Smiling Rob

This post is almost three weeks due.  After spending some time up north of Fairbanks, I headed down to Anchorage and spent some time with some old friends.  One of them was Rob who had lined up a company fishing trip to Seward to chase some late season Winter Kings (King Salmon).  I spent a few days with Chris in between his hitches on the slope, and then met up with Rob en route to Seward.  I should say first off that we didn’t catch any fish, although we did hook an eagle.  I’ll post the video of that later on.

I'm Fishing, Go Away!

The drive down was just as I remembered.  The tides of Turnagain Arm, the long stretches of highway with abrupt semi-blind curves.  All the mountains and trees.  I’ve driven the stretch at least a hundred times.  The last however about six years ago to do some fishing on the Kenai.   We treated the drive like  a poker run, stopping at the Brown Bear Saloon near Indian for a beer.  I had one of my local favorites.  Midnight Suns Kodiak Brown Ale.  While we waited for the rest of the group to show up the guys played pool and I just milled around chatting.

Our next stop was a little bar and hotel in Moose Pass.  We all ordered a few more beers and some exotic blueberry hot wings, then drove another 20 minutes in to Seward where we made it to the hotel and got settled.  That night we had dinner and drinks then spent four hours or so at the world famous Yukon Bar having more drinks and took in the live music and local folk .

Fishing

I’ve spent the last 13 years drinking with Rob and I’d say were both pretty good at it, as well was most of the others in our company.  It was like old times and I was happy to be there.

We eventually made our way back to the hotel and crashed.  Our boat the next morning was supposed to leave at 0800.  I think we got there about 0830.  Since the whole boat was chartered for two days, the skipper and crew didn’t care when we showed up.  They already had the money and knew we would be there at some point.

We spent a good portion of the day on the water, heading out and fishing along the cliffs that lined the bay.  We trolled up to Bear Cove and Glacier, then over behind Fox Island.  We fished at varying depths but had no luck.  Just wasn’t our day.  No worries though, good stories, good company,  and lines in the water.

Had we actually caught some fish, the pictures would be different and the story would continue for pages.

You can check out more images from the trip in the Photo Gallery.