Alaska 29. Road Warriors August 7

We planned an early departure but, lucky for me, Dave became hungry and decided to make blueberry pancakes and serve me in bed. His pancakes are legitimately better than mine. He did two batches so we could vote which were better: store-bought (sweeter) blueberries or wild (sour) blueberries. 

Definitely the wild were better. The tang was perfect with the super sweet syrup.

Dave, ever-watching the weather, had id’ed one day in Seward, out of the next 5, that it wouldn’t be raining and had me find a boat tour to see wildlife and glaciers for that day. I started to tell him I was BUSY (writing and posting) but then decided maybe I should do my part.

I’m reasonable like that.

We drove a few hours, having lunch in the car consisting of potato chips, Fritos, peanut m&ms — and an apple, so that we don’t get scurvy. 

We stopped at a wildlife refuge and donated $50 to drive around and look at a few fenced animals…

We stopped off in Hope Alaska, walked around on the cape and watched flossers…

We needed to be in the vicinity of Cooper’s Landing on the Kenai Peninsula for our float trip in the morning. Months ago, dave picked up a United in-flight magazine about the must do’s in Alaska and read about a Minnesota fishing guide in the area. He reached out to him and booked this trip. We were excited to finally talk to someone who could explain — in detail and correctly — this Alaskan fishing thing that we were struggling so hard to understand. 

Of course these guys are a super busy and connecting with them is tough. So we weren’t sure exactly where we were supposed to meet him, we knew it was near Cooper’s Landing and since Quartz Creek is right there (which was a spot A.J. the fly shop guy told us about) we decided to stay in a campground for the night there. The forecast wasn’t great, and indeed, it did spit rain on and off starting that morning and continued all day, though it wasn’t a downpour — that started about the time I started cooking dinner.

We found a decent site at Quartz Creek Campground and decided to fish, using our handy-dandy Kenai bead rigs. 

It still feels super strange, hucking these long leaders and giant bobbers with weight. I’m terrible at it. I just can’t get my rig out there very far, but whatEVER. When will I ever do this again? I don’t need to be great at it. We separated a bit and Dave was downriver from me and he actually caught a fish! But it ended up being a giant red salmon hooked on the dorsal fin. (So I guess he’s an official SNAG fisherman now). When you foul-hook a fish, they are super hard to land because you aren’t controlling their head. It was a HUGE fish and it took him a LONG time to bring it in. Of COURSE he didn’t have his stupid phone with him (it seems like he never does), so the size and variety are unconfirmed, though we now strongly believe it was a very large male sockeye.

Not long after, I saw him catch another — and he yelled that it was another salmon, but that this one was hooked in the mouth. Cool. Must be a humpy?

Eventually I caught what I thought at first was a nice trout, but turned out to be a salmon (I think a sockeye?). Dave was on his way back toward me and — very thankfully — netted it, unhooked it, and held it for a pic. Cuz I was not touching that thing. 

I was pretty sure mine was a sockeye. And it bit my bead. Those two things didn’t jive with what we knew about sockeye. Much googling ensued. 

My question was what kind of fish had I caught, and “do sockeye salmon ever bite beads?” Dave’s question was could we have eaten them: “Can you eat a red Sockeye salmon?” I, being me, was “ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SURE” we could have kept (and eaten) those salmon. But wanting to humor Dave, set out to prove my point on Google. 

I challenge you: try to google that question. All you will find is how long fresh (and filleted) salmon will last in your fridge. What you will not find is at what point live salmon, swimming upriver, go from yummy to yucky. (Mike, I’m talking to you: accept the challenge! I will look for the answer in the comment section.)

I finally put my phone down and said “We can ask the guide. We can get ALL our questions answered tomorrow.”

And I stood up, leaving the sanctuary of the canopy, to cook our dinner of cooler remnants. My specialty!

I seriously love to figure out what to cook from random stuff. In this case: 1/2 can refried beans, two tiny fingers of thin pork chop, tiny bit of leftover canned chicken, a tiny wedge of CABBAGE, some very sad cilantro, a half a tomato and a nice avocado I had forgotten all about, along with some other less remnant-y things.

Mexican is ON THE MENU!

So yummy.

But we were so, so wet and bedraggled. 

We were trying to figure out the next day’s logistics when Dave had the most brilliant idea: pay for another night at this site so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the wet canopy, our wet stuff, etc, etc. We could just leave it there and go!

That’s why I brought him along, friends. He has some good ideas.

We cleaned up and crawled in. 

And listened to it rain all night long.