Getting ready for Oregon

Work is taking me to Oregon at the end of this month and, since The Wife and I haven't visited my family in what seems like an eternity, we'll be spending a few days down in Medford visiting the folks.  With the Rogue so close and my dad's drift boat spending far too much time out of the water, I plan to chase steelhead at least a couple days. 

My best days on the Rogue have always been in the fall so I'm not sure what to expect on the fishing front.  However, I'm doing my best to load the fly boxes and it'd be a shame not to get on the water.  After all, it's hard to beat a float even if the fishing's slow.

In other news, backcountry skiing is shut down.  It's raining at lower elevations and the warm weather and new snow/rain has made backcountry skiing on anything but the flattest slopes dicy, at best.  The slope I skied in the prior post has slid and three people (two snowmobilers and a skier) died in avalanches on Saturday.  All the reason I need to stay home and tie flies.

Dawn patrol

As far as I can tell, the key to getting through Alaskan winters is to stay busy and not be dissuaded by the lack of daylight and colder weather.  While it's easy to sit back and slurp beers through the dark days of winter, it takes a lot more effort to get off your arse and do something active.

With sunrise around 9:00 and the days getting light enough long enough to get outside a bit during the week, my friend Derek and I decided to head out for a quick ski before work this past Friday.  Our plan was to hit the trailhead at 7:30, skin up Peak 3 until about 8:30, and point the tips down just as it got light enough to see.  The faint blue arrow points to our destination:

After meeting up at Derek's house and making the short drive up to the trailhead, we started our skin right on schedule.

By 8:30, it was light enough to see and, although we had agreed to turn back by then, we gave it another 15 minutes hoping to get a little closer to the top.  Having skinned about 1500 vertical feet, with about 500 to go until the top, we hit our 8:45 deadline and reluctantly turned back toward the truck (and work).

Derek, most of the way back to the truck and looking back at the peak:

We were back at the truck by 9:15 and I was in my office at my desk by 10:15.  All in all, not a bad way to start the day.  Next time, we'll leave 20 minutes earlier and make it all the way to the peak.

Sunsets

One of my co-workers is a semi-professional photographer on the side and managed to catch a few great sunset photographs this past Saturday.  This one is especially amazing:

There's more at his website, Carl Johnson Photography.

As seen by an ODFW coho surveyor

My brother, Josh, has been working for ODFW for the past few months.  I used to work for IDFG.  Few things make a person feel more alive, or do more for the soul, than chasing a career chasing fish.  I recommend everyone give it a go for a while.

. . . and my apologies to the guides, but that doesn't count.

Josh has been on the Oregon coast on the trail of coho for the past bit and recently sent these pictures my way.  Enjoy!

So, how many fish do you count in those pictures?

Desperate times call for desperate measures

It had been over three months since I last wet a line.  After lusting over trout all week and not being able to satisfy my urges through tying, The Wife and I decided to head out this past weekend with a couple of our friends, Sam and Liz.  As you would expect, fishing in January in Alaska can be a cold experience.

The morning was pretty frigid before the fog burned off.  While my guides have frozen on more than one occasion, this was the first time I had my reel freeze.  All day I kept thinking about how it would be a total bummer to break off a hard-sought-after fish because the drag was froze solid.  While I cast everything in the box and diligently checked my reel for ice every couple casts, the fish weren't cooperative enough to test things out.

The Wife managed to carry the camera for most of the day so she's not in many of the pictures, but she did catch this self portrait:

Sam givin'er while Liz takes a break to warm up:

Me too stubborn to realize it wasn't going to happen today:

And Sam standing on top of the snow trying to look tall: