Tyler's Alaska Trip aka His First Post and the Best Post of 2014

For Christmas last year my dad surprised Tyler and all of my brothers with a trip to Alaska. My dad and brothers went about 5 years ago, and they had so much fun. My dad wanted to go again as his kind of "retirement" party. This year Tyler got to go with them, and he was so excited! I have been trying to get Tyler to write his very first blog post, but he hasn't, so I guess I'll just have to do my best to explain the events.

Actually I'm not as non-compliant as one would suggest.  We all left Monday, August 4th and spent the whole day traveling. We flew to Los Angeles, had an hour and a half layover there, then had a five hour flight to Alaska. Once we got to Alaska we had a three hour drive to Soldotna on the Kenai peninsula. It was a long day, but once they were there the party started.

Since this is my first time blogging, I don't know how to change the order of the pictures.  Kristen put them in, so I'll just tell you about them, maybe not in order.

Tuesday we went halibut fishing and it was pretty rough.  The wind was blowing and the waves were pretty high, I overheard the captain say they were around 10 feet.  It seemed a lot higher on that little tiny boat.  Since it was pretty rough the guides took us to a safe place we could catch our limit.  The limit is two fish, one over and one under 28".  We caught our limit pretty fast and didn't thrown any back because we wanted to get back to shore.  Since it was pretty rough, we didn't take to many pictures the first day on the boat.  The only picture I got was the one of Bob throwing up over the side.  I felt so bad; he had a pretty rough trip the first day.  On the way back he was still throwing up.  I got a pretty sick too, but didn't throw up, thankfully.

Here is a picture of the boat we were on.

Last time they went Lance caught a 70 pounder.  This time he wasn't so good, the biggest halibut any of us caught was around 15 pounds that Darren caught.

After you caught the fish, the guide did all the work.  You pulled the fish up to the boat, they would pull it out of the water, hit them over the head to hill them, mark them (so you know who caught which fish), and put them under the boat.  It is the only way to fish, you get to have all the fun but don't have to do any of the work.  

Here is the infamous picture of Bob throwing up over the side.  How sad, he paid for the trip and was the one to get sick.

 This was the halibut from the first day of fishing.

And Ryan trying to get a "Selfie"

Here is the best fisherman of all (me)

The guides cut up the fish for us right there. 

Here is a picture of the boat being launched from the beach.

It was hard to see what was going on on the first day because it was so rough, but we could see a lot better on the second halibut trip.  The second trip was the exact opposite.  There were no waves and the water was perfectly calm.  The guides said it was as abnormal to be that calm as the big waves.  That day was a lot better and we were out there a lot longer.  We threw quite a bit back to make sure we caught as big of ones as we could.  In fact, we were past the time to leave and I hadn't caught my last fish.  Everybody worked together to make sure I caught it.  It took quite a while and was so much fun.  

This is the top of the fish.  Aren't they ugly?  There eyes are on the same side of their body.  They are pretty weird to catch, they just sit there like dead weight.

The other two days were spend salmon fishing.  That fishing was completely different.  We went out with Kenai Jim on the river. Jim took us out really early each day (5 or 6) and would spend all day with us.  Bob picked the time early in the year because this is the best time to catch Pink Salmon.  Pinks have the largest population of salmon and go up the river every other year.  It was also a good time to catch Coho and some Silvers as it was their time to spawn as well.

Alaska was beautiful, it was like looking in a picture in every direction.  It was a little weird thought because the sun didn't go down until around 10 and it seemed like mid morning all day long.  

Here is everybody fishing for coho salmon on the river.   Ryan and I caught our limit first, Darren and Bob had a harder time. I can't really remember now, but I think the limit for Coho was 2 or 3. 

Kenai Jim was similar to the halibut guides.  Here is Lance waiting for him to come over and pull the fish off his pole.  

The salmon were really fun to catch.  The put up a pretty big fight and were a lot more active than the halibut.  

 Here are our trophy's from the second fishing day.  The darker fish are the silver fish.  They are supposedly the highest quality fish we caught.  I know it is probably obvious, but the biggest one is mine.  The limit for those fish were two.  Darren and I were the only ones that caught any silvers and we both caught two.

Here comes some more halibut fishing photos.

 This is a shark we caught while halibut fishing.

This is an octopus looking thing that Ryan caught.  It is pretty gross the nasty things that are in the ocean.  They told us about the "mother-in-law" fish that is really ugly and not good for much...My response was "no comment."  Thankfully we didn't catch any of those.

This was our second guide.  He was so much nicer than the first and we had a lot more fun with him.  The second day was a blast.

The second salmon day we went lower on the water.  We went to a place where the guide knew there would be lots of pinks.  The locals don't like to catch pinks because they are not as good as the other ones.  We loved them because there were so many of them.  Compared to anything you buy at the store, they are fantastic.  Each day we would keep one just for dinner.  

There were so many fish it was crazy.  You could even see the water moving with all the fish.  We got to the point we would almost catch a fish with every cast.  I have never seen anything like it, it was so cool, fish were everywhere.  The limit was 6 fish, but I'm guessing we caught hundreds and threw them all back.  

Nice beard.

Looks like a duck.

swims like a duck.

must have been a duck.  It was huge though, maybe 3 or 4 feet long???  Not sure why Kristen included in the photos, but she must have though it was a critical point in the trip.

We caught so many fish Bob got tired and had to rest.  

Here is the fearless Kenai Jim.  He is a different guy, but really nice.  He was very patient and allowed us to fish for a long long time.  Most guides would let you catch the limit and send you on your way.  

Jim has an apartment complex that he rents out.  One of the apartments he uses for fisherman.  That is where we stayed.  It is an old apartment, but still pretty nice (clean).  There were only two bedrooms, so Bob slept in the master, Ryan and Lance slept in the room with two twin beds, and Darren and I slept in the living room.  I got the couch because Darren said it was easier for him on the floor.  

Here is the salmon boat we took.

Day 2 of salmon fishing.

 Bob said that what happens in Alaska, stays in Alaska... Now I know why.  I guess they tried to do this to me the day before, but I woke up before they could set me up.  The next night Bob fell asleep and we staged the ultimate blackmail photo.  If he doesn't want Grandma Kathy to find out, I guess we'll be going to Alaska again!!!

The trip was a blast and so much funner that I ever expected.  I have always wanted to go and I'm so thankful to Bob and Kathy for giving me the opportunity.  When they asked what the best catch was, I responded without hesitation it was their daughter.  Not only did I get brownie points for blogging, think of all the points I'll get for that last comment!!!