Ames and I took three day-trips to the outside last month. That is what he calls a lagoon where silver salmon gather before heading up a short lake-fed river. The silvers are big there, 15 plus pounds, bigger than almost anyplace else in Alaska. Here are some pictures.
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| September Morn Ames's Cub on Sand Lake |
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| The lagoon |
As you can see the place is like a paradise. But like a skeptic's heaven it has its stinging things. Note the head net. When there is no wind, the sand flies swarm and land and bite and they are not deterred by deet. In this picture the wind has just come up.
We fish mainly with surface flies. This is an example, called a wog. Like a popper bug, but made with feathers and fabric. It's quite a thrill to see a wake approach and then either take or veer away.
We always see bears. I've inserted a couple of clips. In the first the bear was walking toward the plane so I tried to row to shore to save our lunch, filming the while. Then it occurred to me that we were going to reach the same point on the shore at the same time. The bear was full grown and not cowed by my presence. So I abruptly changed course as the camera fell and stopped. Later I recovered and as the next clip shows the bear veered into the tall grass. We ate our own lunch. (The third clip is a duplicate of the first. I have not been able to delete it.) I'll write a little more about our recent trips in another post.
