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My buddie and I always can't wait for the Wrangell King Salmon Derby starting May 15. We get all geared up, stock the lund with beer and goodies and fish our hearts out every day of the month-long derby we can. We catch fish, keep the smokehouses going - but never one even worth weighing in. There might be a coupla reasons for this.
Like the time we decided to start out at "the nose" about a 40 minute run to get all the way out there and realize we forgot the herring. No problem, in the distance we see a big fancy yaught (geeze, I can't even spell it!) - toodled up to them and traded some smoked king for some herring for bait.
Then we were at one of the hotspots with about eight other boats from us in our 14' lund to commercial trollers. We were fishing, munching, drinking, smoking and weaving in and out of the other boats just right. After a couple hours we wondered why we weren't even getting a bite until we realized neither one of us had a pole in the water.
Then we figured out what we needed to do. Wanna hear the rest? Self portrait the beginning of the derby that year- '06?
Actually there was a Paul Harvey brodcast 10 or so years ago when an eagle took off with her poodle.
So anyway, what we decided was that if we can't catch the dam thing we'd make one. We waited for someone to buy a frige and copped the box. Not my artwork - hers, she's one of those amazing hidden Alaskan artists
. We put or winning fish in trash bags & laid it in the bottom of the skiff. Early last drizzily day of the derby we found ourselves just the right distance from ole one-eyed Pete and his boatload of tipsychronies on one side and the State Ferry just coming to port on the other. As we snuck the fish from it's bags, grunting and straining to lift it, we hollered "Hey Pete! Look what we got!" He answered back something in the Alaskan language along with "What did it weigh?" We replied we had not weighed it yet as we were waiting to catch 2nd prize too. As he pitched a fit a steady barrage of flashes eminated from the decks of the ferry. Those people were taking pictures of the biggest fish they'd ever seen. We then departed for the harbor as if to weigh in our fish but headed for sights unseen for the rest of the day instead.
About 15 minutes before derby closing hour we tied up to the city float and, rain pounding by now, walked the two blocks to the weigh station in front of the Totem Bar. Looking around for hidden witnesses we pulled our fish from the bags, whipped open the totem bar door, all out of breath, straining to hold our catch between us and announced to the long-faced bunch staring into their glasses that we had a fish to weigh. Faces lit, people jumped up from their barstools with "Oh my God" - then a moment of silence followed by "Oh.....my.....God .
We had to weigh it on the sidewalk scales, of course. Nonchalntly pulling down we actually had it up to 93 lbs. in one photo about which time the leading contender with a 51 pounder came driving past, mouth opened wide, whipped a Uee and came stomping across the street .
Back to City Market after leaving the film for 1-hour developing we found the whole store crowded around the counter with our photos lined up, everyone wondering which one of us caught it. We told them they'd find out when 1st prize was announced.
It hung in the Totem for a long time. I think it's been delegated to the back room by now and we still haven't caught a winner.
That's a whopper of a fish tale.
I heard there were some pranksters in Sitka that got a bunch of tires on top of mountain in view of town and set them on fire. They had the whole town believing the volcano was going off.
That's a whopper of a fish tale.
I heard there were some pranksters in Sitka that got a bunch of tires on top of mountain in view of town and set them on fire. They had the whole town believing the volcano was going off.
What fun! I love hearing what you do. It's so great to hear from someone who makes her own adventures excellent.
You know, one thing I really enjoy about the Alaska threads is the fact that even though Alaska is so huge, in many ways it's like reading about a small town. That is livin'.
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- then a moment of silence followed by "Oh.....my.....God 
.
you deserve a beer on that one!!!
Too much
