Out of Soldotna

And down to Homer. First we put Roger on a plane for a fun filled trip home, 24 hours of delightful air travel. 

Then it was down to Homer. Where the weather was perfect and there were rainbows. 

The fire weed were not even starting to bloom when I first arrived with Bill but they are near peak now. 

And the Worsfold deck had rainbows also. 

And resident gardeners. 

Doesn't he look like he is having fun. 

Got a few days to unwind here before setting off for Canada. 

Weather and views are perfect. 

And More Fish

74,000 past the sonar yesterday, I think more than that today. Should be well over 500,000 total so far; the limit will go up to 6 a day soon. 

Perhaps you've heard me talk about dipping for Reds. Tony's been twice before today with little success (18 with BW & Jake and 3 with Steve Larson ) and today they hit it big, 87 in about four hours in Steves boat. 

Tony kept 22, which fills out his permit. He still plans to go with a friend from Fairbanks next Tues. 

With Tony are Steve's stepsons, Skyler on his right and Colton on his left. Skyler is a senior in high school and Colton is a sophomore at Montana State, same school Jake goes to. Roger and I met up with Jake last Fall for on campus pizza. Hopefully, we can do it again this Fall. This time we'll try to connect with Colton too. 

Tony has a wedding to go to in Homer tomorrow so we made a deal; I'll fillet them for a smoker full (5). That means tomorrow off except for cleaning and smoking fish. Time to do laundry. 

Stay safe. 

There Are Fish

We are definitely not yet awash in fish. But they are starting to show up. The usual battle between sport fishing and the commercial fisheries continues, but a few are getting through.

Roger and Tony one day when we got our limits (3 each).

Been out three times for Kings ( a lot for us) and finally hit them today. Nothing big but Bill Toppa took Rog and I on a all Vietnam veteran trip and Roger and our new friend Dale each got a 30+ King.

Turns out Dale was a crew chief in the same company I flew for and finished his tour a few months before I arrived. Further more, he graduated from our ( Rog & I's ) local rival high school, Canoga High, and was two years behind us. We had a great day sharing stories, good food and a terrific toast (  white rum and a cinnamon liqueur ) provided by Dale at the end of the day. That could definitely become a tradition. 

Bill was an Air Traffic Coltroller for the Army ( ours, I think ) at LZ English. He and I were undoubtedly there at the same time when I was a grunt but never met.

Rog and I have a few more days to get all our Reds and then we go to Homer for some Halibut and Silvers with Bill Worsfold. More later

Stay dry.

Smoked Sockeye, The Process

First: catch fish

This is a nice big Kenai Red and the rig we use. We put various lengths of 1/4" lead wire in the surgical tubing, depending on the conditions (water speed and depth, bottom type).

Second: fillet; I did 18 the other day, it took 1&1/2 hours. 

And cut into single serving size

Place in bucket and cover with dry brine consisting of brown sugar and salt with ground cloves, white pepper, mace, all spice and ground bay leaves for seasoning.

Cover and ice down for the night

Then rinse and rub all traces of the spices off. Place on table and sprinkle with course pepper while still wet.

Place on smoker racks. Big Chief smoker has five racks, each holding 6 pieces or one fish.

Smoke for 24 hours using up two pans of alder chips.

Here is the result.

For best results place thinnest pieces on the top racks. The secret is to replace the 500W heating element with a 300W element made for the Little Chief smoker. The bigger element over heats and cooks too hot and too fast. Determine the dryness by pushing on he thickest part of the piece, the softer the piece the moister it is. 

I pull the pin bones at this point because they have loosened after smoking and they tend to poke holes in the vacuum bags. 

Then vacuum bag them and freeze, they last quite a while. The oldest we have eaten was five years old and you couldn't tell the difference from last years. 

So, that's all there is to it. 

Stay cool and fish on!

Slow Week Small Fish

That was today's headline in the local paper. Dip netting season opened Friday on the Kenai and it has been typically slow. The run hasn't shown up until the last two weeks of July for quite a few years and it looks like this year will follow suit. 

We (Tony, me and Chad from Kenai AFSS) went out of the free launch at the east end of Redoubt to check it out. 

I got one little hen and that was it. 

Tony is taking Bill and Jake dipping tomorrow. I'm hoping that if I offer to fillet them all I might get enough for a smoker full (5 fish). 

Rained today, perfect fishing weather. 

Welcome

Welcome to Geezertalk2.0

I have moved from the old blog (Geezertalk) due to my technical inability to access it and post from my iPad.

It does represent a new phase in my life. 

Teri and I separated in Dec of last year and are still working out what the future will look like. I will say this. I was in a very dark place mentally last year and behaved badly, causing much pain and distress. I am not proud of my actions. I do believe that I chose the least destructive of the options I was considering and, as a result, I am in a much better place now. My apologies to those I hurt. It could have been worse.

As far as my odessey to Homer. We covered almost 2800 miles in three sleeps and four days.

The spit is still there, even though they try to sink it by parking more RVs on it every year.

They rebuilt BW's dock and improved the handicap ramp.

It is very impressive. Built locally.

Still damn steep at low tide. 

The Fourth of July parade was pure Homer. 

There was the naked guy in a sauna trying to lure females with candy.

Rednecks giving away bibles.

And a gay pride section.

Not sure what they were trying to spell.

There were lots of old folks.

Moved up to Tony's in Soldotna.

Took two set ups to fit into the back yard but all is well now. The pink tape is to keep the drunks from tripping over the guy wires. Don't know where Roger will sleep as there is little room after I moved all my crap in. Maybe the attic.

The new trailer mount is just the right height; Rog will be glad to hear he won't be bumping his head anymore. 

Got the fish camp set up in Tony's garage.

Two smokers and two vacuum sealers, no waiting. 

Enough for now, fishing should begin in ernest now. (That's a little town just upstream from here)

Weather remains perfect; some things don't change.