Tuesday 8/7
Despite our concerns late last night about having located our campsite in Bear-o-rama/Bear City/Bears’R Us, there were no bears—darn! There were, however, some deer tracks around our tent. Had I been more vigilant we could have had venison for a month.
We awoke to a brilliant sunrise with a vestigal neon moon hanging above the ocean in front of us. As we lay in bed in the morning chill, gathering the courage to commune with Rocky III, I began making shadow puppets on the back wall of the tent: A wolf, a bear, a moose, an eagle—child’s play—Medusa, a silouette of Eisenhower, Beef Wellington—much more challenging.
We cooked a scrumptious breakfast—is there really anything better than bacon and greasy eggs on a camp stove in the wilderness?
Nancy watched eagles while I fished. My mission was to induce these Silver Salmon to actually strike my lure and avoid foul-hooking them. I’m using barb-less hooks to do as little damage as possible. These fish are incredibly strong, and sometimes break my line or leader and often bend the hooks. This morning I am unsuccessful in landing any.
As we are sitting peacefully contemplating nothing serious, our halcyon privacy is invaded by a group of 4 college-aged fisher-people. There is little civility among Salmon fishers. Any real estate is fair game. Camped where we are, at the end of a dirt road, 40 miles from town, it should be clear that we’re inherently anti-social, but these folks saw salmon in the stream, so they just marched right in—not even a, “Howdy, mind if we fish in your living room?” While they marched up and down the twin creeks, we finished breaking camp and moved on.
Our key mission today was to reach the end of the Chiniack Road (the road along which we had camped)…12 miles or so. Should have been a piece of cake, but the farther down we got on this road, the worse it got…HUGE potholes that seemed large enough to double as hibernation caves for the bears. We bailed out before the end, but not before we saw the most incredible swarm of salmon yet. At Joe Creek , the salmon were massed on the seaward side of the road, queuing up for their turn through a couple of culverts that led upstream…clearly a major Salmon hangout.
Tonight and tomorrow night we’re luxuriating at the Kodiak Comfort Inn. We’ve got to be up early tomorrow for our fly-in bear adventure, so we won’t have time to break camp in the morning. Before bed, we each took a couple of showers. It’s very nice to have unlimited hot water and not to have to worry about filling up the storage tanks. Rocky III is also very happy about getting a couple of days off.
