Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 166

Sam And Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 166

Alaska

8/13/09-8/15/09 – Hyder, Alaska

Fishing:  Yes, we are still fishing.  We drove out to a dock of sorts to the right of the main dock looking area in Hyder and found a dead end.  We turned around and were almost off of whatever we were on, when a pickup started to come onto the ‘road’ from the other direction.  It stopped and the driver rolled his window down – a sign that he had something to say.  Since we were not entirely comfortable in the knowledge that we belonged where we were, Sam bravely rolled his window down.  It turns out that Tom is originally from Oregon and saw our license plates.  He and Sam exchanged life information in about 7.2 minutes and next thing I know, we are invited to go with him out into the Portland Canal to set his crab rings and pick up a neighbors shrimp nets. 

Portland Canal (Tom And Sam In Boat At Left)

We gladly go to the end of this dock-type road, turn around and follow Tom back to a public, or maybe not so public, boat ramp.  Anyhow, once I see the size of the boat, and just happen to notice the dog bounding on board and not seeing enough space for a fourth body to even sit on the boat’s ‘deck’ and knowing how messy crab bait can get and how windy and wavy the world was – I offer to stay with Brutus and take pictures.  Off Sam, Tom and Scooter go.  Turns out – Scooter is a famous ‘bear dog’ in the Hyder community.  He is a smallish, short haired, black dog who is full of vim and vigor, until he gets on the boat.  He does not like the water – shivers, shakes and sits on Sam’s lap the whole time out.  But Scooter is a bear dog. Watches, listens, smells for bear at all times.  When he catches the trail of one – off he goes.  He must scare the fleas on them, who then in turn bites the bears a good one, to get the bears to run off – otherwise they would surely take one swipe and Tom would be looking for a new partner.

Scooter - Famous Bear Dog

Tom takes Sam way out into the sea-bay looking stretch of water. They go so far out, that even my telephoto lens looses interest in tracking them.  Sam says that they go past the mountain sticking up in the way, into a protected big cove area, where the wind dies down and the water’s surface glasses out.  That is where Tom places his crab rings and pulls up the shrimp nets.  They apparently use cans of dog food on the shrimp nets.  Tom claims that if the nets are picked up within 12-24 hours, a nice mess of shrimp are harvested.  This net had been left in a little longer and only 6 were still there.  Sam really enjoyed the unexpected boat ride and whole experience.  Tom told him of the good place to fish, where we would not need to have major weapons to protect us from the bears.   This is where I come in. 

We Passed On This Fishing Hole

We drive towards the Salmon Glacier.  The first pullout after the closed water bottling building, you pull into.  Get out.  Have on waders and cross the first two stream/river parts.  Walk down the gravel spit to the right, past a large tree skeleton and splat your hook right into the water near the base of the roots sticking up.  We find the spot, passing a sandy area in the spit that is in the middle of the river area that has many more stream sections, and notice a large grizzly bear print.  Sam is nice enough not to point it out, even though I saw it.  Since he did not point it out, I was able to ignore it.  Ok, it was the fish oil thing.  The fish were thick.  All kinds of fish.  They were not interested in eating, so irritating them was the technique called for.  We only ‘fair caught’ a few and the rest we released.  A lot of fun, with a little light tension, since we kept looking around, not wanting to see bear for a change.