Thursday, 25 August 2011 Silver Salmon Lodge - day three

We awoke before the alarms, the weather was not great so Shoeleh sent me down to say no fishing this morning.

So we stayed in and went to breakfast without the fishing. At breakfast we learned that only Barry had braved the weather and caught a great silver salmon for his efforts. We all decided to head out again this morning, Brian had some day visitors to attend to so we headed off with Terry, Barry and Vicki to again test our fishing skills.

We set ourselves along the creek and started fishing. Of course Shoeleh again landed herself a nice sized fish. So I kept on fishing with no luck, or skill, with others all catching it was becoming a little embarrassing. Especially with some throwing back their small catches. So after about an hour I landed my first fish, a dolly [sic], a type of trout. Being the fisherman I am I threw it back, apparently Alaskans don't really like trout.

I also tried my hand at fly fishing an interesting activity, before changing back to the hook and lure. So with lunch approaching and everyone near their limit Shoeleh moved down to join the rest and landed herself another Salmon. Everyone was keen for me to land my fish but in the end lunch was calling so we headed back in.

Terry filleted Shoeleh's catch and vacuum sealed it, we kept two fillets for us to try once we got on the road and donated the rest back to the lodge.

Lunch was another delight we were certainly not going to starve while we were here. After lunch we wandered around a little outside the lodge checking out the buildings and the position. Before heading back down to the beach to see what the bears were doing. We got to the beach and followed a bear up the creek a little ways before it got too far ahead of us and so we headed off back in for dinner.

Dinner was again another delight, unfortunately for us Barry and Vikki had left in the afternoon so we dined alone. It was a great meal finished off with a cream brule. We had planned for another trip this evening to watch the bears fishing. Looking through the window I thought it was smoke from the fire and Shoeleh was sure it was raining so we got up for a look. Then Shoeleh saw a couple of bears coming forward toward the lodge these were different bears to the regular mum with two cubs. They were crying for their mother and then the mother appeared with another cub. This bear and cubs had not been seen for about a month they had left when there was a bad storm. Now we were being able given a full on show of the mother and cubs before they headed out across the grassland.

With all the excitement of this we decided not to go out this time, and settled in for a restful night.

Animals Spotted: Bears, silver salmon, dolly

Day Forty