Surrounded by glaciers with a deep water port and only ONE cruise ship comes here.
I talked to the local fish shop and they said there was a late fun of red salmon. They counted over 15,000 in one day, so . . . we stayed in Haines another day so I could try to catch a few. The guy told me to go when the tide was in, which was 6:55 today. I was at the mouth of the Chilkoot river at 7:00 ready to go and so were some other fisherman. I got my rod together, fly on, waders on and headed into the river. It is full of boulders and is very hard to walk in, but I headed out to a small island near the middle. That’s when I heard some loud growls coming from the bushes. I know they were loud, because I didn’t have my hearing aids in and I could hear them loud and clear. It was a mama grizzly taking her two cubs out for breakfast and I was in the way. She was about 20 feet from me when I saw her, so I headed for the bank as slow as I could make myself walk.
When I got to the bank, I headed straight for my truck and traded in my fishing stuff for my camera. I’ll send you a picture of her and the cubs when I can. A park ranger showed up and told me; oh that’s “Speedy” and her latest kids. They come out about this time every morning. WHY DIDN’T THE FLY SHOP TELL ME!
After they had moved on down the river and I made sure there weren’t anymore surprises, I got out my fishing gear again. Another thing the fly shop didn’t tell me was the commercial fisherman were turned loose this week and very few of the reds were making it up the river. Just my luck. Oh well I did catch a big Dolly Varden that fought like a salmon. I released it, since they are not that good eating, but not before I took a picture. I’ll send it to you. When I landed it, I didn’t know what it was so I whipped out my trusty fish identifier and sure enough, it was a Dolly.
And now for the bad news. When I quit fishing and started walking out the boulder field in the river, I lost my balance and caught myself with the hand I had my rod in. Broke my rod! Guess I’ll be testing the Orvis guarantee.
We’re headed for Whitehorse tomorrow to see if we can get our refrigerator fixed. We’ll keep you posted.
Fred