Fishing in Seward

Yesterday (7/27/10) Nan and I went on a fishing charter out of Seward, AK. There were about 10 fishermen on the boat. Between us Nan and I caught a silver salmon, a couple pink salmon, and yelloweye (like a red snapper), and some black bass. Nan also caught a ling cod that the captain hooked for her, but it was too small so they threw it back. In the video, the ling cod are the big ones on the end, and the one picture is looking down the mouth of the ling cod.

Today we went on a 3-hour wildlife cruise. This was a bigger boat that could hold over 100 people. We saw puffin, seals, otter, mountain goats (that looked like white specks because of the distance), and whales. In the one video I think Nan thought the whale was a sperm whale because you can hear her asking to see some tail, but it turned out to be humpback whales. We leave tomorrow for Anchorage, and then on to Valdez (now the site of the second worse oil spill in U.S. history).

Seward, Alaska

Nan and I are in Seward, AK for a week. Today (7/25) we went to the Sea Life Center in Seward. The most entertaining animal they had was a Puffin. It’s a seabird that can swim underwater. It was in a tank with ducks and other birds, and it would harass the ducks by swimming underwater and chasing them while they floated on top. They workers weigh the birds daily by coaxing them on a scale with fish.

Kenai River Float Trip

Nan and I are in Cooper Landing, AK, at the Princess RV park owned by the Princess Cruise line. The campground is nice, but nothing special. But we get the use of the lodge that includes a hot tub and dining facilities. Some retirees work up here in the summer. In addition to pay and lodging, Princess gives them a discount on cruises in the winter if they want.
A few days ago Nan and I went with Jan and Paul on a 2-hour float trip down the Kenai River on a raft with our guide Treena. We didn’t see any bears, but we did see eagles, fish jumping, and several fishermen along the bank going after Red (or Sockeye) salmon. Treena told us a good place to look for bears that evening, so the four of us drove around at about 11:30 p.m. We didn’t see any bears, but we did see some salmon swimming upstream to spawn. A couple of days ago Nan and I went to the lodge for a presentation from Loraine, who has trained sled dogs to race. She also had a business to take people out on dog sled excursions. She told a story of friend of hers that also trained sled dogs, and a couple of her dogs were used in the Disney movie Snow Dogs. This lady was drunk one evening and arguing with her boyfriend. She pulled out a gun and said "No man will ever put a ring on this finger". Then she shot her ring finger off. Women have a saying in Alaska because there are so many more men than women up here. The odds are good, but the goods are odd. It seems like this saying could be considered trans gender.

Yesterday Nan and I took a 5 mile hike looking for bears eating salmon in the Russian River. On the way we didn't see anything other than salmon when we reached the river. Nan was saying on the way back that there weren't any bears in the area. Just then we heard a branch snap, and a large grizzly crossed the trail about 50 feet behind us. Luckily I think he was more interested in going after salmon. Since he never even looked at us, and was crossing the trail rather than walking in our direction, I thought it was a fun thing to see. Nan didn't consider it fun. Her knees were shaking and her heart was pounding, and she considered that a little to close for her taste.

Razor Clamming

Today I went after razor clams. You can either dig them out with a shovel, or use what's called a clam gun, which I am using in the video. It's a lot of strain on your back, and they are very thin shelled, so it's easy to damage the clam. The campground owners (Bob and Brenda) took a group of us out this morning to teach us some tricks. Then we came back to the campground and they showed us how to clean them. The limit is 60 per day, but I think I got about 20 before I had enough. You want to go after them at very low tide. For the month of July this is from 7/10 to 7/14. Tomorrow (7/12) should be even better because the tide will be lower than today.

Halibut Fishing

Yesterday we went halibut fishing in Cook Inlet, by Homer, AK. The limit is 2 halibut per day. They get as big as 400 pounds, but most are around 30 pounds. If you catch a small one, you can throw it back and keep trying for a bigger fish. We had 8 people fishing on our boat, and everyone got their 2 fish. The biggest fish was 34 pounds. We got in the water about 6:30 a.m., and got out around 1:00 p.m. Our friend Jan went fishing with us, and a friend of hers said she would take all the halibut Jan caught and the friend would pay for shipping. Then she found out that it costs about $300 to ship, so we ended up with Jan’s fish.

The captain of the boat was Bob. He has a house in Oregon, but leaves his wife for about 5 months each year to come to Alaska and run fishing charter trips. He says when he's up in Alaska he really misses his dog. The first mate on the boat was a girl named Tiffany, from Texas. We asked her if she stayed in Alaska during the winter. She said she usually does, and last winter she lived in an old abandoned school bus near Talkeetna. A musician had lived there, but he told her she was welcome to it since he was moving back to the lower 48 states. She said the people in Talkeetna were very friendly. She would run into them every once in a while when she went into town to take a shower. She said the wood stove didn’t work that well, and when it got to around 60 below, the oil in her oil lamp would gel, so she didn’t have any light source. I think she understated it when she said last winter was kind of rough. But I guess it can be rough for many people in Alaska. Nan wants to move from the campground we are in now because we don’t have TV.

I included a picture of the inside of the Salty Dog bar in Homer, AK, where people sign and stick dollar bills to the wall. If you are a fan of the show Deadliest Catch (about king crab fishing), it was the bar where Mike Rowe interviewed the ship captains on the show. Also, the boat Time Bandit docks in Homer, but it wasn’t in port when we were there.

Martin Buser's facility

Today we went to Martin Buser’s Happy Trails Kennel and Iditarod dog training facility. He usually owns about 90 dogs. From this he gets about 16 dogs that he uses to compete in the Iditarod. He has won this the race several times, and holds the record for completing the race in the shortest amount of time (just under 9 full days). He and I were talking prior to the tour and he gave me some interesting info. First place in the Iditarod pays around $50,000 to $70,000, depending on the number of participants. Second place is around $15,000. The entrance fee is $4,000. The prize money is hardly enough to keep the kennel running. He also gets money from sponsors, and earns some from giving these tours of his facility. When people take a cruise to Alaska, one of the side trips they can take is to have a dog team pull them on a glacier. Martin leases some of his dogs out for this purpose during the cruising season. He also travels around giving motivational speeches to corporations.
During the tour he mentioned that the Iditarod committee wanted the mushers to install GPS trackers on their sleds so that fans could track the progress of each team online. At one checkpoint he ran into a pilot friend of his, so he gave the pilot the tracking device. This caused the website to crash because everyone was logging in to find out why Martin Buser was now traveling 125 miles per hour in the wrong direction. The one picture shows Martin accepting his first place check while his lead dog is peeing on the trophy. He said he didn’t mind. The check was his and the trophy belonged to the dog.
On the way back I took a picture of what was reported to be Sarah Palin’s floatplane. I’ll assume this is true until someone proves me wrong.

Knik River glacier cruise

Today we went on a 3 hour cruise on an airboat to see a glacier on the Knik River. We also hoped to see some wildlife, but the only thing we saw was a squirrel that the guide had made a pet by feeding it peanuts. We also saw some moose poop. The first time I saw that it was exciting, but it's getting kind of boring now. The guide told the story of his dog that is half wolf. It used to live outside until a moose charged the guide and was ready to stomp him to death to protect it's calf. The dog came to his aid and saved his life. The dog now lives inside his house and gets his share of hamburger.

Musk Ox farm

A couple days ago we took a tour of the local Musk Ox farm in the Wasilla, AK area. They raise the musk ox for their fur, which they then spin into yarn and make hats, scars, etc. I could have bought a nice ski cap for around $150, but I passed. We then went to an animal sanctuary that treats injured or sick animals. We saw grizzly bear, caribou, moose, elk, owls, and eagles. After that we stopped at the Iditarod museum. They had a guy giving 2 minute sled dog rides, so Jan, Paul, Nan and I hopped on for a ride around the dirt track. It’s amazing how calm the dogs are until they know they are going to start pulling the cart. Then they start jumping all around and yelping. While in Wasilla we are hoping to get a look at Sarah Palin’s float plane. You can’t go down her road, but we hear if you go to the Best Western and look across the lake, you can see her plane. If I’m lucky I might run into her and she can give me one of her famous winks.