Well, after being in Sitka for 9 months, I was finally able to go fishing for King Salmon! It was quite an adventure to say the least. We drove to end of the road on the South side of the island, parked the vans and got out the bikes. From there it's a 4 mile ride through bear infested forests to the Medvejie Fish Hatchery in Deep Inlet. There have been recent stories of bikers being shoved off their bikes by ramming bears who run out of the bushes. I don't know if it's their version of cow tipping but we ran through the gauntlet unscathed. When we arrived there, we parked the bikes and headed out to the docks near the fish hatchery to spot sight fish for some salmon. I didn't know quite what to expect. My friend's first cast landed him the biggest King Salmon he has ever caught! It was huge!!! It barely fit into his net! We hoped that such a start would yield a productive day's fishing. Well, I saw a school of Kings come by and yelled to him that they were coming toward him and threw my spinner, (yes a spinner and not a fly, we're working on fixing that one!) and I got a hit! This guy fought hard and it took nearly 10 minutes to get the fight out of him. We finally netted him and brought him to the docks and quickly cut his gills to bleed him out. I just couldn't believe how big and beautiful these fish were! We ended up needing to go, but you may wonder how we got those fish home on bikes, well here's the answer:
Do you see those tails sticking out of his saddle back, not to mention the poles that have been bungee corded to his bike? It was quite the sight! This was poorman's fishing at it's finest, but it was an amazing trip! I am so grateful for my friend for taking me out and enjoying the bounties of this great land!
Here my monster king...monsters to me anyway... I've never caught anything this big ever! The one was 34 inches!
Debbie's not the biggest fan of me leaving for fishing and coming home empty-handed, so she was so excited to see that I was finally able to bring some bacon, er, filets home with me. We cooked one up tonight using part orange juice, part soy sauce, part honey, with some garlic for a marinade, and then baked it for 15 minutes... it was awesome! These are the times I count my blessings for being in Alaska!
Hopefully the next time we go out I'll have a fly rod to bring them in with!
2 comments:
HUGE! Sounds like a great day. I'm glad that there are many spoils of Alaska that you are enjoying.
Whoa, that's awesome, RD!
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