July 09

July was an exciting month for us! We took mom and dad to Valdez to tour the town. Valdez is beautiful and nestled right in the mountains. Kari, grandma and the boys went on a glacier and wildlife boat tour and Dad and I went on a halibut charter. I found out that I was a prairie boy. After 3 hours in choppy water on the way out to the Gulf of Alaska I was as green as could be. Knowing we were going to be out on the water for another 5-6 hours fishing, I had a hard time thinking about anything but just not throwing up in front of everyone. Haha. I had heard all the stories about fishing in Alaska and filling your freezer with halibut for the winter, so I had an agenda. I was goal oriented and planed on getting my limit of 2 halibut.....and 2 big ones at that. We saw several fish over 100 lbs on the dock and that is what I was going to get! Better yet, father was fishing too and there was no way for him to get his fish back to Canada, so I had dreams of 300-400 lbs of halibut for my freezer.

We dropped lines and I waited for my first Alaskan monster. I didn't wait long. About 20 mins. in I hooked one and fought like a dog ( I thought) to get him to the surface. He pulled so hard I imagined he must be 60-100 lbs! I'd never felt anything like this one my line! Finally he surfaced

and we brought him on board.....all 18 lbs of him. Well, you're only allowed to keep 2, so of course I threw him back......why would I take him when I could snag a 100 pounder?? As luck would have it, that was my only bite all day. All the charters had a strange day and very few fish were brought in by anyone. Dad did manage to catch 2 15-20 pounders, so we kept those and had a few feasts before they headed back to Canada, but the freezer remained bare.

Speaking of bear....we did have a friend who brought us a quarter of bear so that is in our freezer now, but it is a little different and I'm the only one who eats it....although Yanik loves the hunter sticks. Another friend contributed about 10 lbs of moose and that is a favorite. We love it!