Sunday, July 22, 2007



SUNDAY July 22, 2007

We got up very early for a 6am charter flight to Glacier Bay National Park and a catamaran ride up to the glaciers -- an all day affair. We never got there since Juneau and Gustavus (GBNP) were socked in with fog. We went back to the hotel and slept a while and woke to a spectacularly sunny day. We hired a cab for a couple hours and went to Mendenhall glacier right outside of town, but it is difficult to beat our glacier experience of walking on one (outside Jasper) and right up to one at Exit Glacier. Bald Eagles are gathering as the salmon start their run and we went to some low tide locations to catch them fishing. They are awesome to watch and they are plentiful. You can see that the lead eagle in this picture has a salmon tail in his talons that the second eagle wants. Both have left behind on the rock part of the body that the other two are going after.
Finally, we went on a salmon fishing charter for the afternoon with Matt landing a king salmon (but at only 26" it was 2 inches short of the requirement to keep and it was released) and then he pulled in two pink salmon. Mike pulled in a silver salmon. Maria and Meghan each also pulled in a pink salmon. Courtney heard about the fish getting a bonk on the head with a small bat and refused to participate. Matt called it barbaric and almost sent the captain over the side laughing. The salmon is being shipped home when we arrive. While we were all rookies, I think we were a fair amount of entertainment for them as well. Captain Kevin is the author of "Rip some Lips" (the title as near as I can remember) on Alaskan fishing.

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