Hunting and what not....

I just got back home from cutting fish with my friend Scottie. He caught a bunch of fish in his net. They included silver salmon, whitefish, and pike. The two pike that he caught were monsters, measuring 42 and 43 inches respectively, while both tipping the scales at over 30 pounds. They are the type of fish that makes you question whether you want to go swimming anymore. I wish I had pictures of them but I don't. I'll try to get Scottie's pictures of them or maybe I'll just take a picture of the fillet for everyone to see. 

This is me and my four wheeler after fighting a losing battle with the Yukon river mud. Now this is not your ordinary, everyday mud. This is the big leagues of mud. I tried hot dogging it with my four wheeler and got too close to the river. As most everyone knows, the Yukon river is a very silty river, and the banks are usually muddy, especially as the water level drops throughout the summer. So I got too close and the mud sucked me in. At first I wasn't stuck too bad, but then I tried rocking it back and forth while gunning the engine. That only made it stuck worse. Pretty soon the mud was to the top of the tires. And it was like a giant suction cup keeping the four wheeler in the mud. I tried prying it under the frame and axles using some pieces of driftwood for a lever and a fulcrum, but I couldn't budge it. Then a guy ended up stopping by and tried pulling me out with his winch on his four wheeler. That didn't work either. So then I started walking up to Scotties to get some help. I was going to see if he had a come along to yank it out, but I ran into another guy along the route. He had a winch on his four wheeler. I had had a lot of time to think on my walk, and formulated a new plan to get it unstuck. We decided to go try it. We ended up hooking his winch up to the back rack and pulling the four wheeler onto its side with the combination of his winch pulling and me prying. Next we hooked up to the footpeg and rolling it onto the seat, and then hooked up to the opposite side footpeg and rolled it the rest of the way over. We basically winched it into a barrel roll to get it on more solid ground. The whole time I was scrambling around in the mud, sometimes up to mid thigh in it. She was totally covered in Yukon river muck. You couldn't even tell it was a red Honda. I ended up going over to Scottie's and washing it off with his hose. I wish I had my camera down there but I didn't. So I had to settle for this picture of my clean four wheeler with me still all muddy.

I got to go town this past weekend for some teacher union training. I pay my dues every year, and I wasn't about to pass up a free trip to town courtesy of them. I ended up going caribou hunting with my buddy Nick while I was in town. It was awesome. We were hunting the Fortymile herd north of Fairbanks in the White Mountains. The scenery was breathtaking when the clouds cleared, and we got a heck of a workout tromping up and down the mountains.

Here are Nick and I taking a much deserved rest after climbing up the side of this mountain. We ended up parking our tired behinds right in the middle of a huge blueberry patch, and we proceeded to scarf down as many as we could find. They were the best blueberries I've ever eaten, probably because we were working so hard climbing and they just hit the spot. We glassed for caribou all around us, but we had no luck.

Here is Nick sitting on a mountain peak that we climbed. It was quite a view up there, with 360 degree view of the whole area. It was awesome too when some clouds rolled in and we were above the clouds. I imagined it must look like that up on top of Mt. Everest. The mountains make distances seem so small when you are up on top, but when you start hiking towards a certain landmark and a half hour later it doesn't seem any closer, you realize that they really trick you and make it look like things are closer than they appear. We had no luck hunting, but all in all it was a blast.

Me with some new stuff I purchased in town this weekend. A new Husqvarna 455 Rancher chainsaw, and nice helmet for my four wheeler/snowmachine. So no one has to worry about me riding now.

This is a nice whitefish that my friend Martha gave me. My hand is in the picture for scale. The fish didn't fit in the sink. And it cooked up delicious. I gotta run. Have a good week everyone!