The Fish Have Arrived!

Den with his 7# coho Salmon off the coast of Juneau.
The fish from the processing place. Shipped fedex on ice. They left the skin on--ewe! Den vows when Ed is older to take him on a fishing trip to Alaska. I don't know how he expects to go to Alaska without me, unless I'm dead of course.

Here's Ed -- who of the three of us has migrated the quickest back to east coast time--or so we think. Thank goodness.

While we were in Juneau, we took a rather spur of the moment 1/2 day fishing trip while g'ma and g'pa Ohio babysat Ed. Juneau is just about the last coastal area known for fishing in Alaska, but we had the time, the childcare, and the opportunity, so we went. In the streams, my understanding is that there are basically 2 runs of salmon, and it depends on the river and the type of fish as to when they run. Basically for most of our trip we were between "runs" of fish, swimming upstream to spawn and ultimately die after doing so.

At any rate, we (Dennis) caught a 7 # coho. There was a couple from New Zealand who caught a pink Salmon and they gave it to us as they couldn't ship it back due to customs. There were 2 guys from a cruise ship and one of them caught a King Salmon, which is a mighty good catch in these waters--at least everyone we told was impressed. Really I should say they reeled them in because this one kid works his tail off, sets up 6 poles trolling off the back of the boat and we took turns each time one of the rods had something on it--which happened 3 times for 3 fish--I don't think we lost any fish, we just weren't catching them like crazy. When it gets to the boat, the same kid knocks it with a blunt instrument to put it out of its misery and then when things settle down, he guts the fish. I've definitely seen my share of gutting and 'bleeding' of fish. Woo wee.