Friday, June 25.



Hi! A little change up for you today. You get to start with news from the front! Are you excited?



Friday was another of the "first ever" days. Jesse's friend Scott, who is a fishing nut to the n'th extreme, took the three of us King Salmon fishing. It is running toward the end of the season, so most of the fish have migrated up the river to points where you are not allowed to fish. Scott made the appropriate "no promises" comments that all true fisherman are known for, but he seemed pretty excited.



We left Anchorage at 12:30 and met Scott at the Deshka River landing at about 3:oo. After an easy boat launch, and an hour of boat throttle cable problems sitting on a sandbar. We were headed 6 miles down river and then up another river to fish.



King fishing is done by looking for a school of migrating salmon, and then casting lures into the school trying to get them to bite. If you can't spot a school, you troll the section of river and try to locate a school. We tried both methods. Jesse picked up the first king and after a 5 minute battle, Scott netted 22 pound king. AMAZING fish!



A few hours later, Scott hooked a king and handed me his rod, (I know that's kind of "cheating" but the limit for king salmon is only ONE fish per person for non-residents and 6 for residents). Anyway, after a few nice "runs" and a good battle, Scott landed another salmon, this one was a tad smaller than Jesse's, but still just over 20 pounds.



We fished until 10:00 pm, and yes the sun was still up, but they close the water from 1100 pm until 6:00 am. We cleaned and bagged salmon, stopped a the grocery store to put them on ice and started the trip back to Anchorage. What was astounding, was that at 1145 pm (yes almost midnight) the sun was still shining on the mountain tops around town. Totally confusing to the mind, believe me.



So we returned to Anchorage, split, wrapped and bagged fish on the hood of the Buick in the driveway, and finally got to bed just before 1:00 in the morning! So that's the reason, I'm blogging today, at 10:00 Gayle was still in bed!



Needless to say, those were the biggest fish Jesse or I have ever caught! Gayle was not so lucky, but we're going to get her a bigger fish on Wednesday when we go halibut fishing.



Not much on the schedule today, a little wash, looking at some touristy stuff and just relaxing, Church with Jesse tomorrow and another laid back day. You probably won't see any updates from us for a couple of days, so for you daily readers, don't be frightened, we'll be back next week.



We have been so blessed being able to take this "trip of a lifetime" and are so thankful for the means, and the time off, to be able to take it. It has truly been a blessing!



Thanks for checking!