The Salmon are running

Before I tell you about the fishing I want to take you on our Fjord National park cruise out of Seward to the Harding ice fields.  The Harding ice field is the largest ice field located entirely in the U.S.  On our cruise we encountered 2 different kinds of whales, sea otters, sea lions and many different species of birds.  A fabulous lunch of Salmon and Prime Rib was served to us at noon as we watched the beautiful scenery surrounding us on the water.  HOW MUCH BETTER DOES IT GET!!!!!  It was a great day on the water with plenty of sunshine.

I kinda lied, I am going to show you some of our hikes before the fishing stories.  The hiking is incredible.  When you get to the top there is always a wonderful view that pictures can't do justice to the beauty.  Some of our hikes are pretty deep in the forest so we have bought bear spray and an air horn.  On one of our hikes a guy told me to just sound the horn and he would be right their with his gun.  It's a little scary sometimes.

The Salmon are finally running.  What a BLAST.  The first one I hooked started down river and I couldn't stop him, he kept taking line and I thought WOW this is really fun, except he took all my line and snapped it off the reel.  There was no way I was going to get that guy on land pulling against a 25 mile hour flowing river.  I did manage to get my limit of three for the day as did Carl, Jiggs, and Cynthia.  We were in Heaven.  We have gone through alot of tackle fishing for the Salmon.  GREAT FUN!!!!!! We have been very busy getting our limit everyday.  We have filled one freezer with Halibut and Salmon and are now on another.  Yes, we went out and bought another freezer.   The limit went to six and I was on my sixth one when he started down river and I thought, no way is he getting my spool of line this time so I stopped the reel from moving and the leader broke and the weight came flying back at me and hit me in the arm.  I thought someone had shot me, nice big bruise.  We are now fishing and releasing so we can save what room we have left in the freezer for the silvers that will be coming up river soon. 

The two pics above were taken at midnight since the salmon decided to run later in the evening.    The pic below is one of our potlucks with our new Alaskan friends.

This is the Moose that comes to visit us with her calf.  They are outside our motorhome.

The  following pics are of the subsistence fisherman (all Alaskans are allowed to net fish) crowded next to each other fishing with large nets.   They are lined up like this on both sides of the river. 

Next adventure will be to Denali park, Mt. McKinley and Silver Salmon fishing.