Blaze A Trail: Alaska Fishing Trip

In July 2005, my good friend Mike and I embarked on a spectacular fishing trip to Alaska's Kenai Peninsula. We fished the world famous Kenai & Russian Rivers which boasts the largest King (Coho) Salmon ever caught. Mike and I have been friends since the age of 5 and grew up 3 houses away from each other. We spent a lot of our time at the nearby golf course fishing for blue gill in the ponds. Needless to say, the fish we were going for on this trip were on steroids compared to the little guys back home. Mike and I continue to enjoy fishing and hanging out with each other and I don't believe that will ever change. He's a good friend and a great man.

Having worked in Denali National Park in 1993, I longed for a return trip to my beloved Alaska. Somewhere along the way, I let the busyness of life keep me from making it back... This trip was inspirational and reminded me of the joy I once had for the great outdoors, photography, fishing and hanging with good friends.

The only camera I had at the time was a 1980's Canon that my grandmother gave me years ago (non digital, no auto focus, virtually manual everything). I took that camera all over Yellowstone & Alaska in 1992 and 1993. It served me well for so many years.... I also had a small Sony Handycam digital camera and that really turned out to be useful, especially on the float plane trip to wolverine creek where we witnessed the Grizzly and cubs. We were on a boat, in pouring rain and I couldn't afford to get my canon soaked. Some of the grizzly pictures of that trip (including this one) were captured with this small sony digital with a ziploc bag over it.