Bluegrass!!

JT and I got in a little practice last week, just in time to perform at church. Unfortunately, his grandpa had passed away and he asked if a couple of us could play at the memorial service. I have had that mandolin for about a month and was trying to look up chords. Mac played guitar and sang, Rachel sang, and JT and I provided some foot-stomping. We played "I'll Fly Away". Folks at church seemed pleased we came and invited us to play in the future.

I hope to mix some guitar and mandolin together to use with videos in the future. So stay tuned.

Saturday Night in Quinhagak

Rachel, Steph and I went out for a night on the town and river. After Steph caught a rainbow and declared herself a master fisherwoman, I took the night off to learn from her fishing skills. Instead, I took pictures, picked raspberries, and cleaned the catch.

The two of them had a good night, catching that nice rainbow and 10 silvers. Plus, to top it off they found 9 lures in the snags along the river. Pretty decent night for them.

View from a riverbank

Photos by Steph in this post (Jim forgot to mention that)

New Toy

For my birthday I picked up a gift for myself. It is a cheaper fisheye lens, for your viewing pleasure. So to kick things off, a few fish photos with the new fisheye.

photo by Steph (above)

Smoker

Here are a few pictures of the refrigerator that we turned into a fish and meat smoker. Tonight we did a batch of 4 silver salmon. I think in the future we could fit 6-7 fish in this thing at once. It takes about 9-10 hours to soak the fish in a brine, dry and heat the fish up, and burn 3 pans of alder chips. But it is worth it, tasty treats.

Silver First!

This morning we brought home a few more silvers for the smoker. Steph caught her first silver on a fly rod, which is pretty cool. She ended up with 2 on the day and fought big chum that was snagged in the dorsal fin, the worst place to snag one. She battled courageously, but it tore out too much line and broke her off down river some ways.

Sweet Corn!!

Wow, I was not expecting to eat sweet corn this year. Steph showed up on the 2nd and wouldn't you know it she carried on 6 ears of corn. Mercer's Candy corn to boot. Thank you honey!

Silvers are in!! Got these in an couple of hours this afternoon. Steph and our new teacher Rachel dominated, while the guiding company boys watched from the other side of the river.