Let The Harvest Begin

Left Homer and the Worsfold's and set up camp in Soldotna. 

Went halibut fishing in the morning and saw what I would consider the perfect motor sailer tied up in the Homer harbor. Then we woke up Jake (who slept through the mornings fishing), had lunch and I set out for Soldotna. 

We are in an RV park right on the river and really like the river access and cleaning tables. However, Tony wanted to show us his favorite part of the river, that part from Bings landing (in Sterling) upstream to Skilak Lake. 

We were quite impressed with the miles of empty bank fishing spots and clear water. Since most of the stretch is above the confluence of the Kenai and Killey (sp?) rivers the water is very clear. About all the Killey contributes to the Kenai is a lot of mud. 

The mouth of the Killey. 

Upstream we could watch the Sockeye go by and catching wasn't too hard. 

We've had two days of 200,000 + fish past the counter so the run is on!

The limit is still three, but it should go up to six soon. Here we still have one to go. As usual, waiting on Roger. He finally got that last fish so we could get on with the day. Total time fishing, about 1-1/2 hrs. 

We went up to the mouth of Skilak Lake and drifted back for a while trying for some rainbows. Tony has a 30" bow but we are still trying to beat a friend of his who has a 34"er. 

No luck on rainbows this time but tomorrow we'll be back and might get more serious. This is our new most favorite part of the river. 

Weather remains ridiculously perfect. 

Hanging in Homer

Made it to Homer without having to spend the night in Anchorage. Shellie and Mom are leaving for Las Vegas tonight; better them than me.

Bill and I are waiting for Jake to get back from dipping with Grandpa Gordon.  Hopefully we will then be occupied filleting, bagging and freezing Reds. 

Went over to a neighbors yesterday where they were in the middle of a five day process of firing pottery in their walk in kiln. 

First they load it with items to be fired.

These are photos of the four rows of pottery. 

Then they build a fire just outside the entrance.  After a day of dehydrating they move the fire inside and brick up the entrance with a door hanging from cables over a hole left for adding wood.

It is a two man job swinging the door aside while the stoker throws the wood in. They were putting in an armful about every four minutes. 

They showed me the stack of wood they would use to finish and the whole job must take several cords. 

They gradually bring the inside temperature up to 1200+ Celsius and hold that for about three days.  

They were in day three of that stage when we stopped in and sleep was becoming something they dreamed about. 

Going for halibut tomorrow then up to Soldotna. 

Weather still perfect