Fishing Tales

2011 was our summer of fishing.  We went every chance we could to go camping and fishing.  In mid July we went for a full week.  First we camped at Deep Creek in Ninilchik, AK.  We literally camped 100 feet from the ocean.  After setting up camp we went down to the water to play on the beach.  Ila went right to work collecting sea shells.  The salmon were dancing on the water, jumping in the air and  skimming the top of the water with their tales.  It was so exciting to see the salmon running up the beach.  The next morning Jon left on a halibut charter for the day.  The girls and I drove to Homer and had a fun girls day taking in the sights.

 We ate lunch at the Mermaid Cafe.  Ila was so excited to eat there, she still has a love for mermaids.  The restaurant was charming and enchanting.  We enjoyed fresh Alaskan seafood, which was heavenly. 

 We saw so many bald eagles on our drive down the coast of the Kenai peninsula.  This eagles nest was in a tree on the corner of a busy intersection in Homer.  We saw two baby eagles poking their heads out of the nest, but I only caught one in the picture. 

Jon's catch of the day was two 35 pound halibuts. 

 This fish made Aisley look even tinier than she already is!  It was more than two times heavier than she was.

 When we were done halibut fishing we drove north to the Kenai river to go dip netting.  Dip netting is a truly Alaskan experience.  Below is Jon's first fish in the dip net. 

 Ila is our official fish whacker.  She was there to help Jon whack his first fish.  Soon after that she claimed to be too tired to whack all the fish Jon caught.  We spent several days camping on the beach.  Ila loved playing in the sand and making new friends.  I chased her and took care of Aisley while Jon fished.  Thank goodness Aisley couldn't crawl yet, otherwise she'd have been covered in sand.

 There were so many people out in the river dip netting.  When the fish were running really thick people were elbow to elbow trying to catch their fish. 

 Many of the salmon were bigger than Aisley at 6 months old.  Crazy!!  These salmon were huge!!  Each fish was cut into 4-8 fillets.  One fillet would feed our family for dinner with leftovers for Jon to take to work.

 One night Jon went out to fish at the low tide.  I put the girls to bed in the tent and then went to check on Jon.  When I walked out of our tent onto the beach there was an electric feeling to the air.  Everyone was excitedly rushing around.  I soon found where Jon was on the beach, I recognized our red fish cooler.  He was in the water but soon came out with a fish in his net.  He had so many fish that the cooler wouldn't close anymore.   To protect the fish we had our fish sled covering them, otherwise the seagulls would have come to eat our fish.  The salmon were running and dancing on the water.  As I looked at the ocean and the mouth of the river I saw several fish jumping out of the water at once, each dancing on the surface for several feet before going back into the water.  Jon caught fish after fish, averaging about 3 minutes in the water before he caught another one.  He ran up and down the beach with his net. He had to fight to get a spot in the water. Then catching a fish in mere minutes.He ran back out of the water dragging his net and untangling his fish from the net.  We made a good team.  I took the fish from him to put it in the fish sled higher up on the beach so he could get back in the water to catch another fish.  We stayed out fishing on the beach with hundreds of other people right up until 11pm when we had to stop.  Jon caught 20 fish in three hours of fishing.  We had to stop fishing and go home because we didn't have anymore space in our coolers for fish. 

 12 a.m. on the Kenai river.  This is one of my favorite Alaskan memories.

 Here's our tent city that popped up around our tent.  Our tent is the one in the left corner, covered in a green tarp.  It was perfect because the tarp covered our tent and provided a kitchen area for me to cook at that was protected from the wind.  When we first set up our tent on the beach it was just us and the large tent in the right corner of the picture.  As our days spent on the beach went on more and more people set up their tents in whatever space they could find.  The beach was about 1/2 mile long with tents squeezed in every available spot.

After our amazing night of fishing, the next morning we packed up to go home.  Aisley was asleep on my back in the picture.  She lived in my Ergo Baby backpack for most of the time we were on the beach.  When we got home the fish processing began.  We filleted and vacuum sealed our fish.  From our one week of fishing we filled our freezer with 100 pounds of fresh salmon and 50 pounds of halibut.  I'd call that a successful fishing trip.