A few nice pictures, and some stories

[Alasgun]

For those following, im going back thru, editing to tell ”The rest of the story” , if you’re interested?

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Some of the pics make me gasp with wonder.

 

[digitS']

You mentioned the earthquake and tsunami that resulted in destruction and loss of life at Cable Creek, Alasgun.

I was talking on TEG about the tsunami about 6 months ago link. It was not because I was so close. I was still a school kid and living about 50 miles inland from the Pacific.

My Aunt and her family were about 150 miles away on the California coast and my cousin was very much in harms way.

Steve

 

[Alasgun]

@Rhodie Ranch, they All make me “gasp with wonder” every time i see them again!

seeing them in real time is un-describable and when i take someone out with me i make sure they’re willing to stay a couple nights. No day trips out of Whittier! Once you see the World go to sleep and wake up one time, you’ll understand, then by the second night your very comfortable with all that “living on the boat involves”.

When im by my self or with the SIL, shrimping; 5 days at a time is not out of the question! Typically those trips will find us 40-60 miles from town where logistics come into play. You can only drive a boat so far and so fast. If you wanna see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you gotta get there first

 

[Alasgun]

This morning we are waking up in the most secure anchorage in all of Prince William sound. No matter what the wind direction is, it’s always calm inside this little bay. The narrow entrance and high sides contribute to the safety And the blue mud bottom give you peace of mind that your anchor will stay put.
we’re on shore looking back at the boat and when we turn around 180deg, we walk thru this open wooded area with it’s nice little stream up to the lake 1/4 mile further on. 3 of the 5 salmon specie’s use this lake / stream as a spawning area.

And since everyone is familiar with Alaskan Salmon im tossing this one out for you to see how it works at “the ground level”.
I had entered this bay, heading to the end where i anchor sometimes when the float plane flew right over our head, slowly turned about and landed; then taxied up to the seiner. I didn‘t know these folks but can read between the lines. The seiner is in there waiting for a commercial opener the next morning and the plane is a spotter. His job is to scout the area and radio back the location of “any clouds he see’s below”, clouds as in; schools of salmon grouped up together. At that point the seiner moves in, deploy’s his tender and drags the purse sein around the school. It’s very impressive to watch, especially when the bag is coming over the side and there’s so many fish the freeboard is under water!. The whole back of that boat is water tight so it’s not a big deal.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me!

 

[Ridgerunner]

You might appreciate this. I worked in the oil patch in the Gulf of Mexico. Occasionally we'd meet a shrimper and trade diesel for fresh shrimp. If we were on a fixed platform somebody might go fishing. We often ate pretty well.

 

[Alasgun]

Good morning folks, in an effort to accommodate a dear friend, we’ll change it up a bit. The thread title now reads “a few nice photos And some stories”.

When i compiled this collection i chose 106 of “the nice ones” from the many photos taken. Beyond what we have here there are several hundred others on c.d’s. A “best quality” Orca picture didn’t make the list sadly, and for the following simple reason. Most of my pictures are taken with the boat at rest, as in an Anchorage simply due to the fact the light is nearly always perfect in the morning and the evening. I have some mid day stuff but those came from days where good light remained into the day. Another contributing factor is that typically im the captain, the fish netter, the tour guide, the guy watching out for rocks, the guy, the guy, the guy and having free hands to get a camera going is sometimes challenging. The collection of “ones that got away” fills my head and are generally reserved for quiet moment of conversation with folks over a boat supper or while leisurely moving from one spot to the next. they typically come to mind as you drive thru the location where “the event took place”.”

Sorry @Beekissed, no Orca pictures (unless i find time to log back thru the c.d’s) but i do have an Orca tale worth repeating.

”Fishing for Silvers out of Seward one July, we traveled a couple hours out to the Pony cove / Chevalle Narrows region. This is a popular spot and when the fish are in it’s common to have a hundred boats in the general area. Everyone either slowly trolls around the more open areas or they drift and mooch. This is simply, find a place to nose in amongst the others, shut the boat off and lower bait over the side. During a good bite this is by far the most productive.
On this day roughly 40 of us were in the line slowly moving along with the tide and i could see a pod of 30 some false Orcas (the all black ones) headed our way. They were quite a sight with they’re large dorsals breaking the surface and as they passed under each boat folks just pick up the line and everything works pretty well. Except that on this day the social predator in me quietly whispered in my ear and i succumbed to the urge! Being in such close proximity to the boats on either side of you, you converse about any number of things as you move along and I’d already established the folks on my port side were tourist and they were excitedly snapping pictures as the pod moved thru.
At the moment they passed under us i just casually mentioned that they’re guide was giving them the short end of the stick and pointed out that it’s customary for the guide to break out the big tackle on a rare occasion such as this and let his clients fish for the big fish!
Being local i knew the bite would turn off when the orcas came thru, so we just fired up the boat and moved on but from the burning looks the captian gave me as we left, i have to assume they were chattering about not getting they’re moneys worth. It was a good day and we all had fish, including the tourist so my conscience was mostly clean?

However, i do have a decent porpoise picture. Which illustrates my earlier point about have too much to do while driving the boat. This is an exception to that because once you pick up a pod of these playful fellows, they sometimes stay with you quite a ways. On this day that was the case and even moving along at 25 knot’s i had plenty of time to record this one. Look close and you see another under the surface to his left. There were 1/2 dozen of them that day. I have some better pictures of another group who cam by once while we were cleaning fish and i was able to capture them swimming around with they’re heads out of the water, curiously checking us out.

Nen there’s the sea lion rocks. Go there anytime and they’re either lying about like this or coming and going as they feed in the deep water below these rocks. When the Grandkids were little they liked getting close like this and “beeping the boat”. We got a loud horn and one good blast would get the few Bulls in the group to barking and before long it would get quite loud.

And after a long day of story telling we like to cap off the day with a nice dinner at which point the Barby comes out and we have to make that always hard decision, Beef or Seafood?

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[Alasgun]

Eagles are just like the rest of us, somedays they’re soaring and somedays are ”bad hair days” for our majestic National Symbol!
Anywhere you stop for very long if you look around, an Eagle will be setting on a limb on shore; looking at you. Now, technically we’re not suppose to feed them however no one cleans fish and takes the leftovers with them. Typically they get tossed overboard and if anything floats, well; the Eagle may just swoop down and grab the easy meal. Such was the case with the first one.
The sad looking one in the next pic, had been standing in the rain for several hours up on that rock. I’m not sure why as there was cover close . Maybe the soft rain water made her plumage fluffy?
the last one is intently looking over a group of salmon headed up the little stream. My last picture is of those salmon, we took the dingy to shore and rowed right up into them. This picture was taken at arms length to the fish. After the Eagle was done dining on his!

 

[valley ranch]

Very nice ! Thank you ~ those pictures could have been taken, Well some very like them, right here in the mountains, even the animals except anything from salt water ~ really thank you The ocean pictures, pictures like them can be taken down my the Lake Tahoe and the Stellar Jays right out side on the porch demanding food ```

 

[digitS']

It was a "revelation" to move where I live now - during the 1960's. I'd lived on the northern California Coast, previously. I don't recall ever seeing a bald eagle there. It seems like my very limited experience seeing the bird was visiting Klamath Lake Oregon, far into the interior. Here on Coeur d' Alene Lake, there were eagles!

I just did some checking. US Fish & Wildlife says that in the lower 48 states there were 487 nesting pairs in 1963. By 2006, 9,789 pairs were recorded. That was a 30% increase over the numbers in 2000, the previous census on their chart.

At times, I see an eagle fly by from my living room window. They are not just on the lake, lately. There is a park on the river not far from our distant garden and I will go there for lunch and, often, when I'm in charge of the sprinklers and become bored watching the water fall on the garden ... Sitting on the shore, I'm watching a merganser in the river. An eagle comes by. "Boom!" The merganser dives and the eagle misses him. Pulling himself out of the water, the eagle flies off to a nearby tree branch. The merganser surfaces, looking very apprehensive but the eagle makes no other effort to catch him. After about 30 minutes of sitting in the sun, he flies away. The merganser was still in view but the one experience must have suggested to the eagle that he wouldn't be an easy catch.

They used to only be here during the winter months but that changed as their population numbers increased.

Steve