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Sandy catches me with the ideal catch:

The catch of the day

Now I can move on…

Tony

Late evening photos on Homer Spit (near 9:30 pm)

Beached barge and glacier in the east

Zoom of glacier (through one lens of Binoculars)

Early morning on Homer Spit – wind during the night rattled the rigging hanging underneath our kayaks and made a periodic thrumming sound. It was most unsettling, but climbing out on the roof to attend to it would have been more aggravating. So we slept fitfully, and tried to ignore it. At daylight at 5:00 this morning (by the way, the sun set at about 9:45 last night), vehicles started arriving, fishers chatted softly outside our camper, the rain started to patter on the roof, and the bite was on!

By 5:30, the combat zone was marked out as fishers lined the beach casting towards each other from both sides of the creek that drained the small enclosed bay on the spit. As the tide fell in Kamchemak Bay, and the waters receded from the small basin, the fishers on the west side of the outflow creek stepped gradually towards their opposite numbers while the eastern side fishers in equal steps retreated. The only sound was from raucous, excited gulls.

Homer Spit – fishing Combat Zone

Almost everyone is catching 7 to 12 pound cohoes, but I hang back, not anxious to join the fray. There is a rhythm and flow to the movement of the fishers, based on beach etiquette, space, casting directions, cast-timing and so on. When a catch is dragged up on the beach, the gap is quickly filled by returning fishers, or measured side-stepping. I am reluctant to put myself into the mix without a deeper understanding of the dance steps.

After several hours of watching the process in some astonishment, we retreated to Truck House for breakfast and coffee as the rain began again. As I look out the window at a very low receded tide, there are still a half-dozen die-hard casters out on the shoreline. This is less than a third of the number that were there an hour ago. I feel somewhat intimidated, and unsure – much like a teenager at a high school dance wondering about the risks of asking a pretty girl across the room for a dance – but the music has ended…and the rain is steady. And the last fisher has now finally left the dance floor.

Moving on…!

Tony, the Quill, and Sandy, the Quilter

A lunchtime stop in Kenai – in the rain:

Russian Church in Kenai

These are marine life that we have seen in the past 24 hours. The rainbow  was a rainbow trout – caught yesterday at Upper Summit Lake in the Kenai Peninsula (Chugach National Forest) on a fly created by my friend Mike Harris. (Thanks Mike!) I was going to take a pic of the fish and then release it, but my camera battery had died, and so did the fish, so I had to eat the fish! (I took the picture after paddling back to campsite, and THEN I ate the fish!) Given that my 2 week Alaska fishing licence cost $80, I am hoping that I can average down the cost per pound of fish over the next two weeks. Otherwise, that first meal was a doozy!

Rainbow and Merrell

Today, we started out with a run to Seward where the town is hosting a cruise ship, and a Silver Salmon Fishing derby. (In Alaska, a King is a Chinook, a Red is a sockeye, a Pink is a Humpback, and a Silver is a Coho.) The place is quite busy. I was quite surprised to find campers parked all along the waterfront and no one fishing. Coho were jumping all along the shore, and dall porpoises seemed to be taking advantage of the good supply of food. Several sea otters (not river otters) floated along the shore and dove for shell fish. I finally asked a local who told me that everyone was waiting for the bite at high tide.

Waterfront monument in Seward

Highway from Seward

The weather was spectacular, with a few clouds over the high snow-covered peaks, but otherwise, perfect! I was catching up on mail at Zudy’s Cafe, and planned on sending a new blog note, but Sandy returned from her latest quilt shop stop and it was time to meander down the waterfront walkway, where hundreds of campers are parked and waiting to get in on the bite time. Apparently, there are prizes for the most fish, the biggest fish, and one prize for a previously tagged salmon. (This latter is worth about $20,000. Last year, the tagged fish was caught some time after the derby – in Prince William Sound – some distance from Resurrection Bay.)

Seward – Iditarod Mile 0

After a bit of a walk-about (past Mile 0 of the Iditarod Dog Sled Race), we headed off for Homer, and the spit that reaches out into the Kachemak Bay. En route, we watched the river boats floating down the Kenai River near the mouth of the Russian River…probably one of the most productive salmon fishing areas on the planet! Because this is the last weekend before school begins in Anchorage, we have decided to forego stopping in this area until after this very busy weekend is over, and the camping crowds thin out. We will make it a priority stop on our way out of Kenai Peninsula – hopefully with some equally fine weather. (Today’s temperatures got up to 19C, and the skies were blue with some cloud around, but the weather report suggests that the good weather is about to end with rain coming in tomorrow.)

We were able to see the volcanoes across Cook Inlet today on our way south to Homer. The distance across the Inlet is about 40 miles, so they were a bit hazy. The most recent activity was in 2009, but 4 of them are on active status, and monitored closely.

Tonight we are camped at the end of the Kenai highway in Homer, on Homer Spit (4.5 mi. long) in a “dry camping” area (for $15) with many, many folks fishing the shoreline beside and around us. The fish cleaning tables are very busy, and the gulls are raucously enjoying the castaways! We walked up to the end of the spit past some very funky and beautiful shops and camping rigs, and then stopped into a boardwalk cafe on the way back for fish and chip dinner. (Ironic, perhaps, but I couldn’t wait to catch my own…fish dinner, that is.) Coho are jumping, and I intend to get in on the action tomorrow.

Barge on Homer Spit

Love, joy and best wishes to all!

Sandy, the Quilter (on leave from her machines, but not the shops), and Tony, the Quill

Sandy leaving me for Cooper Landing Quilt Shop

p.s. If this note seems to focus rather extensively on fishing, it is because the whole of south Alaska is fish crazy at this time of year, and I caught the infection, if not the fish.