We have been busy training for Adam's sheep hunt by hiking up mountains every other day.... he wears a 50lb pack on his back and tapes up his blisters since he hiking boots refuse to break in! We have fished for grayling, halibut, silver salmon, ling cod, and red salmon. Adam is also very busy working on his new app, HappenShare. I don't recall if we have talked about it on the blog before, but I will save it for him since the project is his baby. Adam and his mom have worked together on it since February/March, with skype meetings at least once a week with their developer. It should be coming out very soon! That's all I will say..... well also that it is aimed towards the Alaska tourists! :) suspeeeeeeense!
It has been another warm summer and Tundra doesn't like it! So he got his own pool! As you can see, it is popular with the neighbor kids too!
It became popular with the culdesac dogs too! POOL PARTY!!!!
This is what Adam calls my, "fan mail". I have a pen pal this summer- my niece Breanna! On the last trip to the mail box, I picked up two more pen pals- Shanin and Kane!! :) Love it!
One of our hikes-- Adam and Tundy are in the pic. Eagle River valley to the right
Eagle River valley
Playing at the river with his neighbor buddies!
The neighbor, JoAnn and I when we walked out of the bar at 3:30 a.m.! Sunset? Sunrise? Or just riding the horizon! Gotta love AK summers! Oh and that's, Manny the Frog, from the "claw machine" that became a dog toy!
We all hiked to Symphany/Eagle Lakes for a night. 6 miles plus a mile of boulder field! This was about 2:30 in the morning on Eagle Lake
Adam and I hung out and stayed at his co-worker/basketball team mate/friend's cabin! He built the cabin himself in Seward, with the help of his FOUR BOYS! They also had friends and neighbor boys over so it was crazy with 4 wheelers and fireworks when we got there. They took a break for some basketball, 3 of the boys are over 6ft, plus their dad and Adam--can you even tell which one is Adam by heighth?!?!
We saw whales, sea lions, and this puffin! I was too busy fishing to get my camera out for the whales/sea lions.
There is a new law this year that each fisherman can still get 2 halibut per day, but one has to be under 29 inches. So we were really hoping for a big second fish! After I threw 5 or 6 back, this guy bit my hook! I was hoping it was a monster halibut. It took me a long time to get it up, it had circled the boat and tangled all other 11 lines! It came up flat the whole way and I thought my arms were going to fall off! This is called a skate and although we didn't weigh it, the captain said it was around 100lbs! The best news was that it was edible and delicious, comparable to scallops! Although I couldn't feel my arms, I put my pole back in a tried for halibut, I settled for a smaller one because I couldn't reel anymore!
Another beautiful view! These seagulls were hanging around our boat for scraps!
Adam's second halibut! He threw back quite a few as well. Although we wanted a HUGE one, this was the largest on the boat outta 12 fishermen
The haul for the day-- no, not just ours! The whole boat's
Adam's YellowEye Rock Fish!
Well we didn't catch monster halibut or ling cod, but it was a great day. This was our boat, the largest we have been on for a charter so far.
One of the skate wings
I had to google how to fillet skate! No wonder the boat crew or the fish processing place that packaged our halibut, salmon, and rock fish wouldn't do the skate- what a pain in the booty! But it was worth it! Probably a once in a life time fish and delicious!
Adam dipnetting for red salmon! The nets can be 5 ft in diameter, ours are 4.
We took our neighbor, Jim, like we do every year because he is AMAZING and keeps our lawn mowed and driveway plowed when we are out on long adventures!
We always see a few seals, but this time they were everywhere! We even came up on this group laying and playing on the mud! Some of them were sliding down, then wiggling back up and sliding down again!
Our haul for the day-- 35 fish. 25 for the head of the household and 10 for each member after that. We also got Jim's 17 fish (they don't get all 35 cuz he doesn't each them). So we got 52 fish in one day! We woke up at the campground at 5:00 a.m., were at the docks at 5:30 a.m., were in the water and ready to go 7 minutes before the 6:00 opener. It took forever to get the first fish, then whabaaaam, Jim got a double! Two fish in one net! We hit a lull in the day, in between tides around 12:30 so we took Jim back to the docks and unloaded his fish so he could get home. Adam and I needed 14 more. The tide was so low that they wouldn't let us or anyone launch again until 2:00. After finally getting back in the water-- the tide was turning, so holding the nets in the water, even with them tied off at the front, was DIFFICULT! Sometimes it was all I could to keep my net in the right position and Adam was doing it one handed while driving the boat! We got the rest of our fish, back to the campground and all 35 cleaned and in the cooler by 9:00 p.m.! WHAT A DAY!
THEN we had to drive home, unpack and vac-pack the fish- another 2 hour process. It was hard work, but fun and soooooooooooo worth this delicious meat in our freezer.... and our parents' freezers! Tundra is happy too!
So this week, my big projects are smoking last year's left over salmon----yes----- I AM smoking them! EEK! Along with the 35 salmon bellies from this year's dipnet trip..... bellies are the best! I am also dehydrating apples, peaches, and kiwi for next week's backpack/scouting trip for Adam's dall sheep hunt. We will be headed out on Friday to line fish for red salmon on the Kenai with some friends, then headed out on the next adventure Monday or Tuesday. Wheeeewww
TAKE CARE!
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