Golden Eagles

These guys are always fun to watch. One was diving into the brush for bunnies over and over, but never caught one.

Dip-Netting

So one thing Alaskans get to do that the tourists don't is dip-netting. During certain times during the summer, on certain rivers, there are so many salmon running from the ocean up the river to spawn that you can just put a net in the water and they swim in. Sounds easy enough, almost like cheating compared to fishing with a rod and reel, but it turns out that a little bit of skill and luck is involved.

I was under the impression that when a fish swam into your net, it was caught. Not necessarily so. You stand out waist-deep in the freezing river, and when you feel a fish hit the net, you turn and run for shore! It ends up looking a bit comical because it's hard to run in water, but if you don't get the net out and drag the fish up onto the beach, it will find it's way out and get away.

Larissa, James, Jim and I drove 10 hours each way and spent 2 full days jockeying the nets last weekend. I caught 21 red salmon that totaled 40 pounds of fillets when all was said and done. Not bad at all, and I'll have all the salmon I can stomach for quite a while. Now I need to buy a grill...

The first victim!

Jim, Larissa and James, waiting.

James reeling one in.

And he calls himself a vegetarian!

Quite a few others were out doing the same, also on the far shore.

The sun peaked out from the clouds, just before setting.

The Chase

Yesterday I was out on the park road watching this bear wander around in the tundra. Then it climbed up onto a snowbank that ran parallel to the road and started running. We were driving along with it and thought it was cool that when we matched speeds, it was running at 15 mph. Pretty impressive! I grabbed my camera to try to get a photo of it in stride when, all of the sudden, the bear rounded a corner and there was a caribou standing in the snow. The bear lunged, and looked like it got close enough to get a bite of the caribou's tail. Apparently though, a caribou can run faster than 15 mph, and it pulled away from the chasing bear.

A close one!