I 'Hope' I catch a fish

Fishing is probably my new favorite thing! We went down to the little town of Hope last weekend to go fishing for pink salmon. Hope is across the Turnagain Arm from Anchorage. There isn't a bridge across the ocean because the glacial silt doesn't provide enough support so you have to drive all the way down to the end of the Arm and then back up. Pink salmon were running, but they aren't the best for eating, but they really made for a good day of fishing in the river. We all sported really awesome waders and stood in the water with our rods. When I first got up here people would talk about the salmon runs and how the rivers are just full of salmon. Its hard to imagine it until you see it! The river was literally full of salmon! I could see them all over the place and they swim into my legs. It was crazy! The male pink salmon have humps on their backs (pinks are also referred to as humpy's) and you could see their fins above the water. And the best part of it was that I caught one with my hands! I was standing in the water with my pole, and I looked over and saw a little pink salmon about a foot away from me. I set my pole down on the bank and snatched the fish right out of the water...with my hands! Sadly, I got a little too excited the the fish slipped out of my hands before I could get a picture! Below are pictures of Cohan and I trying to catch some more with our hands.

My friend Tyler let me use his fly pole for a little while and taught me the pitching technique: You pretty much pitch the line to where you see fish and try to get it into their mouths. I was so much better at pitching than I was at casting. I hooked about a dozen like that. I wasn't keeping any of them because they weren't 'fresh'; fresh means that it has recently come into the river from the ocean. You can tell by a pink's coloring if it is fresh or not because their skin turns dark and starts rotting the longer they are in the river. I finally hooked a good pink salmon!

I had crossed the river before I started pitching so I had to carry my pink salmon back to the shore. The river was moving so fast! It was so hard to keep my balance and not lose the fish! Once I made it to the other side Tyler made me punch my salmon in the head just over the brain until it died!
This is Tyler showing me how to rip the gills so the fish bleeds out.
And this is me ripping them out!


This is me filleting the fish. When the guys filleted our halibut on our charter they made it look so easy, but it is definitely not that easy to hold a slimy fish in one hand and a sharp knife in the other while making a smooth cut in the fish instead of your finger!