet, let it float downstream, and then flip your line and fly back up stream. In the process you are hoping that the leader will catch between in the fish’s mouth and that as you feel some resistance you pull back and set the hook. It can be explained in a million different ways, but until you are there doing it, it is a hard concept to grasp. We caught a bunch of reds, but all were the dark red color they get right before they spawn and die. When they are that color they are no good to eat, so we released all the Red Salmon that were already red. There were quite a few Red Salmon that were fresh and were not ready to spawn and still had their nice silver color. We had many on but did not land any. I caught quite a few Reds on my fly rod which was a lot of fun. Jim was using 15lb Berkeley Triline Big Game on his reel and was getting broken off on almost every fish. He then gave up that reel and went to using an extra spinning rig we had brought. When we got back I got the spool of line, which was brand new, and I was able to break the line by pulling it with my hands, so there was no doubt that it was defective.
We then packed up our stuff, hooked up the Nissan, and headed to Soldotna, AK. Me and Tracy went to see American Pie 2 tonight at the movie theater here, and then we came back and we all ate. On the way back to the RV park we stopped at the Alaskan Tackle store and I bought some stuff that I will probably never use, but their prices were really good. After that we went to K-Mart to get some stuff we needed, then drove around Soldotna and the city of Kenai.
8-14-01Day Eight- This morning we drove about 15 miles to where the Kasilof River and Crooked Creek meet. There were a few people fishing, but the water was really dirty and no one was catching anything. On our way back to the RV park Jim dropped me and Tracy off at the Kenai River to fish while he ran back to get something from the motor home. We were there for about 15-20 min and didn't catch anything. Not even a single hit. When Jim got back to where we were fishing he picked up a rod and cast no more than 4 times and caught a silver. After that we left.
We got to Talon Air Service docks at 12:30 PM to catch our float plane we were going on. We took off and went a few miles and landed on another lake, to pick up two people, who were from Austin, TX by the way, then we headed off across the Cook Inlet to Big River Lakes. The flight was a little less than 30 minutes and the view from the plane was great. We could see drilling rigs in the Cook Inlet, the mountains on both sides of the inlet, it was great. We landed on this lake that was between two mountains. It was really gorgeous. Lance, our fishing guide, came out to meet us in the boat. We unloaded our stuff from the plane to the boat and off we were to do some fishing. We got to our fishing spot and were using salmon eggs for bait. The fish were everywhere, all big ones too. We had a blast, catching huge Silver Salmon after Silver Salmon. Jim put on a spinner type lure and caught a Silver that was 13lbs. It was huge! That was the biggest one that was caught during our trip, but many were over 10 lbs. Tracy was catching them like a pro, she looked like she was having a blast. Of course me and Jim were in hog heaven with these fish! We could have caught them all day long! After we had all caught our limit, and we had one fish in the box for the B-B-Q, we headed over to this waterfall that came off the mountains. We anchored and Lance, our fishing guide, filleted and cooked a salmon for us. After about 10 or 15 min it was ready to eat. We all got a fork and dug in, it was really good. After our stomachs were full we went over to this area where they see bears at regularly. When we got there one bear was in the water playing and cooling off. We watched him for a few minutes as he played with a stick and chased a duck around. All of a sudden we saw another bear up on the ridge above the bear in the water, then the bear in the water saw him too. The bear in the water bolted out of the water after the other bear. That was the end of what we saw of those two bears. We waited there for a while and pretty soon three brown bear cubs came out and were playing in the water and grass. They were just like little kids playing with each other and fighting. Every once in a while you would hear the mother bear, that was right behind some bushes, give this loud huffing noise, and all the cubs would start to venture back to her. After watching the cubs for a while we watched a big brown bear walk up onto a ledge, lay down, and go to sleep. We also saw a big, 600-700 lb, black bear come out of the brush, walk right down beside the river where we were, and just keep going doing its thing. We watched the 3 brown bear cubs play for a while longer, and watched the mother stand up a few time looking for them. It was really cool. About 6 and a half ours after we left, our plane arrived to pick us up. We loaded up our gear and headed back across the Cook Inlet. We landed at the lake we landed at before to drop two people off, then took off again. As soon as we had just lifted off the lake we saw a big Moose standing in the water in front of a house. He was just standing there minding his own business cooling off in the water. A few minutes later we touched down at our final stop, Talon Air Service docks. It was the best day of my trip so far, probably the best day on any trip I have been on so far. Fishing with the mountains as the backdrop, bears playing in the water feet away from us paying no attention to us at all, a ride on a float plane; It was a great day. We brought back 75 lbs of Silver Salmon that are currently being filleted, vacuumed packed, and frozen. Everyone is beat, but we all agree that this was an extremely awesome trip.
8-14-01 Day Nine- This morning me and Jim got up and went down to the Kenai River to fish for a little while. It was the same place that Jim had caught a nice sized Silver the day before. We fished for a few hours but didn't catch anything. We then went back to the RV park, packed up all our stuff, went and bought some groceries, then headed down the south on the Sterling Highway towards Homer. Jim drove the R, I drove the truck and Tracy rode with me. This was so Jim could park the motor home, get in the truck with us, and then we could go look around some of the little towns along the way. It worked much better than having to unhook the truck then hook it back up at all our stops. Our first stop was in Clam Gulch. Clam Gulch is right on the Cook Inlet and is one of the best places to dig clams. The tide will be too high until Friday to dig clams though. The beach at Clam Gulch was really cool. Lots of volcanic sand on the beach w/ very visible stratified cross beds behind us. You could also see Mt. Illimna across the Cook Inlet. We then headed back to where the motor home was parked and headed down the road to Ninnilchick. It was a small town that was also on the water. We saw the original Ninnilchick, which was pretty run down but still had quite a few inhabitants. There was also this place by Deep Creek where they used tractors to put the boats in the water. What they would do is to unhook the boat from the truck, hook it up to the big four wheel drive tractor, and drive the tractor into the deeper water to unload the boat. This is MUCH different than the way they do it in Texas. After driving around there a while we headed back to the RV and drove the rest of the short drive to Homer. Homer is a small town located on the Cook Inlet. It is known as “A quaint drinking village with a fishing problem.” We drove around the town today and also drove out onto the Homer Spit. It juts out into the water 4.4 miles and is really neat. There are all kinds of fishing charters and commercial fishing vessels along with lots of different types of shops. One thing I have noticed is that many people here tend to collect all kinds of crap in their yards, which is getting pretty bad out on the Spit. There all lots of old boats along with all kinds of other crap in this one little area out there.
There is this little old man that is staying next door to us who came over and took our picture in front of the motor home. He talked and talked to Jim while he was outside cooking. The first time he came out he was bald, the next time he came out to talk to Jim he had a head full of hair.
Today me and Tracy were listing to the radio and we heard them announce that they were voting on whether or not they like the song they had just played, “Carry On” by Pat Green. Texas music has reached all the way up here to Homer Alaska!!! Guess some of the Alaskans are finally getting a taste of some real music!
8-15-01Day Ten- Today we went and ate breakfast at this little restaurant, and then drove up on top this big hill that overlooks Homer and the Spit. From up there you could see everywhere. It was really cool to see Homer from up there. After that we drove down to the Spit to look around some. We parked and went around looking at some of the little shops along the water. We also went down to the docks and walked around. The boats here are much unlike anything we have back at home in Corpus. After about an hour on the Spit we headed back to the RV park, packed everything up, and headed out. On the way out Jim took out our picnic table, tore one side of it all up. It only scratched the motor home a little, which was good. We hooked up the truck and headed to Soldotna to pick up our fish that were being packaged and frozen. After that we headed down the road to Seward, which is where we are right now. We drove around the town this afternoon and looked around. Tomorrow me and Tracy are going on the Fjords Tour. It is 8 hours long and we will get to see whales, otters, puffins, glaciers, and lots of other marine life. While we are on the tour Jim is going to go back to Soldotna and fish at the convergence of the Russian and Kenai rivers for Red Salmon. Soldotna is about 45 miles from Seward.
8-16-01 Day Eleven- The weather today has been the worst so far on our trip. The temps probably didnt get out of the upper 50’s or low 60’s, very foggy, clouds hanging just a few hundred yards above the ground, and light rain.
This morning we hiked to Exit Glacier and looked around. There were some really cool looking terminal moraines and lots of big rocks with very evident striations on them. Me and Tracy walked around to one side of the glacier and there was a nice sized boulder that had been moved by the last time the glacier advanced. There was a big pile of till and other glacial deposits that the rock had bulldozed up in front of it and a big scour mark behind it. Very cool. Jim took a picture of me and Tracy in front of the glacier. This was the first glacier that I have seen in person. We studied glaciers in one of my geology classes and it really makes you appreciate it much more, at least I did. After that we headed to the Major Marine terminal at the docks. We checked in and got our boarding passes for the Kenai Star. That was the boat that was going to take us around the Kenai Fjords. The boat pulled away from the docks at 11:45 headed out into Resurrection Bay. About 5 minutes into the trip we saw a Bald Eagle sitting on a piling right beside the harbor. We all took some pictures and watched him for a while before we headed on. Our first encounter with a marine mammal was three Humpback whales. There was a mothers, baby, and an escort. The escort is usually a unrelated male that wards off predators. They were resting , at least that is what the Park Ranger on the trip told us, but every once in a while they would surface, and right before we left one came out of the water a good ways and then flipped his tail in the air and made a huge splash. It was really cool. We then saw a bunch of Puffins, a bird that has a sort of penguin like body, flies, and has a big beak, and also a bunch of Sea Lions sitting on the rocks. We viewed them for a while before moving on. We were then served our meal for the trip, salmon and Prime Rib. The salmon was terrible, probably the worst I have eaten, and the prime rib was pretty lame. I was hungry, so I ate. During our meal we were en-route to Pederson Glacier, which is separated from the sea by a terminal moraine. The fog was really bad so we didn’t get to see the glacier really well. About 15 or 20 minutes later we were at the Aialik Glacier. This is a much bigger glacier that whose size was extremely impressive. It protrudes out into the sea at its terminus. The glacier is fed by the Harding Ice field. There were huge pieces of ice floating in the water near the glacier and tons of smaller pieces miles from it. There were at least two dozen Sea Lions around the big pieces of ice floating and we also saw two otters. The captain shut the motors off and we could hear the ice cracking and moaning. There were occasionally loud cracking noises and then you would see big pieces of ice fall off into the sea. There was one huge cracking noise, that kind of sounded like thunder, and then we saw a massive piece fall off into the water. The piece must have weight a couple tons, and the splash reached at least 40 feet in the air. It also sent out a nice sized tsunami type wave that was so big that the boat captain had to turn the 80ft boat into the wave. It was an incredible sight to see. After a few more minutes there we moved on making our way back to Resurrection Bay and the dock we left from 3 and a half hours earlier. On the way back we saw more Bald Eagles, sea otters, and sea lions. All in all the trip was great, except for the low 50 degree temps, 30 degree wind chill, and constant drizzle. We got to see all kinds of things that we will never get to see down in South Texas, and things that most people will never get to see. While we were on the trip Jim went back to the Russian river and caught a bunch of Red Salmon that were really red, and lost 3 that were still fresh and silver.
8-17-01 Day Twelve- Today the weather was typical of August Alaskan weather, low 60s, overcast, and rain. We got up, packed everything up, and headed to Anchorage. As we were driving around the Turnagain Arm the tide was way out and there was almost no water at all, nothing but lots of sand and mud. Just a few days before when we were there the water was much higher. It was really cool to see it when the tide was high, and then again when it was that low. After we had just passed Beluga Point we saw a bunch of Beluga Whales. We pulled over on the side of the road and watched them for a few minutes. There were about 20 of them, with about 15 of them being really white, and the others being a gray color.
Just a few minutes down the road we parked at Bird Point, unhooked the Nissan Truck from the RV, and headed about 3 miles down the road to Bird Creek. We parked the RV at Bird Point because they had big RV parking spaces and took the truck so we could park close to the creek. We fished there at Bird Creek for about an hour, I landed one Silver Salmon, and Jim had one right up close before it spit the hook. A while later I turned around and saw a nice sized Silver sitting in the calmer waters about 4 feet from me. I walked up to it, and tried to grab it, but I didn’t get a good enough grip on it, and it got loose after a few seconds. After fishing we went on into Anchorage and stopped at the airport to drop off a cooler of frozen fish to go in the freezer there, then to Wal-Mart to get some stuff, then to the Fred Meyer to get some groceries (“Fred is RV friendly”) and gas for the truck, then another gas station to get diesel for the RV. Our next stop was the Mat-Su Valley RV park located in the Mat-Su valley. This is the same place that we stayed for the first few days of our trip and where I caught my first salmon. The guy that is staying next to us is from Kentucky, but has eaten at the Salt Lick, which is a B-B-Q place right outside Austin and about 5 miles from Jims house. Tracy also ran into some people in Wal-Mart that were from Corpus Christi. She had on her TEXAS- UT sweater and they asked her if she was from Texas, and she said yes, then left. They were grungy looking people she said.
Tomorrow we plan to fish at the Montana Creek and Susitna River convergence. The Silver Salmon are supposed to be pretty thick there right now, so hopefully we should do pretty good tomorrow. It is currently almost 11PM, and raining pretty hard, but hopefully it will let up by early tomorrow morning, which will make for a much more comfortable day of fishing.
8-18-01 Day Thirteen- Today we woke up late, and to rain. It rained all night long also. The sky was real cloudy in every direction, but w/in an hour the sun was out and it was a beautiful day. Like they say here, if you don’t like the weather, wait an hour. It turned out to be a great day. We went down to where Caswell Creek meet the Susitna River and fished for a while. There were a few fish caught, but not many. After an hour we packed it up. We then went down to the convergence of the Susitna River and Montana Creek and fished for Silvers. I caught one and had it up on the bank and then my line broke and the fish was able to flop its way back into the water. A few minutes later I caught a huge Silver and this time we borrowed a net from the person fishing next to us. During that time Jim caught two Silvers also. There were a lot of fish in the water but they were real finicky, most people we not catching any thing at all. After a few hours of fishing we came back here to the RV park, cleaned fish, cooked some steaks on the grill, and just enjoyed the great weather.
8-19-0- Day Thirteen- This morning the weather was quite nice, cloudy, no rain, with a little sunshine every once in a while. Today we got up a few minutes before 6AM and headed back to Montana Creek again. There were quite a few people fishing, but no one was catching fish. After about 15 min I caught a nice Silver and had it up on the bank and while I was reaching for my stringer he found his way back to the water. After an hour or so there we headed to Sheep Creek to fish. Right off the bat I had a Silver on, but one toss of the head and he lure went flying. A few minutes later Jim caught a Silver, then a Chum, then another Silver. I caught one Silver and one female Pink, which was scared real bad on one side. While we were there fishing a Bald Eagle landed across the river and was feasting on a salmon carcass for about 15 or 20 minutes before he flew away. A while later, while we were still fishing, we saw two Bald Eagles flying around. It was really cool to see. After the fish seemed to go lock jaw we left and came back to the RV park to rest.
Later this afternoon we went into Talkitna to get some stuff, look around, and find a river to dump our fish carcasses in from the past two days. We had a five gallon bucket full of carcasses from the fish we cleaned since yesterday morning. One great thing about the much cooler temps here is that you never have to haul a cooler and ice around with you and you can leave fish carcasses out for two days and they wont spoil or start to smell bad. After you clean fish you are supposed to dump the carcasses back into the river, as no places want the fish in their dumpsters because it attracts the bears, and it is natural for the rivers to have lots of dead fish in them. After the salmon swim up the river they spawn, then die. This process has been going on for hundreds of years, and somehow the rivers ecosystem still thrives.
While we were in Talkitna we saw this toilet outside this little shop that had a sign above it that said “Please Seat Yourself.” It was pretty funny. We went by the train station, the airport and boat launch while there in Talkitna. Tonight we are relaxing and smoking a whole chicken and some sausage in the smoker. The weather turned to more cloudy late this afternoon and it has been raining. One thing that is much different here in AK is than in Texas is that when it rains there is no thunder nor lightning. Thunder and lightning is only a warm weather phenomena, but it is still odd to see it rain and not hear or see thunder or lightning. Tomorrow morning me and Jim are going to get up early and go fishing to catch a few more fish before I have to leave tomorrow night. After that we will be heading back to Anchorage, then to the air port late tomorrow night to catch our plane that leaves around 11:30PM.
8-20-01 Day Fourteen- This morning Jim and I left at 7AM and headed to Montana Creek to fish. We fished there for a while, Jim caught one Silver that had already turned really red, so he let it go, and I caught one dying chum. Fishing was there was really unproductive.
There was a guy fishing next to me that said he was from Texas, Lockhart to be exact, which is just outside Austin. Him and his friend were there fishing for a week, and were leaving tonight. As it turns out, one of the guys is on our flight this evening out of Anchorage. We were talking and both of the guys work for TP&W, and they both know one of my buddies dads, whom also works for TP&W! That was really odd to meet someone here in Alaska, thousands of miles away from home, who knows people you know.
After chatting for a while Jim and I headed over to Sheep Creek. We fished for about an hour and a half and each caught a Silver. There were quite a few people fishing when we got there, but none of them were really doing any good. Jim and I started hooking into fish frequently and everyone fishing changed to the same lure we were using, but they still didnt catch any fish. I guess they were just all fair weather fisherman.
Around 11AM we headed back to the RV park, cleaned fish, packed everything up, hooked up the truck, and are currently heading to Anchorage. Our plane leaves tonight at 11:25PM.
This is my last journal entry on this trip. Everything about this trip has been incredible and we have all had tons of fun. Catching salmon after salmon, sitting outside enjoying the beautiful weather, watching bald eagles soar overhead, seeing bears eating and playing, taking a float plane trip across the Cook Inlet, watching Moose and Caribou make their way across the road in front of us, the constantly changing weather, and tons of other great memories from this trip will never be forgotten.