the merrills: Alaska 2013

July 9th came and it was FINALLY time to make the trek to Alaska. And quite the trek it was! We made the long/ugly/boring drive to Boise, flew from there to Seattle, stayed the night in Seattle, work up at 4 am to catch our flight to Ketchikan. Once in Ketchikan we were able to experience our first float plane ride! It was pouring rain and we almost got on the wrong plane but after some clarification we were whisked onto the plane with a "in case we crash there is a .....mutter... mutter ....mumble...mutter...." as the pilot closed the door behind us. Despite my initial feeling of panic, it was such a fun flight! Before long the rain stopped and slowly the fog and clouds lifted just enough for us to see everything below us. It was a beautiful and short flight. Before we knew it we were already landing in Craig where my mom and dad were waiting to take us to the cabin. We knew we had to hurry and hit the road since there was major road work that would close the road for the rest of the day so we hustle, hustle, hustled and stopped to grab our AK fishing licenses and we were off, only to make it the hour drive to find out we missed the cut off by less than 10 mins (they apparently changed the times) and we would now be parked, in the middle of nowhere (literally), for the next 4 hours. Oh joy. So, we did some chit-chatting some snacking and some napping then were finally back on the road to finish the rest of the journey to the cabin. 32(ish) hours after we left our house in Idaho we finally reached our destination for the next 4 days. The time spent at the cabin was time spent soaking wet, freezing cold, and fishing fishing fishing! The fishing on the streams was not as good as it could have been or has been other years but we still managed to catch a handful of Salmon and got to see LOTS of bears, Dillon even got to scare them away from stealing our fish on the bank at one point. Our most successful day fishing was when we spent a day trolling out in the bay a little ways out from the cabin. I was able to get my limit (6) for the day as well as catch the biggest Salmon of the day :) Sunday came along with another l.o.n.g day of traveling. Up at 3 am to head out and catch the 3 hour ferry from Hollis to Ketichikan, then kill 4(ish) hours in Ketchikan until we caught our flight to Juneau! Juneau was a whole different experience from the cabin (mainly because we got to shower) and we spent a lot of our time relaxing and site seeing, with a little fishing in the evenings on the side. In Juneau I was able to FINALLY catch my first Halibut. And it turned out to be Flounder. Oops. But, it was just a matter of a few more minutes before I was able to catch my first, real, Halibut! It may not have been the biggest Halibut you will ever see (or even close to it) but, it was still a sufficient amount of work :) We were so sad when Thursday the 18th came and it was time to make the journey back home :( We had a GREAT trip and loved spending time with my mom and dad and getting to see the place that they are able to call home right now.

Alright, enough talking right? Time for pictures. Way more fun.

Get ready....

....picture overload in....

Just landed

Dillon making himself comfy during our 4 hour construction wait

Fishing with the bears

Dillon's first Salmon catch of the trip

My first Salmon catch of the trip

There were 4 bears within about 100 yards one night

One night there were fish jumping like CRAZY in the bay so we jumped in the boat and Dillon brought in this beauty

I love my momma

Dillon's shark

Dillon's first Halibut!

Trolling. Fist Salmon of the day

My nasty, HUGE, Skate

Dillon munching on a pancake while trolling

Successful day for the crab pot

Successful day trolling

Dillon, the master filleter

MMMMMM! Straight from the ocean to the oven to the plate.

One morning we not only caught zero Salmon on the stream, but saw zero. I did manage to find the Sculpin hole tho and caught 4 of these nasty buggers.