I have been assimilated!

It is official... I have given up my city ways and become an outdoors-woman. Ok, that might be stretching it a bit, but not really that much! Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I went fishing. And, I caught fish. And, I threw fish back after removing hooks from their mouths. And, I gutted one of the fish I caught, cutting it open and scraping all the innards out with my fingernails (which are just now getting clean). And, I LOVED it! So, after yesterday's excursion, I spent a lot of money getting myself outfitted with the right equipment for fishing, since I was sorely lacking all of it on my first excursion. Here's the rest of the story....

After a busy week at work that started first thing Sunday morning with a surprise cutter visit on a jetlag hangover (I spent last week in New Orleans for a conference), we decided a morale day was in order by Friday. So I headed out fishing with a handful of the guys from work, after they promised me they'd teach me what to do. Oh, I almost forgot - I purchased the minimal equipment I would need for this expedition on Wednesday, including about 5 lures, a rod/reel, and a license. Not entirely sure that I would enjoy the activity, I decided my pink and green plaid Wellies would suffice in terms of footwear for my first outing (you can see them in the background of one of the pictures!). So we headed out to one of the local rivers in search of the elusive "silvers," otherwise known as really-the-only-salmon-that's-yummy-besides-Kings, or Coho.

The silvers have just started running here, so most of the salmon in the rivers are the Pinks, which aren't very good to eat, and have started to look pretty gnarly. For those who don't know, salmon come up in the rivers to spawn after living in the open ocean for a few years. Once they come up the rivers, they start to change in characteristics, and eventually just decompose and die. Given they're on their way out, some of them can start to be pretty nasty! So, the trick is to go fishing when they first start running, so you get the nice fresh ones. The bigger trick is to only get the silvers because they're the ones that taste the best.

Back to the story: Once we got out to the river, and one of the guys fixed up my stuff by respooling my reel with better line, we headed out to his "secret spot." Of course, the spot required crossing the river twice, which wasn't an issue for the two guys I was with, but definitely was an issue for my too-short pink Wellies. So the Great Outdoors-woman had to succumb to a piggy-back ride across the deep spots. Very dignified. Very. Once I got over that, and got to work pretending to know how to fish, the fun really started! Right away, we started hitting the pinks, strictly catch-and-release though, given their mostly nasty appearance. Then the fun really got going, though, as I (yes, me) caught the first silver of the day! He was a small guy, but I kept him anyway, since we weren't sure we'd see any others. We didn't need to worry too much, though, since we ended up with 5 silvers between the 3 of us (we were allowed 6 total by the regs), with none of them as small as my first guy. Unfortunately, I left the camera at home, so I don't have a good shot of the whole fish, but here's the fruit of my labor after filleting!
(Don't mind the shadow... that's my head). The one on the left is my first one - it was probably only about 3 or 4 pounds, giving about a pound and a half of meat. The other one was quite a bit bigger, though I'm not sure how big. But, I got just over 3 and a half pounds of meat from that one!

So, of course, last night, I had to go out and buy the appropriate gear (ie, things to make it so I don't have to be piggy-backed across a river), and then test it out as soon as possible. Jason and I headed out today to try our luck, but didn't have much. We hooked into a bunch of Pinks again, but sent them all back into the river to die a peaceful death. Unfortunately, we didn't see a single Silver anywhere, but we'll probably try again later in the week. I'm definitely "hooked" on fishing... I really had a great time, and, surprisingly, got a pretty good workout, too! In fact, my whole body is aching tonight, which I'm blaming on the couple of fish I snagged in the tail (much harder to reel in), and hauling myself around in really heavy waders.

Oh, wait! I didn't tell you what the "proper gear" was! That's right, I'm now the proud owner of my very own hip waders and wading boots. I sloshed through the river on my own today, and spent some quality time standing in the river fishing. I'm here to tell you - the water is cold. But it was just cool to be able to do that. So, to end things here, I'll just share two more pictures with you - Jason in his fishing gear, and me in mine. If someone had told me 2 or 3 years ago that I'd own my own fishing gear and hip waders, I think I would've fallen over laughing. Yet, here I am, enjoying some of the best Kodiak has to offer. Yes, I've been assimilated!