Fishing at the mouth of the Tsiu River

Today, we fished in the morning at the mouth of the Tsiu River. Everyone else would leave at 6am to get the fish. We’d arrive around 9 or 10, when everyone else was taking a rest and eating the breakfast we brought with us, wade in, and catch fish.  Worked well.

These fish were fresh!

I decided to fly fish. Wow. What fun! I caught fish after fish. One time I caught a fish, thought I had lost it because the line let up so quickly and easily. But it didn’t fly back at me as usual when the fish has been pulling and gets off. I started pulling it in to see if I could get another on. Sure enough, I did! Another huge one. He jumped so I could see him. Beautiful red on him. Then I got to realizing, it was the same huge fish. He had just done a quick turn and headed straight back toward me faster than I could reel in. 

It took some time. When it was taking time the day before, one of the guides asked me what weight rod I had. Six. Oh, no wonder.

With my casting and catching so many fish with my six weight rod and not breaking it or losing the fish, the 21 year old male guide…was pretty impressed.  Considering at that age, they know everything, that was slightly nifty.

General Yeager was catching them every cast. BIG ones! We took some photos – was fun.

I was casting in his spot a few times – but I was tired so my casting wasn’t as good – about every third cast was short. But that last one – whallop! A BIG fish jumped on. I was standing there waiting for it to stop pulling when I turned. General Yeager was wading out.

Gen Y: Here let me show you. Let me have the rod…

I turned and he saw I had a fish on, was  pleased I had taken his advice and succeeded, smiled, and said Oh, okay.

I gave him the rod – I was tired. And asked him to bring it in.

He hesitated but realized I wasn’t kidding. It took about 10 minutes to reel that big boy in.

After he was done, we were all ready for lunch so headed in. Another beautiful day.

In the afternoon, we rode down to the beach, – five of us. The other 3 women did some beachcombing while Gen Yeager and I sat on a log perfectly content to listen to and watch the waves – the crashing….and the silence… in the bright sunlight on the water…

That evening, the moose hunters returned – they had a 62 inch moose (that’s the spread of the antlers and that is huge!). They were happy.

Tomorrow we take the DC 3 to Anchorage.

c. GCYI