So, September 8, 2011 was epic.
Arrival at site. We go to land beside our aluminum boat and zodiac.
Nancy: "Don't land...DON'T LAND!!!"
Pilot: "What?"
Nancy: "Lots of bears, LOTS of bears."
Pilot: "Where?"
Nancy: "THERE! In our gear!! There are....1...2... THREE bears."
Landing not being an option, we reassessed. Coming back later, doing a big bear sweep, and seeing no bears, we also employed a strategy where the pilot waited for us to launch our boat with all of our gear before taking off. We then moved all of our gear to the side of the lake where the bears don't seem to hang out.
H: "To the ESCAPE POD!! Ha ha!! Look at the escape pancake (zodiac looking flat)! Good thing we don't have to inflate that while the blades are turning!"
So, while our pilot sat on the ground with the blades turning, N and I hucked stuff into the escape pod and got out onto the lake, at which point the helichopper could safely leave. We didn't have time to change into our waders during this panic, and I went over my boots. LOVE going over my boots at 9 am. Safely changed into dry stuff on a bear-free beach, N and I set the nets, and then went to bear-free beach #2 for a snack and warmup walk. During the time, a siksik ate ANOTHER of Heidi's dry bags (it had NO food in it), and Heidi did a siksik dance to ward it off.
After swearing at the nefarious nature of siksiks and their seal-bag eating ways for a good 5 minutes, we discovered that we were freezing and went on a constitutional to check out an abandoned silver mine (which has happily been nicely reclaimed since the last time I saw it).
Toes warmed, we went to check the nets. And, as usual, crap weather means good fishing. Nancy saw her first red charr, and we caught a HUGE lake trout.
H: "HOLY CRAP!! It's a shark! Look at the head on that thing!!"
N: "It's a TUNA! Look, you can see a fish down its throat."
H: "Well, now our boat will REALLY be a bear attractant. Good thing it's aluminum. As far as I know, they can't eat aluminum. But I have been proven wrong by bears in the past. And siksiks. DAMN that siksik!"
2 comments:
Now THOSE are fish! Makes the puny little cutthroat trout down here look like pygmies. Glad that a day that started on such a dramatic note ended with success.
Mom
Fantastic colour! Love those spawning Arctic char. Ditto on the previous comment, real happy you've gone relatively incident free this field season! A cheer for you... "go N & H, go N & H, go N & H, catch those fish!!!" When you guys make it back I'll make you dinner :) Fred
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