Well I survived the land of the midnight sun. It's good to be back in East Tennessee. I traveled nearly 8,000 miles to get there and back. It sure is a beautiful place. But it rains a lot. The highest temperature I saw in 6 days was 57 degrees, but after all it's Alaska... Nights were around 40-45F. But it was only dark, well "dim" for about 3 or 4 hours a night. We finished one round of golf at 11:45 PM and we could still see the ball just fine. You get a little disoriented. You have to force yourself top go to bed. And in turn, you are worn out after a few days. We drove down to Seward and on down to the Kenai River on Friday. I slept in a one man tent on the ground in the middle of no where. Had two other fishin buds with me but we were roughin it. We caught some Dolly Varden, Rainbow Trout, Red Salmon, Silver Salmon and one King Salmon. All on fly rods. I'll have to admit it was a little un-nerving sleeping in the wild with all the critters. Yes the bears were there and they were not afraid of humans. In fact they were really willing to get up close and personal. I had to draw my weapon a few times but never had to fire a shot. The black bears were more aggressive than the big brown bears. Saw plenty of Moose too! Man those things are big! Slow and fairly easy going though. But the most vicious critter of all was abundant and unmerciful - the dreaded "muskeeter". I have been to the swamps of Florida to the OBX to Louisiana, Texas, SC swamps, Georgia - I mean some real buggy places. But I mean nothing, nothing compares to Alaska. These skeeters would get you right through a pair of jeans. I had pure deet - 100% and it didn't even slow them down. Man I am scratchin' just thinking about it. I can't even do it justice - they were unbelievable. If you ever go, make sure you are prepared to deal with skeeters from hell. Other than that it was great. Every where you looked it was like a post card. I'll try to post some pics later this week. I got a few close ups of some bears. I have plenty of personla knowledge of fishing spots and places to stay if you don't want to camp. I would HIGHLY recommend getting a small cabin on the lower Kenai. Much more comfortable and safer. I'll follow up with some funny stories later when I have more energy. Right now I just want to rest...

Killer

glad you had a good and safe trip

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Speck

Real men troll for crappie

CK glad to here you had fun!

Sounds like a great trip Mark. Thats one of my personal goals in life if I ever get the time and money!

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Real crappie fishermen use bobbers!

Back in the 50's I spent 3 years in Alaska. Mostly we were flying from Anchorange thru Sparvohn (radar site) to Point Barrow It is a beautiful place for sure. We caught a lot of salmon outside the radar site. We loaded 220 gr bullets in our old M1's. we had a lot of bears around but they really didn't bother us. I guess there were plenty of fish for everyone.

Glad You Had A Good Trip That Would Be A Great Time!

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WACKEM AND STACKEM!

glad to see you make it back, now come on down to douglas and we will catch some fish.

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crappie chow

I'm going to take you up on that booger. Maybe not this weekend but very soon. I brought back 42 lbs of salmon fillets. It was a pain in the butt to bring it all that way. But at $28.50 a pound, I'm pretty sure it was worth it. I vacuum packed it and then froze it before putting it in the cooler. It all seemed to make it still frozen. We'll see how it looks when I thaw some out this weekend. My freezer has been without crappie fillets for so long it was nice to load it up with some fish, even if it's red...

Do you any pictures from the trip?I have always heard Alaska was real nice.Our shop has mounted many animals from there for local customers that went there on hunting trip.

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http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...orses/?start=0

Hook em and bring em in the boat.
Boys look at them bouncing juggs lets get them in the boat.