Juneau Report

Yesterday KeeWee and I finally managed to get out and do a little fishing. The 7 day non-resident fishing licenses are now up to $55, from $30 last year, and if you want to want to catch a King salmon, there's another stamp you have to buy which was $50 last year,probably a lot more this year, and even then non-residents only get to catch four Kings a year. What a deal!

Let's see, tourism is one of S.E. Alaska's largest industries, and fishing is one of the main attractions for the tourists, and every tourist brings hundreds if not thousands of dollars into the area, so let's raise the cost of a fishing license so high that they all get ticked off and take their vacations somewhere else. Yeah, That's a GOOD idea! (morons.....)

Anyhow, we drove about 40 miles out of town to Cowee creek, a small river at the end of the road. There are no roads out of Juneau that connect with anywhere else in Alaska, they all dead end, and this is as far out of town as you can go, unless flying, boating, or walking.

It's not unusual to have the whole area to ourselves, but yesterday there were a couple of fishermen a bit down stream from us. A big bald eagle was sitting in a tree above us, watching us fish. It's still a week or so early for the main salmon run to show up, but a few fish were in the area.

What is it with some fishermen? A while after we arrived and started fishing, three more showed up to fish. Cowee creek is perhaps 80 or 90 feet across, and I was fishing right along the shore line, no more that 15 or 20 feet out at the farthest. Fish-Bozo shows up and sets himself up right across the river from me and starts casting clear across the river, across my line, and within a few feet of the bank on my side of the river. I pull my line in to avoid getting tangled, and continued fishing. Again he casts across my line, and again I have to pull my gear in. It's not like my side of the river was the only place where there are fish, as I've caught hundreds of salmon right where he was standing. I gave up and went to a different place to fish. SHEEESHHH!

Later,when we were walking back to the car KeeWee saw her first black bear. It was several hundred yards away, but as far as I'm concerned, that's plenty close enough, thank you....