More of Alaska for the Boys

After climbing Denali and getting a tour of the AK bush on ATVs with a crazy Alaskan, what do you do to top it off? Combat fishing, but of course.

Caleb with dinner, er, several dinners. We struck out during a day of drift boating, but some of the guides took pity on us and led us to a combat fishing zone where lines were crossed, tempers flared, but we did git sum.

As the Wildsnow Democracy found themselves in Talkeetna a few days before Tyler, Colby, and Joe had to fly back to Colorado, we were trying to decide what to do in order to cure the glacier fever. Finally we settled on heading down to the Kenai Peninsula for some salmon fishing. We tossed around an idea or two on where to go, and finally realized that if we had any hope at all of catching any fish we may as well go with someone who has some clue on the area. We asked around and found out that Kenai Cache Outfitters were THE guys to go with.

The crew after the second round. Lou was exhausted and went to bed -- he figured we'd get enough done without him, he was right.

Our day started with a 6 am breakfast at the local roadhouse followed by meeting our guides at the shop next door. Gary and Tyler would be our guides for the day. I was particularly impressed with Gary by the end of the day as he seemed to just be out there loving life. He could row better then probably anyone in our group at age 67.

We had about a 40 minute drive to our put-in on Skilak lake. We sat there and enjoyed the scenery as Gary and Tyler each rowed their boats 1/2 mile across the still water to the outlet of the lake. A short ways down the river we found ourselves hopping out on shore to start our sockeye fishing for the day. I think people were fairly excited about the prospect of catching some decent sized fish and everyone took to the casting quickly. Problem was, nothing was biting. This continued throughout the day. By the end of the day it looked as though we would head home empty handed. Bummer.

But hey it was an incredible day on the river in a beautiful place. We got back to the shop and the owner said he had heard we had gotten skunked. One of his guides TJ offered to take us out to the Russian where a big school of sockeyes had been passing through all day. So at 6 pm we headed back out to the river. The photos tell the rest of the story.

Full of salmon meat, or not?

Joe with another one.

Lou casting during our drift boat trip. No fish, but Nice!

Jordan, harvest master.