One Week Down in Alaska- Um Can I Rewind a Few Days so I can Stay Longer?

Another coho- are we really surprised at this point?

So one week down in Alaska. Time flies when you’re having fun! So things I’ve done: caught a million salmon, seen a million bears (and gotten MUCH braver with them), caught a lingcod and a few rockfish, seen a bunch of whales and porpoises, learned how to tie fishing flies, made delicious sweet treats out of Alaskan fruits, watched a purse seine boat haul up 173,000 pounds of salmon, and watched a bear almost run someone over, quite hilarious. Things I still need to do: Shoot Scott’s sweet guns, he has like oh 10? Something like that. Catch a halibut- enough said.  Catch a Dolly Varden- hopefully that will happen this afternoon! See all the sea lions and sea otters- the sea lion home is 7 miles away in the ocean and its 7 ft seas for the next few days- I wouldn’t be caught dead out there in a 22 ft boat (or close to that!).  Not a whole lot left to accomplish, so hopefully I’ll get everything done! So today the commercial purse seine fishery opens right here, in Kitoi Bay, at noon. Scott showed me a picture from “a few years ago”( Scott: Molly, come in the office I’ll show you a pic of the fishery from a few years ago. Me: Okay, WOW that’s a lot of boats- wait Scott, this picture is from 1985. Scott: Eh, yeah a few years ago whatever.)

Weapon of choice everytime.

I can hear these fishermen over the radio already talking to eachother and I know this is going to be an entertaining afternoon. If you don’t know what purse seining is, it’s basically when the fishermen use two boats to make a big circle around the fish, then they pull net up and unload all the fish. Can we see a problem with this? Try 15 groups of fishermen doing this at once. I'm guessing a whole lot of "HEY ASSHOLE YOUR ON MY SET! HEY I WAS GOING TO GO THAT WAY!" I am going to sit on the dock with the radio (because they swear at eachother over the radio) with maybe a beer or two and just laugh for the rest of the day. Better than live baseball, or football probably. Scott said a few years ago (aka 1985 probably) someone overfilled their boat so much that it sank. Dang I hope that happens, I know I'm horrible, but it would be so hilarious. Yelling, swearing, and sinking boats. 10000 times better than Nascar (I hate Nascar anyways). So diversion, as usual. Scott’s phone rings all the time, but people from other houses can pick it up. This time someone just said “hello phonecall” here- um am I supposed to answer this? I don’t think I am… so I’m not going to… but I feel awkward just ignoring the phone when someone just said “hello, phonecall”. Whatever. Yesterday Scott taught me how to make more cool earrings, I’m up to 5 pairs of awesomeness. I also made delicious cookies out of salmonberries. We caught a few more salmon, only kept 1 coho for dinner. So here’s something I have learned: you know why female and male sockeye salmon turn red for spawning? Because they are little demons, the seeds of Lucifer himself. The little devils will follow your lure literally to the boat then look at you and go “haha betcha thought you were gunna catch me, noooooopppe”. I want to catch one so bad.

Salmonberry shortbread cookies. Delicious.

Literally an hour yesterday “OH OH ones following my lure ohhh they are so pretty I just want to catch ohhhh he’s going to bite arghhhhhhh!!!! He swam away AGAIN!”Stupidass sockeye salmon. I just want one red one they are so so gorgeous. I’m about ready to just jump on top of the fish school and hope that the impact of me bellyflopping on a red sockeye will explode its brain and it will die so I can get a picture with it. Fat chance, I know.

Life changing discovery: coffee in a mason jar (apparently  travel mugs are nonexistant in Scott's house) + salmon + bears= awesome.