Fishing Trip

Ok, so no pictures yet, but they are on the way...The fishing trip involved me (Joe) and Gavin. We went up river about fifteen minutes into beautiful Alaskan country. It was picturesque; we cruised next to a bald eagle for about a minute, there were mountains in front of us, and we even drove by a wrecked airplane that is still sitting in the wilderness, like a 30 passenger one that crashed a decade or so ago!!! We got dropped off at the fishing spot, just me and the high schoolers, but before the boat went back they left me with the rifle (decided as a group I would give it to one of the high schoolers if a bear came). And there were bear tracks ALL OVER the little river bank. We caught two graylings within fifteen minutes! Things got really interesting when we realised that the first two boatloads were on the wrong side of the river...so we loaded two boatloads into one boat, and got stuck in the shallow part going across! One of the high schoolers and a middle schooler jumped out, so I did too (I had boots on) and we started pulling the boat. The water came up over my boots, and it about took my breath away how cold it was!!! You CANNOT swim (unless you're born in the artic) in this water, if you fall out of a boat without a lifejacket in the middle of the summer, does not matter, you will die in the river because the water will freeze you into inaction, it was that cold!!! There was only water pouring into my boot, so I was able to keep pulling, and we got the boat unstuck; but for the next three hours, I kept getting random chills, even after I dried my boots and feet out by the fire. Our school was catching fish like crazy, and I tried raw fish eggs right out of a grayling (yuck!). Kids were eating them like delicacies. Gavin was fishing with his teacher, but she asked me to fish with him on the big pole. He got bored soon, but I was having a blast...and I caught a fish!!! One of the locals came over and helped me with the fish...a student got the hook out, and I smashed it against a rock...then was instructed to bite its neck and take a chunk for bait!!! Apparently fish will go for it! I told them they were crazy, but, hell, I'm living in the Artic, sowhatthehell I did it...took too big of a bite (little bit o' blood) and had to re-bite the chunk. With the hard part over, all I had to do was slice it, gut it, clean it, cook it, and eat it! It was AMAZING! Gavin wasn't too crazy about it...prefered his sucker. He got the hang of fishing with a kid's line and was having a good time. Couple of the high schoolers checked a fishing net and found about 15 20+lb "dog salmon" in the net! They pulled them all to shore and were cutting and cooking them. A middle schooler caught one of the big dog salmon fish with a long stick and a snare. I tried to catch three that were swimming about three feet from me with a line, but couldn't...Gavin and I had a blast, though! Can't wait to get out into the Alaskan wilderness again! Possibility of going moose hunting...later!