Elmstreet

I was standing in cold rushing water, in Alaska.  But as I took stock of my position, I realized I was not in a river, but on a beach with waves breaking around me.  We were all searching, then soft serve mike yelled, "we're too far out, they are closer to the beach!"  We turned and walked a picket line back toward shore and silvery silhiquets began to appear.  Realizing I didn't have the right gear, I trudged on and as I reached the shore I was standing in a make shift locker room in what I preceived to be a large fishing vessel.  What the?!?  No dry bags, everything was wet, I was just wearing a pair of jeans, which I now realized were soaking and I was shaking with cold... Where are my waders?!!  Then as I was pealing off the wet jeans, in walks Denise (awkward, reminiscent of tent drop 2014).   She doesn't seem to notice and in her typical cheery way asks how its going and wonders why we haven't booked the flights.  Seems Ricks on a drop right now, but the rest of the week is filling up.  Mike and Jb are now in the locker room, both in waders.  Denise questions Mike about some money he owes her for a flight last year and says they won't fly him again, or us, until he settles... WHAT THE!?!?!   Mike says no problem, we are planning on doing the carnival cruise this year anyway!

I am totally befuddled...   We're not doing a cruise, are you nuts!?!  Mikes nodding his head, up and down in the affirmative until I finally yell, "Not just no. Hell no Mike!!"  "Well" Mike responds, chuckling and nonchalant, "you don't have any of your gear up here and Rick is all booked, so it's either work this Commerical salmon boat or take the Carnival cruise up to Skagway."

The lights in the lockeroom flicker off and as my eyes adjust I can see long long fingers in the corner of the room moving rhythmically... But they aren't just fingers, they are blades, long sharp blades... I scream, "Freddie!!".

Back bacon sandwich, hold the bread

"Please keep your bags with you at all times, we will begin boarding Tikchik Air flight 01 to Civilization in twelve hours"... We throw our crap all over the gravel bar, pretending that if we aren't stowed and ready to go, the beaver won't come and the sun will never rise on the last day in country.  Hondo is tapped out, proclaimed a few hours before that he was sated, satisfied, fulfilled, ready to go home.  Pablo's thoughts wander to the next river, a new river he'll float with his wife and Soft Serve Mikey.  Two weeks of floating the Alaskan outback and his enthusiasm runs high for another go.  Leaving me alone to ponder the end, the inevitability, neither the spirit nor the flesh can accept reality.  So I dump out all my stuff and mill about taking inventory, pretending the sun's long shadows will stretch ever longer and never ending.  

We ate sand..... ya ate what?

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the swift river and the music in its roar, 
I love not man the less, but nature more.

There is a misery in the paved road,
There is depression in the concourse of masses
There is a longing where all abode
By the roaring freeway and the deafening din,
Wilderness alone is the balm, humanity wears me thin.

Must be the doldrums

Gal dang gum it all to heck!  What have we got to say for ourselves?!?  Have we lapsed into a veritable crevasse of work, responsibility, familial duties and shoveling snow so deep that we've forgotten our creed, we've forsaken our very nature, the irresponsibility, frivolity and immaturity that distinguishes us as THE UNGUIDED?  Heaven Forbid!

Why just a few short months ago there we ran, naked through the wilds of the mother land, in our tweaked out IK,s slurping down snickers bars and slogging our bagels with globs of Nutella to our hearts desire.  Surfing Mr Hankeys, carving the red tailed waking wounded, worshipping at the alter of the dolly llama and waiving our genitals at your aunties with abandon!  Good gosh man, snap out of it!  Awake and arise from the dust you pathetic domesticated welps of a whore I curse your eyes!!

As you lie in that hospital bed of your future with tubes up every orifice surrounded by your offspring  who's names you can't recall as the cataracts blur your vision and the smell of our own bodily fluids stings their dainty nostrils and the last breathes of your mortal body rattle from your bony concave chest.  With your big butted hospice nurse as my witness, you will crave with all your being to be standing in the (Unnamed River) sucking the marrow from its millennial flow and to scream at the top of your lungs with your last mortal breath, BLONDIE!

Radio Silence killed the Video Star

NOTHING. Nothing for MONTHS. What have we become?? the MULE?
I will at least post a pic from 2015's EPIC trip. Can it get any better?

Thirty days out plan

The thirty day prep:

By June 30:
✅Order flies
Inspect fishing gear:
 ✅  Fly lines (make sink tip)
 ✅Reels lubed, lines cleaned and wound
 ✅ Flourocarbon leader material (15-20 lb)
   Decide on how to stow flies. Thinking about slim box with hook stow
✅Inspect waders (purchase new glue thing)
✅Test boots, know how to lace and changs soles
✅Buy a cool new shirt for better pictures
Decide on new camera. ( tell the wife its for shooting kids on wakeboard).  Leaning toward Olympus 860 
✅Compulsively obsess

July 1-10
Pre stage
   Stack gear and clothes on staging table
   Make final clothes decisions
   Review toiletries and meds, refresh as needed
   ✅Buy line crockies
   ✅Test IK and pump transportation method.  Using old wheeled luggage, not bringing pump, put other gear in there to slimline carry ons.
   Order more flies (floating egg, small mouse, something strange)
    Designs for Rod caddie finished and approved, built? NOT DONE YET
Review last two years packing list
Buy something else you don't need: new reel, crocs
Compulsively obsess. (Reread journals, watch film, act insane (great at that )

July 11-19
Final Stage
Prepack, make sure everything fits
Buy license ( print and stow)
Pack ( Hondo film packing, pretend your les stroud)
Print boarding passes

July 20  board plane,


 

 

The Count Down

For generations fisherman and maybe some more enlightened hunters, have debated the count down.  Not the need for one, sheesh, every kid waiting for Christmas universally embraced the count down as a mandatory part of all anxiously anticipated events.  No, the debate is focused on how long, when is it too soon to start marking the calendar?  My vast analysis of this topic (was considering it for my PHD thesis) has lead me to two simple principles to guide the countdown to your countdown.

1.  The bigger the event, the sooner you start.  I vaguely remember a wee little Pablo once mention only 364 days till Christmas.

2.  The more psychotic and desperate the participant, the sooner the tally begins.  If you just stepped off your second most favorite river after an epic day, who cares when the next trip is.  If you've been confined in some office somewhere and you can't remember the last time cold water circled your waders, get out the calendar, you need to know how much longer you have to survive!  

So, AK 2015, the count down begins.  50 days for Hondo, cause #2 above surely applies most to him.  40 for me, Pablo and our two or four, new com padres!   So, below is the thought meant to take your mind for a brief moment today to the river of your future and dreams and give you a quick jolt of endorphins usually saved for the real moment.

I'd never caught a Dolly Varden (excepting bull trout on big creek) till AK 2008. That year I took a couple of small Varden, but it wasn't until Vinuk 2009 and again in 11 that I really grew to love these fish.  Why are they so decked out?  I'm sure there is a scientific reason probably related to spawning etc, but to me the artistry of these fish (and many others) is just a gift from God, a sign of his love and joy in his creation and I am grateful that I am one of the few people on the planet who recognize that and have been blessed to experience this untouched part of his handiwork.