6/14/07

There are two (silly, I admit) number goals that I set for myself each season.  I'm not a numbers guy (anyone who has spent any time at all guiding cringes at that term) but I do like having quantifiable accomplishments that I can get excited about.  I want to have a client catch a trout over thirty inches and I want to have a double that measures at least four feet combined.  Much of this is luck and if I do not reach these arbitrary benchmarks I do not lose any sleep.  But if nothing else, it gives me something extra to hoot and holler about on the river and getting demonstratively excited is one of the things that keeps me vibrant and upbeat throughout the long season.  Today both of those goals were attained in the span of an hour. 

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8/12/07 

The fishing has been nothing short of spectacular lately. I dream about opening week, a season full of promise, a fresh perspective not tainted by previous weeks, previous clients, the consistent early mornings,...sockeye season. The first week is pure. The fish are active, relatively untouched, aggressive and huge. This is when we see our hogs. So far none of my guys have stuck the thirty incher. I've been waiting two seasons for it, but none yet. We usually get one or two a year, three if we're lucky but we get lots of fish between twenty five and twenty eight.  So far, I have been seeing plenty of those, but the pig remains elusive.

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6/8/07

Our first day of guiding clients on the river and, as might be expected, it began as an absolute cluster. Most of the luggage did not make the plane so people are scrambling to find waders, jackets, fleeces and equipment. Guides are bickering about who's going where, which boat is being taken by whom, basically just a month of pent up frustration being vented upon one another. Being the lowest ranking guide taking clients the first day, I wind up getting switched out of my boat at the last minute and scrambling to put together seats, flares, PFD's etc. I just want to get on the river.

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6/2/07

I've spent the past three days in town without shoes, pants, a change of underwear or a toothbrush and I can say with great assurance that I wish to spend no more time there.  The sunset greeting my return atop fresh memories of "civilization" have fortified my confidence in career choice.

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5/22/07

This fact was excruciatingly obvious today.

The fifteen foot beam dropped like a sprung bear trap and roughly tapped me on the shoulder.  I crumbled to the floor of the unfinished yurt, writhing and moaning in the manliest voice I could muster.  A few inches to the left and I would have taken it right on the noggin.  Something tells me that my paint-stained cap would have done little to deflect the impact.

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After thirteen hours of traveling the dog and I landed in the booming metropolis that is King Salmon, Alaska. Recycled air and gritty street dust clung to oily fir, the dog was pretty dirty too. The scene: an unpaved parking lot outside a sagging airport sprinkled with gaunt commercial fishermen and scruffy, tired eyed young men carrying rod tubes and dry bags; guys like me, fishing guides.

I'm back. I returned, against my better judgment, for another season of massive trout, eighteen hour days and skidding jet boats. I returned for another four months of wilderness isolation living in a glorified tent, professional ego fluffing and wind knot detangling. The biting flies immediately swarmed my face and I realized that there was no one to meet my plane, no dented blue van waiting with keys in the ignition. They either forgot me, or they were just late, neither of which came as a shock. Welcome back.
 

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