For The Love of Fish!

Yesterday Cooldad and I got up at 2am to drive to the Kenai peninsula to dipnet reds. It was supposed to be raining but we went anyway and to our delight, it did not rain until we were heading back to Anchorage that evening. The trip was perfect and we met with success and now we have fish to bring our omega-3 fatty acid deprived landlocked children. There are no pictures because we posted pictures last year and I thought you would be bored with the same scenery. I realize now, however, that I was wrong. I missed an opportunity to show the world how insane people can be when they fish. Next time I will take some "insane Alaska people" pictures which I know will thrill and delight.

For now I will just describe them, to wet your appetite for next summer:

One was the lady who was up to her chest in the river netting with one hand and smoking with the other. I kept wondering where that cigarette butt was going to end up, but I missed it. Hopefully not into one of the seals and/or sea lions swimming nearly. Or a bird.

Another was the lame (and lazy) men who sat on the shore until I started pulling in fish and then raced in to put their net in front of mine. Yes, this happened twice. Shame on you! But I still got more fish than they did. Haha!

This last guy really earned his own post, but I don't have the time. For starters, he neglected to move his truck back when the tide started coming in, and it comes in fast, and then when he wanted to move it he couldn't because it was totally blocked in. He then proceeded to set up this little card table in the river just offshore to fillet his cooler full of fish, positioning himself between the beach and all the dipnetters, thereby blocking a big group of people who were trying to pull in their fish (like Cooldad) with these gigantic nets and very long poles. One guy lost a fish trying to get around this guy's little operation and I thought there might be an altercation but the guy managed to control himself. I'm not sure I would've. But hey, it's a free country and you can be as thoughtless and inconsiderate of your fellow man as you want to be and no one can stop you! A big run of fish at that time would've been quite a show as there was only enough space for a couple of people due to all the vehicles so close to the waters edge. That and all the non fishing people just sitting on their cans and being in the way.

Also, I think Cooldad was one of the few men who didn't have excess of hair growing in undisturbed abundance all over the place. For which I am abundantly pleased!

One guy in the water turned to me and asked, "So what do you do when you aren't fishing?" I guess he was trying to be friendly, or he was bored, but as the first words out of a strangers mouth, it caught me off guard. As I thought about it for a second, I wondered what I did do when I wasn't fishing. Something that I could share with a perfect stranger who also might be a serial killer. And since I do not define myself by my job, I just said that all of my children are grown and living in the lower 48 and I travel a lot. Okay, obviously that isn't all I do, but that was all I felt like sharing. He didn't speak to me again. Of course, later, all kinds of things came to mind, but still, either not really true or not really "share" materital. I guess I am either more private or more boring that I thought. Or just tired and cold from being up all day and in the water.

Then there are always the various assortment of temporary lodging that people throw up in lieu of tents, things like tarps or sheets stuck in the tops of the windows of their vehicles and nailed to the ground. Or the make shift porta-potties: a blanket hanging off the back of a Suburban. Let's all get back to nature!

But as for me, I am glad to be back in my own bed and my own bathroom. XXOO