So this week was pretty uneventful by lodge standards. No particulary big individual catches (although we’ve been pulling in massive amounts of pink and chum salmon, lots of small fish) no ghostly activity, and the guests haven’t been that rambunctious. Silver salmon are starting to turn up in small amounts, the fillets off them look amazing! They are ruby red and really stand out against the more lighter colored pink and chum fillets. I hear they are much better eating as well.

The weather has been really rainy, sometimes days go by without any sun. The winds have been blowing pretty hard, it almost feels like the season is starting to shift towards fall already. I have to wear three layers of clothes most of the time, especially since I spend so much of my time in a freezer that stays around 0 degrees.

My roommate finally arrived, he’s actually a pretty cool guy. He’s in his 60’s I think, been all over the world and just travels around America in his camper with his wife. He makes his living doing fishing jobs all over the place, which is the way I want to start living. It has been an adjustment having someone in my personal space for sure. It’s something I have been dreading since I got here. I now have no privacy whatsoever, and I’m the kind of person that really hates having people in my personal space. We both keep each other up at night with our snoring. I have resorted to sleeping with white noise in my earbuds and it helps block out the noise pretty effectively however. It is what it is though, I only have to put up with it for two months. I think it will work out ok. It’s just another thing I have to overcome on top of everything else.

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The main thing I did this week is go up the creek with my co-workers Devan and Brianna. I’ve been wanting to go try and catch some of the pink salmon that have been making their way upstream. Devan has been catching them like crazy and I wanted to learn his technique and spots. I’ve been seeing the pinks constantly splash all around the dock and have been fishing for them without success. As I’ve said before, Devan is the Jedi Master of freshwater fishing and I’m trying to learn some of his wisdom.

We headed up the creek this past Tuesday to a spot called ‘the S-turn’. It’s a place in the creek where it runs into a v-shaped crevice around 15 feet deep right off the bank. Right ahead of the hole is a spot of turbulent water. According to Devan, fish tire out and will slip back into this hole to gather energy for their next attempts to get up this rough patch. We got to the spot and fished for a while without success. We couldn’t figure out where the fish had gone, maybe they had all gone upstream? Suddenly, Devan yells “Fish On!” and he’s got a wild crazy jumping salmon on the line! He fights it for a couple of minutes and finally brings it in. It’s a decent sized fish, probably 5 to 6 lbs. It was amazing that such a big fish could come out of a small creek!

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He let it go before I could get a decent picture. I figured that he’d probably catch another and he did, not five minutes later! It was identical to the first, and it came up out of the same spot. He knew exactly where those fish hold up! The dude spends all of his free time up there on that creek so he knows how to pull out the fish. I was taking notes for sure!

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After the second one came in, none of us caught any more. I thought I might have had one on, but I couldn’t be sure. After around 3 hours fishing, we headed back to the lodge. It was a nice little excursion for sure, we had a lot of fun. I learned so much from this little trip up the creek! I placed a bunch of orders for new fishing gear which I’ve started receiving in the mail. Hopefully I’ll have it all by my next day off so I can put what I’ve learned to use.

The main thing I’m waiting for is a new rod, my 8’6″ salmon/steelhead rod is too long to effectively transport up the rugged trail and to cast where there’s not much space creekside. Devan uses a 6’6″ Shakespeare GX2 that breaks down into 4 pieces that fits in a backpack. I ordered one just like his, it arrived in Ketchikan but hasn’t made it to the lodge as of yet. Portability is key for fishing equipment in this terrain. I also just got a brand new Daiwa BG 3000 reel I plan to put on it, along with some spoons that should catch me some salmon.

Well, looking forward to next week’s fishing! I’ll be sure to let ya’ll know how it all goes down for sure!