Another Alaska Adventure with Dr. C.

Do you like salmon? Let me tell you about a place where salmon finishing is almost as easy as shooting fish in a barrel!

All I can say is Alaska!! WOW!!! The best freshest Salmon fishing ever!!!! Take back what you catch too!!

My dad lived in Alaska much of his premarital life. He essentially lived on an Alaskan fishing boat and knew all of the greatest out of the way places to fish for salmon. When he died, I gave the eulogy, and told the congregation that I was going to take dad back to Alaska to scatter his ashes. He was cremated like good ole Sam Mcgee! Check out the poem by Robert W. Service. My dad was able to quote the entire poem! When I was growing up, he would quote the entire poem while making breakfast! One of his favorite places was Kodiak Island, the first island of the Aleutian chain of islands in Alaska. There is a fishing lodge on the west side of the island called the Afognak Wilderness Lodge. It is family owned. Afognak is an island unto itself. An amazing adventure! Fishing, bears, bald eagles, sea otters, killer whales, humpback whales are all regular sightings!

Some of my friends traveled with me to do just that, and to take my father back to Alaska and of course, fish! The Afognak Wilderness Lodge is a phenomenal fishing lodge! 4 star accommodations and family style eating. Some of the fish we caught were Steelhead, King, Pink, Silver, Halibut, Lingcod, ugly but amazingly good eating, and others!

We took a flight from Los Angeles to Anchorage. There we literally slept in the airport (very uncomfortable) to await our flight to Kodiak. Kodiak is an Inuit name that literally means island. Our flight left Anchorage early in the morning. When we arrived at the Kodiak airport we waited only a short while for our seaplane, yes, I said seaplane, to whisk us off to Afognak Island and the Wilderness Lodge. On arrival we were met at the dock by the staff. They transported our luggage to our room. Our room was amazing! It was separated from the main dining/kitchen and living quarters of the staff. We were greeted by a stuffed Kodiak Bear that was killed by the son of the family from what I was told in self defense, when he was just 10 years old! It was huge, over 8 feet tall and was standing on his hind legs! That afternoon, after well deserved rest from a very uncomfortable night sleeping on the benches in Anchorage, we started our fishing adventure! We were taken for a short boat ride to a quiet spot to fish. We trolled slowly and caught our limit within two hours!!! Most of the salmon were 20 to 30 pounds each!

I had been under the impression that Killer Whales and the Humpback Whales were natural enemies! I have seen footage of how the Killer Whales attack, particularly the offspring of the Humpback Whales. This trip changed my mind a little! It turned out that there was no killing of the other species. They were in peaceful migration, as it appeared. A dorsal fin from a Killer Whale surfaced close enough to our boat that you could reach out to touch it, not recommended. Many Humpback Whales were breaching throughout the afternoon and throughout our fishing excursions. Fishing is different from salmon to Halibut. For instance salmon are mostly surface fish and halibut you have to let your line out to deep waters and you don't troll. When you let your line out for the Halibut you may not just catch Halibut. We came back with a good supply of Lingcod too!

On the third day we decided to see what other wildlife we could sightsee. We had already seen many bald eagles, even sitting on fence posts at the airport while we were taxiing. We set out for a deserted island where a colony of walruses were just sunbathing. They seemed like the laziest of all animals! They do not like the presence of humans either! Watch out, they can be dangerous if approached! We kept our distance and got some great shots of the beasts just 'hanging out'! From there we decided to find a Kodiak Bear! Probably not the greatest idea. Have you ever seen a Kodiak Bear? They are huge!! They are bigger than their cousins the Grizzly Bear. We found one! Yikes! Fortunately for us, he was old and was trying to catch salmon swimming upstream. He stopped in the middle of his fishing! He reared up on his hind legs and was moving his nose through the air as if he could smell a BBQ somewhere. We could tell, he could smell us! With great care and silence we maneuvered up wind so the wind would not carry to his nose and then we made it to our boat before he noticed us!

Departing Afognak Wilderness Lodge was saddening! We enjoyed the experience so much! A great bonding time for my friends and me! We still to this day believe we enjoyed one of life's greatest experiences together. There were no cell phone towers and they did not have wifi. We were really isolated for sure! We had to catch up on all of the news when we returned! The Olympics were being held while we were gone! Lots to catch up with!

We enjoyed our little fishing adventure from the fishing, whales, walruses, bears and eagles! Of course flying in a seaplane is not an everyday experience either! The weather was perfect as well. What the locals like to call an 'Indian Summer'!

Stay tuned for the next great adventure! This time a white water rafting trip down the Snake River in Idaho! Our departure was from Lewiston!

Dr. C, out!