Kelly's First Fish

Me and my fish

Perhaps I've been reading too many books about life in the Alaskan tundra. 

Dave took me fishing Sunday and the first ever fish I caught and gutted turned out to be a female with eggs.  The eggs looked just like sushi roe, so I ate it. Straight from the fish.  And it was good!

 Primitive response aside....Yay! I caught a fish,  three in fact.  One we let go because it was too small,  but the other two,  along with Dave's three are on the dinner menu tonight. 

Dave's been showing me the ropes, or should I say lines (ha, ha) for the past week. First was casting where he risked and did get hooked a few times.  Then there was the 'bail incident' where for some reason the line got wrapped up inside the spindle thing. And then there was just a day of not catching anything. But today made up for all that.

Dave at the Hidden Lake Trailhead

For fishing folk, the fish are rainbow trout and we used a "meps 5 spinner."  For non-fishing people this whole thing is like learning about a previously unknown piece of the world. There a special rods, and reels, and lots and lots of different thingees you put on the end of the line to attract different fishes. Then you have to know what lakes they tend to hang out in, or were stocked in. For instance it was Hidden Lake where we went fishing and where the state of Alaska stocks rainbow trout. 

Winning form

Even if we didn't catch any fish it would have been a lovely morning as Hidden Lake is a 1 mile hike into the taiga forest.  We hiked through huge patches of ripe blueberries and mats of ripening red cranberries. The wildlife refuge leaves a small john boat on the shore and it's perfect for getting out...and catching fish... just like an Alaskan, just like real fishermen.