My trips to Alaska have always been for Marathons with Team in Training.  For more about those marathons, Mayors Midnight Sun Marathon 2001 and Mayors Midnight Sun Marathon 2002 click on the links.

Each time I visit Alaska I try to find time to get in some Salmon fishing.  The first time I visited the state in 2000 it was to cheer on team members.  Unfortunately I was not able to get any fishing in that trip but I did see some wonderful sights.  The team stayed at the Prince Alyeska Resort in the town of Girdwood.  It was about 40 minutes outside of Anchorage which was the down side but it was a beautiful resort surrounded by mountains.  There is a 5 star restaurant at the top of one of the mountains called the 7 Glaciers Restaurant.  You get to it by riding a cable car from the hotel to the top of the mountain.  From the restaurant you can see a number of glaciers, maybe event seven, nestled in between the mountain peaks.  There is snow at the restaurant year round but in the summer Para gliders use the mountain as a launching point and drift slowly down to a clearing in Girdwood.  The fill the sky with beautiful colors as the coast down.

The Spring of 2001 I returned for the marathon, which was great.  After the marathon I spent a day fishing on the little Susitna river.  It was a great time, we met at the house of the guide and put on waders and climbed into the boat.  He took us up the river where we got out and fished along the banks.  There were 5 of us, me and a family of four.  The father caught the first fish within 20 minutes of arriving.  After that not much happened for several hours.  The mother had one on the line but quickly lost it.  I had a few bites but nothing promising.  Unfortunately it was time to pack up so we were casting while waiting for the guide to secure the other peoples gear when I got a bit.  I hooked it and fought for about 15 minutes before pulling in a nice 16 pound King Salmon.  Quite a fun catch and one that made me quite happy.

The next day I drove from Anchorage to Seward where I spent the night.  In the morning I boarded another fishing boat and headed out to sea for some Halibut fishing.  After running out for about 2 hours we cut the engines and dropped lines.  Halibut fishing entails dropping a baited line with a 2 pound weight about 200 feet to the bottom.  Waiting for a bite then reeling the whole thing in.  If you don't get a bite in about 20 or 30 minutes you need to reel in the line to check the bait.  It is quite tiring reeling in that weight so you try not to do it much.  We had a pretty successful trip with just about everyone catching at least one halibut and most people catching the limit of two.  I caught two nice size ones.  Now some other boats had halibut that weighed in at 300+ pounds but those are not that good to eat.  The ones we caught ranged between 12 and 35 pounds and I can tell you were quite tasty when I cooked them up after getting home. 

On the 2002 trip to Alaska I went salmon fishing on the Deska but struck out.   In 2006 I did the half marathon, having just returned from Alaska, and went fishing on three separate occasions.  Unfortunately on two of the trips I struck out, the third one I caught two small salmon, not worth the effort and cost of all the fishing but I had a good time and the smoked salmon tasted pretty good.  It was in 2006 that 31 of us went on the Anchorage to Vancouver Cruise to celebrate coach Janna's 50th Birthday.  We had a great time on the cruise as evidenced by the photographs.  What a great group to travel and celebrate with!