Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  It's hard to believe but for all intents and purposes the 2013 fishing season is over, at least for me.  In my last three trips out fishing I've only caught a total of ten cohos- hardly enough to make it worth the while. With fuel costing upwards of $5.00 a gallon and the boat burning about eight gallons a day on a short day, it doesn't make sense to go out. Last year, or maybe it was the year before, I started heading out on the last day of the season. I saw that even the hard-nosed trollers were tied up and even though I made it out of the harbor, I got discouraged and turned around and came back in without even dropping a line. On my way back in I saw one of the guys who fishes only sporadically anymore, and then usually doesn't do much, leaving the harbor. I wished him luck but frankly didn't believe he would catch anything. As it was,  he went just to Point Sophia and caught sixty cohos for the short time he was there- about six hundred ...

   Hi- thanks for joining me here. Tonight I would like to share with you a tale. Unlike the tales of the Grimm brothers, this tale is true and involves yours truly. This tale is from a long time ago, relatively speaking, and while it could have been sad for me, fortunately it wasn't. So, sit back, grab a refreshing beverage, cold or hot and join me as I travel back in time with a story from my past. Years ago, in a simpler, happier time, there was no EPA or other government sanctioned terrorist groups. In those days, when Autumn came and the leaves began to fall, folks used to rake them up and pile them in huge stacks out on the curb. Kids used to ride their bikes through them and scatter leaves over the same areas they had just been raked away from.  Eventually, I guess in an effort to keep from having to rake the same leaves again, it was a common practice to set the leaves on fire right there on the street. Now, I have no idea how the asphalt kept ...

   When most folks think about Alaska, sharks never even come to mind. I'd never heard that there were sharks here until I started commercial fishing some years back. One year I leased the troller Acadia from one of my friend from the farm. It was June and I went up in Port Fredrick to a place just known as the waterfalls, oddly enough because there is a waterfall right there. Anyway, one of the local highliners, Joar Savland, was fishing his boat, the Standy up there. I was still learning the fishing business at the time, so I thought it would be wise to follow behind him a few boat lengths and spy on him with the binoculars, you know, see what he was using, how fast he was trolling and so on. Well, I got distracted somehow, maybe I even had a bite, I don't remember, but anyhow I lost track of him for a bit. When I located him again I noticed a fin circling a ways behind his boat. I thought he had knocked a big King Salmon off his line and it was stunned. I figured that i...

  Today is Labor Day- September 2. It's hard for me to believe that it's upon us already. Back in May, at the beginning of the fishing season, this day seemed so far away. The days of summer were almost twenty four hours long, with some semblance of darkness occurring in the wee hours of the morning. Now I have to rush home to beat the dark, lest I be caught in the middle of Icy Strait in the pitch blackness. I guess Labor Day is considered the official end of summer, although ours ended several weeks ago. That old familiar chill in the air followed by the first brown leaves falling from the alders were a sure sign; that and the white, shriveled tops of the Fireweed. Oh we still had some gorgeous days, warm, even hot, but they are coming to end. In the thirty six years that I've been here I can't remember a finer summer though. I hope we don't have to pay for our unexpected pleasure this winter. Well, I have a houseful of family visiting and I...

    Coffee breaks- we all take them. They are an important part of every work day. At some work places they are spelled out- there will be two breaks a day from this time to that time. At other places the time is optional depending on the situation. It's not a good idea to go on a break at a place like, say, the bank, and leave all the money unattended. I have to admit that there have been times when I pulled up to the cold storage to sell fish or get ice and be told that the crew was on a break and I would have to wait until they returned. God forbid that the foreman would have to operate the winch or press the button to start the ice auger. I don't think that's very good business to make your customer wait. However, the options for selling elsewhere or getting ice are pretty limited, so I guess they have the upper hand in that situation.     I'm self-employed so I can take a break whenever I want... and I do. Sometimes multiple breaks. Frankly when I'm out fi...

 I received phone calls from two different friends last week letting me know that the weather was great and the fishing was good out in Cross Sound. It was the incentive I needed to bite the bullet and get my behind out there. I've been dealing with some health issues this year and haven't felt up to spending the night on the boat, which a trip to the sound entails. It takes me six hours to get there, so it's not like you can just turn around and leave if you don't like it, at least not very easily. Anyway, on Tuesday I made the trip. I always have heart palpitations when I get close to South Inian Pass. Years ago when I was on my way through the pass with one of the boys, the placid water built up a wall of tidal disturbance that seemed to be about ten feet high. It's one of those places that you can't very well turn around and go back because the current is really smoking through there. We went through and buried the boat a couple time...

 On my desk in the office I have a sticky note with the words- expanding toilet seats. It was an idea that Jen and I were talking about several days ago; I can't remember why. It had something to do with people who had large behinds and how a standard size seat wouldn't seem to fill the bill. I don't want to get too graphic here, but I would imagine that an exceptionally large person would have a good bit hanging off the seat- thus the need for an expanding seat. It's probably the next million dollar idea. However, the above picture doesn't look anything like a toilet seat- and for good reason. What we have here is a basket of Dum Dum pops. I don't know why they're called pops.  I always referred to them as suckers. I do, however, know why they're called Dum Dums. Back in 1924, I C Bahr, an early sales manager for the Akron Candy Company coined the name Dum Dums figuring it was a word that any child could say. I don't know how well it would go o...