Some Pics

 

Swimming

It was really warm right when we got back to Noatak this year. I went swimming 4 or 5 times. Even Kayla went swimming one day. The water was COLD! I took my camera and took some pictures underwater. I sure wish I would have had my goggles and snorkel (even though you can't keep your head under water for very long anyway.) I took some pictures underwater with my camera. I wish I would have thought to take some video.

 

"Oren Fly Fishing For Grayling"

 Thought Russ might get a kick out of this one. A boat we saw in Kotzebue during Inservice

 Underwater Chum

 Again

 Another

Kara and Josh also visited this year. They got here on the AM Bering on a Saturday and we went out camping right off. I took them up to a spot called Evelyn's about halfway to the Kelly River. We hiked in on an old sled dog trail to a creek looking for moose. We didn't see any moose just a tree that had been demolished by a moose. As we were leaving we saw some boys across the river catching trout. I might have made a bad call by not stopping to fish, but we wouldn't have made it camping if we didn't keep moving. We got camp set up and dinner cooking and we saw a bear across the river. I tried about 4 shots with the open sights on the Mosin Nagant. Couldn't hit it, and the bear didn't care a bit that I was blasting away. Finally I decided that I would try the .22-250. I hit it first shot and it went down, and I shot it again before it got into the willows. We gave it a few minutes before we went after it. Didn't want to wait too long because it was getting dark. Right away we found lots of blood but it slowed down quickly. After about 50 yds we were just seeing a few drops here and there and it was getting dark. We decided to try to track it in the morning. Just after sunrise we packed up camp and went after the bear. We followed blood for about 200 yds before we found where it had bedded down. There was no blood there. We followed game trails in a little farther, but we never did see a bear. A lot of bear sign though. 

The fish didn't really cooperate much when Kara and Josh were here. We got a few salmon, maybe 3 or 4 trout and a bucket full of whitefish. It seemed that this year even though there were a ton of salmon that they were a lot pickier when biting. I never did settle on a hot pixie color this year, and the black and blue flies that had been deadly the past few years were not nearly as efficient as in the past. 

I'll probably be pulling my boat out of the water the next few days here. The river is starting to ice up now and it wont be long before ice fishing time.

 Over the River

 Pano

 Moonrise

 Kelly River

When Brenden was here we took a trip up to the Kelly River. It's always a fun trip. We took off after school on Friday and camped on the way. We headed up Saturday morning at 6 am on a brisk 35 degree morning. Made it up to Kelly about 8. Fished until early afternoon troutless. We tried a couple different spots on the way back to no avail. We finally ended up getting trout about a mile from town in the picnic spot. I would have been somewhat disappointed if it had been a crappy day weather wise, but it made for a nice day out on the river even though the trout we caught were right by town. It was the first time I cruised all the way back from Kelly River. It is a short trip back when you can drive at planing speeds.

 Glass

 Silvers

 Spawning Coho

When we got to the Kelly we could see some fish that clearly were not chum salmon, but didn't look like trout either. I tried drifting eggs by them with no luck. I decided I would try to snag one with a streamer. I cast the streamer out once to peel some more line off the reel to get far enough, and a fish came about 30 feet and just smashed the fly. Turned out they were Cohos. We had fun catching a few of them.

On a side note we brought one coho back to try to eat it. It was terrible. I tried a little bit and then I just threw it in the garbage. Good to know They were fun to catch though.

Kelly River