A little Marvin Gaye please...

Fishing is always better in the rain right? Some brave souls from Milt's class tested that theory with a trip up river this afternoon. Tim and I acted as school bus...I mean school boat drivers. First field trip I've been on with a boat. It was about 45 degrees and raining pretty hard. But we managed 5 or 6 miles up river to a good sized slough that was holding 30-40 spawning silver salmon. We caught 6 silvers ranging from red to rotting red, almost dead fish. Why you ask??

Milt has a big fish tank in his room with a compressor rigged up to keep the whole thing pretty cold. The last 4 years they have caught spawning silvers and harvested their eggs to grow in this tank. We got 2 male and 4 female salmon for today's love fest. We only used 2 males and 1 female for the harvest, but they will all be dissected on Monday by the class. If you think they go to waste after that, shame, shame. We had requests to catch more dead dying salmon for drying racks. When I got permission to publish the picture of the kids, a parent said to give her anymore salmon we catch. I can't imagine what those salmon taste like, but to each their own. hahaha

I am going to have Milt let me know when different stages of the eggs occur. I'll try to keep you all updated to the health of the fish. Last thought, if you were wondering, the surviors are released back in the river in the spring, no worse for the ware. Milt has this all ok'd with the Alaska Fish and Game and the kids just love watching the progress. Pretty cool class project.

Enjoy this little video. Put some slow music on...turn the light down low and watch the fertilization.

1st Annual Quinhagak Salmon Run 5K

Last Friday Quinhagak held the 1st Annual Salmon Run 5K. Despite the weather the run came off as a success. Aproxiamaltely 100 participants finished the course in the rain with a smile on their face. In addition to fun and prizes, the race strived to bring awareness to healthy habits. Big thank you to Sherry and Rachel for organizing the event. Big thank you to Quinhagak for coming out to support the cause. Start training for next years marathon!! jk

Camera Trouble

This video should be about 10 minutes longer, but we have a problem. Let me explain. Last Thursday, Quinhagak was experiencing one of its nicest days of the fall. Just gorgeous. Blue skies, warm, all you could ask for. Seeing as I don't have after-school on Thursdays, I decided it was a great day to make a video for everyone. I wanted to make a cool little video of the river and a red silver salmon. So I chronicled the whole nine yards. Emptying the 4-wheeler, loading the boat, bailing the boat, starting the boat, all things boat. Things were going very smoothly. I headed up river with the camera perched on a tripod filming the river as I headed up. I got tremendous, smooth video. I caught a fish, landed the fish. Filmed some underwater footage (which is above) and headed down river. I was super stoked to show everyone. Now, I should have packed up the camera and called it a day, but I thought some video of the boat riding downriver into the sun would be pretty sweet, so I left it up. About 5 bends down the river, I don't know what happened, but the tripod starting tipping and rocking back and forth. I tried to slow down, but it was too late. The whole kit fell into to river, and sank in slow motion.

I then spent about 45 minutes trying to fish the thing out of about 6 feet of water. I tried the oar, anchor, fishing from the bank, a huge stick, nothing was getting close. The current was pretty strong and I just couldn't keep the boat, retrieval device, and tripod in the same spot. Very frustrating. I knew the camera was shot, but I really wanted the tripod/ball back, so I kept trying. Finally, I hooked one of the legs with a fishing rod. I pulled the kit up and in the meantime, broke my fishing pole. haha. All I can do now is laugh. Worst trip of the year, but I got to get back on the horse. Hopefully this weekend will be dry, for a long trip up to the mountains. No need for condolences, I'm over it, please just enjoy my misery :-)