Life and Such: June 2010

June 21, 2010

Fathers Day

Sunny and 75 yesterday... we went to one of the picnic sites at the end of Auke Rec, scarfed down some sandwiches and grabbed our paper lunchbags to pick salmonberries. This first photo is about half of the haul...

And Elias wanted in, too...

And a little quiet time after all the hard work and excitement...

What a great day with these three amazing kids. Maille and Finn spent another hour or so intently scouring the tidepools for small urchins, gunnels, sculpins, hermit crabs, and sea stars... true wonderment and discovery with every rock I overturned for them. And October was great with helping the kids put together the perfect gifts for me... a Superdad shirt from Finn (a perfect match to his well-worn Super Finn shirt and capes) and, from Maille, twice-backed Pringles, hand-flavored with generous dashes of Frank's Hot Sauce! She's really on to something...

June 13, 2010

First King of 2010

Fished with a friend today... Big tides (-3.5 at 8:30 a.m.), and we were on the water by 6:30 a.m. We zipped over to Fritz Cove, where we immediately came into a dispersed pod of about 15 orca zipping around, in pursuit of the same kings we were after. No action for quite a while, and the wind was whipping up Gastineau Channel at an honest 20kts, just as forecast. By 10:30 we were pointed downwind and back toward Auke Bay. Just about 200 yards inside the silt line from the Mendenhall River, there was quick action on one downriggers, immediately followed by the second. We got the two back rods (on trolling sinkers) in and hauled in the downriggers. Landed both fish - one was sub-legal - just over 26" but we couldn't stretch it to 28" (DOH! learned on Monday that the state just lifted king size restrictions as of June 1, so we inadvertently tossed back a keeper)... and the other was a nice bright hen pushing 20 lbs. No other action, but the double felt great and it was really nice to actually boat both fish.

Orca in pursuit of kings in Fritz Cove, with Mendenhall Glacier in the background.

A bright spring king, back at the dock in Auke Bay. Finn's dissapointed reaction when we served grilled king tonight at dinner? "Oh no. Not king salmon AGAIN!"