Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

    I was going to write this post when I first got back from Hoonah, but life, and death, got in the way, and I've delayed doing it until now. I couldn't very well put off writing about the death of my good friend and fishing companion Fagan, so it took priority.  Then I had multiple projects that needed tackled around the house, so either I didn't have the time or the energy to do another post until now. So, here it goes. Last year I had made up my mind to sell the Bonnie J. My body was having a harder time keeping up with the demands of  wooden boat ownership, and though I was reluctant to sell on the one hand, I knew it was time. I put a price tag of $10,000 on it and hoped for the best. There were two interested buyers at the time. Both of them wouldn't have the money until the end of the fishing season or tourist season, as one of the prospective buyers worked at the cannery. I knew the one fellow, and while I wasn't sure that he would come through, he and his...

  I recently returned from an extended period of time away from home. I was down in Hoonah working on the boat and fishing. I left Wasilla on June 11, and didn't return until September 3. To say that it was a long time to be gone would be an understatement. Before I left Hoonah last year, I contacted a fellow who shrink wraps boats with a heavy plastic wrap. I spoken to several people who had the process done and they seemed to be happy with it. I left in September last year, and sometime in October he got the job done. Unfortunately, he didn't bother to mention that it would be advantageous to have a fan on and a window open to allow the moisture to dissipate. Never having gone through the procedure before, I didn't know what to expect.  When I returned to Hoonah, I saw that the covering was intact and given the fact that last winter was especially wet and snowy, I was delighted that I had decided to get the boat shrink-wrapped, that is until I opened the door. From floor ...

  The fishing season is winding down, as is normal for this time of year, and with the end of the season comes the foul weather that fall brings. For the past few days we've experienced some thirty knot winds in Icy Strait, with higher gusts. A lot of the boats that were fishing the outside coast have come in to fish Homeshore, but with almost no protection from the winds, everyone was forced to seek shelter in town. There are boats tied up to the floats from Petersburg and Wrangell, Juneau and Angoon and Sitka and of course Hoonah and I don't know where all else. Boats with names like the Trisha Marie, Loretta Ann, Corvus, and Sea Fire. They're all shapes and sizes, and most of the ones that came in from the weather are trollers, like myself. It's interesting to see the different shapes, especially on the old wooden ones. They're all unique. I happened to be listening to some music the other night on U tube and came across a song titled Away From the ...