YAAHOO!!!, Part 2 (Fun with jet boats in Alaska!)
January 7, 2008
Okay, so finding and posting that picture last night of my jet boat guiding days on small creeks in Southwest Alaska got me all hot & bothered and I had to root around in the archives for more pix. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of film from those days, but I found a few lost pictures. Good times!
The overhanging trees weren’t much of a problem…just something to aim at to give the clients a bit of a rush. It was the fallen ones that were 4/5ths of the way across the creek that created some navigational issues.
YAAAAHOOOOOO!!!
January 6, 2008
Ah yes, on a cold, wet wintery night, you sometimes have to reflect on some of the warm, fish-filled days of yore. I just stumbled onto this picture from my guiding days in Alaska. Man, those were some good times — ripping down tiny creeks in a jet boat, sliding around the turns (check out the lean that the guys have going), dodging trees, gravel bars and moose (while holding the camera!). All that after catching a bunch of kings, rainbows and grayling.
Ah, I feel better already!
Road Trip!
December 30, 2007
Sometimes, just getting to the fishing spot is an adventure in itself! That was definitely the case when I made the 19-hour, nearly 900-mile pilgrimage to Redmond, OR to pick up a new boat. As you might imagine, I got a little bored and started snapping pics of the journey with my camera phone….
Delta Topwater Action!
October 12, 2007
Here’s a little sample of the Delta topwater striper bite from Friday, Oct. 12.
Though I wasn’t counting, I’d say we had close to 20 blowups on poppers and Spooks today. It wasn’t red hot, but steady enough to keep things interesting!
Macks & bears and fires, oh my!
August 23, 2007
Well, with river salmon fishing not looking real promising these days, I headed back up to Lake Tahoe to chase mackinaw again.
I got back up to the West Shore on Tuesday evening to find a little bit of a disaster at the house (more on that later).
Up early the next morning, we hit the lake and found lots and lots of macks on the graph but the bite was so-so. We still landed probably 10+ fish and got limits but we really had to work for them for some reason. Part of the deal was that my net blew out of the boat on the way up, so we lost three nice keeper fish right at the boat. Like the old saying goes…it’s always something, right?
Anyway, here’s Jackie from Auburn, CA showing off a typical laker that we caught on 2-ounce spoons jigged in 89 to 135 feet of water.
There are so many fish in the areas that I’ve been working that it’s sick and when they start chewing aggressively again, we’ll be back to the easy limits by 7 am program.
But the fishing is only part of the story…
A nice, misty-eyed moment
August 14, 2007
When Mike Globe of Willits, CA heard his brother Steve was buying a new jetboat, he was stoked. The only thing better than owning a boat is having a buddy or family member who does. Then, Mike and his wife were floored when Steve placed the name of their young son, Gunner, on the transom.
“It was out of nowhere and it caught my wife and I totally off guard,” says Mike. “It was probably the nicest thing he has ever done for me…one hell of a gesture from my bro….”
The toughest fish in baseball
May 19, 2007
Throughout baseball, there are quite a few teams with fish as their mascots….you’ve got the Florida Marlins, Carolina Mudcats, Sacramento Steelheads (now defunct), Jupiter Hammerheads, Vermont Lake Monsters and Tampa Devil Rays. All pretty strong sounding, right?
Then you have the Hiroshima Carp…
Goodbye, Old Friend
April 13, 2007
I lost my best fishing buddy tonight…
Rudy, you were the best pal a guy could have. You’re going to be sorely missed. Thanks for all the good times and the memories. I hope doggie Heaven is full of salmon to bark at, rabbits to chase, beef jerky to gobble and 6-foot sticks to fetch.
We’ll never forget you…
The epic tail…er…tale of Steelie Dan
February 16, 2007
Aiming for the bright light above, the little guy — we’ll call him “Dan” — struggled through the pile of gravel where his mother had buried him several weeks before.
As he reached the top of the stones, Dan poked his tiny little head into the light, and without warning, he was rudely greeted by a swift current.
A day in the life of Biscut Eater
January 30, 2007
Biscuit Eater could sense something big was about to happen.
There was a nervous electricity in the water and all the others of his kind seemed to be jittery. A low,
metallic sound was emanating from the far end of the concrete lane he’d called home for his entire life. The sound was soft at first but it was getting louder by the second. Something unfamiliar…
