roadquill1

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