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Bob's Blog 2009:
December 24th, 2009 - Merry Christmas to All...
As the sun sets on another year, I wanted to extend a hearty thank you to all of you who have been supportive and encouraging to us. Merry Christmas to you and yours. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a bright new year. This has been a VERY challenging year to endure, but I think we have grown through it, learned from it and hopefully we'll build on that strong foundation for a great 2010. I'm about to close the shop and head home, to bake cookies with the kids, sing carols around the candle light and then close out the evening by watching "It's a Wonderful Life". We have so much to be thankful for. Take care and until next time... Sincerely, December 23rd, 2009 - Overdue Update My apologies once again for not blogging lately. This has been a VERY slow fall with sales understandably down along with the number of people here to fish. Haven't had a legitimate fishing report since before Thanksgiving, so no news to report there. I wouldn't expect to see any fishermen in town until March, but if I make it out there, or if someone does make it to the river, I'll let you know the results. Otherwise, we have had no shortage of things to do. I have the IRS non-profit paperwork all filed for the museum foundation, so that is a relief to have out of the way. We should be able to make some progress on the WWII museum by spring. We have had some pretty amazing support and offerings from people, who had a family member serve in the war. Donations of photos, journals and even some cash have been wonderfully encouraging and has helped us get started. We have been very busy renovating the hangar, with a team of electricians here for the first half of December. I have been pouring concrete counter tops for the bathrooms and kitchens, so nice to have that out of the way. Still a lot of polishing to do on them though. I can't seem to do anything the easy way, what with pre-fab Formica that would work just fine... Oh well. Should be fun when it is all said and done... I'll try to do better over the next few winter months. Hang in there! We'll make it through the snowy season and the river will be chock-full of steelhead soon enough. November 25th, 2009 - My BIG OOPS! Just received a surprise call from Brad at the Juneau shop... He was a bit concerned that I had put him out of business with my blog entry from the 18th... I accidentally said the Juneau fly shop was going out of business instead of the Sitka shop... OOPS!!! Sales have been slow in Juneau just as they have been everywhere, but Brad will still be in business! I changed the blog entry to show Sitka, but please help support both these shops if you can. Having a local shop is a vital life-blood for supporting our fly fishing passion. Each and every one of these small Alaskan communities needs to have the local resource available for supplies, but even more importantly - for educating our local populace on the virtues of protecting our fishing resources. Here in Yakutat, our community has always based its economy on the consumption of our fish. Catch-and-release has never been something to promote. Even the meat fishermen catch-and-release most of the fish they catch (with a daily bag limit of two silvers, or three sockeye), but need to learn better handling and release techniques to increase the survival rates of the fish they don't take home. The local fly shop is the ideal venue for disseminating quality information to the public about how to use the resource in a manner that will protect it for future generations, even while filling the freezer. Save the local fly shop and you help save the local fishery from abuse. As I said in my previous blog entry, check in with the Sitka shop to see if you can fulfill your Christmas shopping needs - or the Juneau shop, or Ketchikan, or Anchorage, or the shop down the street from your house. November 18th, 2009 - The Sitka Shop I just heard some unfortunate news today. The fly shop in Sitka is closing down. With the downturn in tourism in this economy, they have been hit exceptionally hard and it looks like next year was shaping up to be even worse. If you have a way to support them and help reduce the hardship of closing their doors, I would really encourage you to do so. I don't know how they plan to dispose of their inventory, so if you need Christmas ideas, give them a call and see what you can do. Not just to try and get some really good deal, let's see if we can get a good deal while helping their Christmas to be a little brighter too. Starting a new fly shop right as the economy tanked probably wasn't the brightest idea in the world. This has been a wonderful experience, as well as a risky and scary adventure to put my family through. Fly shops all across the country are dropping like... well... flies. The combination of warehouse stores popping up everywhere and the crushing economic downturn has put a lot of really great shops out of business. Please, whenever possible, try to check with the little guy first. One wader sale can make a big difference on his bottom line for a small mom and pop business. The shop in Sitka is just one more victim. If you want to have an option when you head to a destination, you may want to think about supporting them before it is too late and there are no destination fly shops left. November 11th, 2009 - The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month... A Veterans Day Message from Bob:
When I was in my early
teens, my dad freelanced as
Yakutat’s primary aircraft mechanic.
On weekends between our commercial fishing openers on the Italio,
he and I would fly to town to perform 100 hour and annual
inspections on Yakutat’s motley fleet of planes.
He would put me to work cleaning and organizing some of the side
rooms of the hangar mostly as a way of keeping me out of his hair,
so he could get his work done.
I have such “fond memories” of organizing several 5 gallon
buckets of assorted rivets. As
a father, I now understand
just how wonderful some pointless and menial project is for keeping the
kids occupied for a few hours… Setting
As a child of the
1970’s and the My dad joined the Air
Force and served most of his time in My grandfather was
colorblind. Although this is
not an obstacle for service now, it
was back in the 1940’s. Instead
of military service, he
supported the war effort in the Merchant Marine as a radio operator and
repairman – delivering goods and supplies to our solders fighting the
Japanese in the South Pacific. The
thing that fascinates me the most about the WWII era is that EVERYONE
served our nation in some way to stop the Axis Powers.
No part of To quote the movie The Incredibles, “and when everyone is super, no one will be”. It is easy to honor the valiant men and women who serve the cause of freedom now a days because so few rise to the occasion. Three generations ago, everyone served – everyone was special – everyone was literally a Super Hero – and therefore no one was special. They served, sacrifices, died, lost fathers, children, built B-17’s, planted their backyard “Victory Gardens”, pulled the tires off their cars. They rationed sugar and gas, they did without to make sure resources were available to fight the Germans and Japanese. Today, we sacrifice nothing and take for granted all the freedoms we enjoy. We sure have come a long way… It took 60 years before the veterans of the greatest world conflict ever to have a memorial built in our nation’s capital to honor their thankless sacrifices.
I am proud to announce
the beginning of the Yakutat History Foundation.
Our mission will be to “document the role Stay tuned to this web site for more information about the foundation, the museum and (if you are interested) how you can help support our efforts. We have a tremendous amount of work ahead of us, but that work pales in comparison to what the men and women of “the Greatest Generation” sacrificed on our behalf. Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, comments, or concerns. Thank you for serving our country and for protecting freedom throughout the world. As we cope with our modern world and changing values, the greatest hope I have is to be able to share with our future generations, the sacrifices and challenges that these proud men and women faced so that we all can now live and raise our children in a free world. Do not lose sight of that. Freedom is not free and it must be protected - violently if need be. And we can never forget those who have given us that freedom. Not just on Veterans Day, but every day we live and breath. Sincerely, PS. The two photos above were taken by an American hero named Derral J. Allen in 1943 while he was stationed here in Yakutat. The P-38 Lightning parked in front of the hangar ended its service just 3 months after the photo was taken when it crashed on Attu Island on February 1st, 1944. The aircraft had at least two Japanese "kills" in the Aleutian campaign before meeting its demise. The second photo shows two SBD Dauntless dive bombers parked on the ramp directly in front of where Alsek Air's building is now. The original control tower is in the background. A relative of Mr. Allen has been coming to fish the Situk for years and took the time to make copies of these and other photos in the family collection for us to use. A very special thank you to the Gould and Allen families for being willing to share a part of their history, to help us tell a part of Yakutat's history through the foundation's work. We'll be putting together a separate web site for the museum as we move through this coming winter and more time allows. Stay tuned. November 1st, 2009 - Birth of a Mountain We awoke yesterday morning to a light dusting of snow on the ground. It was gone from anywhere the sunlight touched in short order, but it did signal the coming of winter. This morning, we woke to about 5 inches of heavy snow covering everything and Yakutat once again looks like a gorgeous Rockwell painting of Christmas. The state guys are hard at work scraping the ramp into the early lump that will grow into our annual airport snow mountain. The forecast is calling for intermittent snow showers, turning to rain by 1pm. Looks like we'll have at least a week of snow at night, followed by rain in the afternoon. Not much in the way of accumulations are expected, so access to the Situk should remain open. Things have been slow around here, so not too much to report lately (obviously by my lack of updates). November is upon us, so expect our winter steelhead to be arriving over the next few weeks. More on that in the river reports page... New Hours: -Bob October 1st, 2009 - Political News Worth Including Once before, I included a link to a newspaper article here on the blog because of how important the cause was for our modern veterans. Today, I am posting the complete text from a news report effecting just a tiny handful of veterans, but the effects are absolutely appalling. No big secret... I'm not too impressed by the performance of our current national government administration. I didn't vote for our president, however he won and therefore is MY president (a concept that was alien to so many over the previous 8 years, but is expected by those same individuals of me. Not to worry, those are already my beliefs). 65+ years ago, thousands of mostly native Alaskans volunteered for service to a country that did not consider them Americans. They stood in defense of freedom at a time when they lacked such freedom themselves. Now, more than half a century later, our government is choosing to deny them recognition for their service and sacrifice. This wasn't state service, Alaska wasn't a state. They were taking a stand to prevent the possible invasion of North America by the Japanese through the territory of Alaska - to "protect and defend" the United States. Something President Obama needs to start doing. Our president wants to deny this handful of Alaska natives benefits for their WWII military service because they weren't "Americans" yet, while doing all he can to extend benefits to modern illegal aliens. (According to the Congressional Budget Office, Joe Wilson was correct) This makes me sick. Here is the article: YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORKWhite House: No pensions for World War II vets Amazing sacrifice of unpaid Alaskan heroes not counted as federal military service Posted: October 01, 2009 1:25 am Eastern By
Chelsea Schilling
The Obama administration has advised Congress to cut off pensions for 26 elderly members of the World War II-era Alaska Territorial Guard who served the nation without pay during the Japanese attack. According to McClatchy Newspapers, the administration sent a "strongly worded" message to Congress concerning its priorities for a military spending bill, and the service members didn't make the cut. The Army changed its minimum retirement policy in January to no longer include service in the Guard toward the 20-year service requirement. A Senate military spending bill up for a vote in the Senate lets the 26 former Guard members count their service as active military duty so they may receive retirement pay. McClatchy reported that Alaska state lawmakers passed a bill to compensate the veterans until Congress came up with a permanent solution. But the White House said Sept. 25 that's it's not "appropriate to establish a precedent of treating service performed by a state employee as active duty for purposes of the computation of retired pay." Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the Obama administration's statements "deeply disappointing, bordering on insensitive." "The administration's justification, which is that the legislation will set the precedent of treating service as a state employee as federal service, defies logic and history," she said in a statement. "Sixty-two years after the Territorial Guard was disbanded, the Obama administration minimizes the contribution of this gallant unit to America's success in World War II by calling its service 'state service.'" More than 6,600 Alaskans volunteered to serve in the Alaska Territorial Guard, a component of the U.S. Army organized in response to Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941. According to the Tundra Drums, the male and female volunteers ranged in age from 11 to 80 years old, and they guarded their assigned territory with no pay and little equipment until the Alaska Territorial Guard was disbanded in 1947. Because Alaska was still a territory and not an official U.S. state, the volunteers' enlistments were not counted as federal military service until 2004.
In January, Alaska's then-Gov. Sarah Palin learned the retirement payments to Alaska's Territorial Guard would be cut off, so she wrote a letter to President Obama. "This unfortunate decision was made without any notice to those affected and will cost a group of elderly Alaska veterans a significant portion of their retirement income at a time when the cost of living, particularly in rural Alaska, is substantially higher than in the rest of the United States," she wrote. "Prior to World War II, Alaska's territorial Governor was authorized by Congress to organize a two-branch military response organization – the organized National Guard, and the ATG, which would mobilize to help defend Alaskans in the event of an invasion. An estimated 6,600 men and women, mostly Alaska Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts, responded to that call. Instead of hunting, trapping and fishing, they patrolled rural Alaska and served as the eyes and ears of the Army for more than five years without pay and benefits." Palin said it took nearly 60 years before those men and women would be honored for their service to the country – and most died waiting for that recognition. She said the service of those soldiers is to Alaska what the service of the militia at Lexington and Concord was to New England. "Now they are being told, again, that their ATG service is not worthy of federal recognition, and that is not right," she wrote. "These people are our heroes."
September 16th, 2009 - Getting to Know You Last year - our first year of being open, I was in my usual position of playing on the Italio throughout September. While running my guide business out there, I certainly get to meet plenty of people who fly out to the Middle and Old Italio Rivers. This year, with bookings down and most of my September schedule free, I have been able to stay back in town and enjoy working the shop with Teen. One of the big surprises about being a guide had been how much I would enjoy meeting people and sharing my home on the Italio with those who "get it". Growing up out there since I was 4 years old, in the same little shack on the beach I still call home, my parents had trained me and my sisters to be rude and/or not to speak to these "invaders"... Sure, a few of the people who pass through are twits, but the vast majority of people we have had the pleasure of meeting have just been great men and women who are careful about not leaving a mess and not damaging the resources that my family has depended on for survival for four decades. Even though I have spent most of this fall here in town, we continue to meet some pretty interesting people and it is fun to expand our circle of friendship to include such a wide-range of outdoorsmen and women. This past week, we had two people pass through the shop that I wanted to mention. The first was "CohoBob", from the new message boards. There have been many total strangers who have been helping to make the message boards into a fledgling community - asking and answering questions, posting stories and photos - pitching in to help make the forums into a worthy endeavor. About a quarter of the people on the forums are people that I know, or have met. The rest - I have no idea who they are... Having a chance to meet another person who has a passion for this river and area (like CohoBob) is fun. Thanks Bob for helping us make the forums a success. The other guy who passed through the shop this week, I met a decade ago at the very beginning of my fly fishing journey. Charlie Banta came through and talked to me when I was loitering in my sport show booth in Denver exactly 10 years ago. Although Charlie didn't book a trip with Italio River Adventures, he has checked in periodically over the years to ask a question, or badger me about something. Once I ran into him on the Italio during a day fly-out, but this week, we had a chance to catch up and visit here in the fly shop. Charlie brought Charlie Jr. up for the first time this year, so now he is infecting another generation with the Situk fishing bug. Now, we just need to keep harassing Charlie till he breaks down and stops chucking the spin gear... OK, that's funny... I was typing Charlie's name when he just walked in through the door to say goodbye. I thought he had already left town... Anyway... Bob and Charlie are bookends to my life as a fly fishing guide - having met Charlie the winter before we finished building our Italio camp and now Bob, who joined one of my latest projects - the message boards/forums. With the slow economy, traffic through Yakutat has been down by at least half. Even so, we have done OK in the shop and this year looks to be another successful season. We'll still keep the doors open through the end of December, for the winter steelhead run and Christmas holidays. I'm most looking forward to meeting a few more people as this season winds down to its conclusion. Especially those die-hard psychos that we'll see in November and December as the snow flies and the steelhead start in again. Thank you to all the Bobs and Charlies that have helped make this shop work and for making our lives richer by becoming our friends.
There are definitely drawbacks in being homeschooled. For starters, we homeschool the kids year 'round, but that does allow us to take any time off we feel like - whether for our trip to Disneyland and the Palm Springs Air Museum last February for a month, or a camping trip in the midst of the spring steelhead run. One ritual we have is to play hooky on the first day of public school and take the kids out to breakfast. Eden doesn't seem to have the concept down, since she insisted on bringing her penmanship workbook along to draw letters and color. Oh well. Tanis understood the concept pretty well of skipping school... well... sort of. He spent the afternoon curled up on the couch reading his reader anyway... So much for trying not to learn anything.
August 29th, 2009 - Signs of the Times Our biggest problem of course as a new shop is visibility. Few people have known that we exist and a lot of people have called, or e-mailed after they left Yakutat - surprised that there was a fly shop and they didn't know it when they were here. So... in an effort to increase our visibility, we had some new signs made to direct people to the hangar.
Hopefully we won't be missed by those who want to find us. Thanks to the folks who strongly recommended we put up better signage. With travel down precipitously though Yakutat this year, every little bit will help us survive. As you can see, the building still looks like a dump on the outside, but we have made tremendous strides of progress toward renovating the inside. Unfortunately the siding will have to wait till we get farther along on the interior rooms. I have high hopes for being far enough along to start displaying some of my WWII historical collection by next season. This is a VERY big project and like eating an elephant, you can only tackle it one bite at a time. Thanks for your support and encouragement through Teen's and my little fixer-upper project. August 25th, 2009 - Has it really been a month? WOW! I guess it has been a month since I put anything here. Things have been hectic, even if traffic through Yakutat has been on the slow side. I just returned from a week of guiding on the Italio and we had a wonderful time catching more silvers than we ever expected. With the economy in the tank, traffic through Yakutat has been VERY slow. A lot of cancellations, but also a struggle for the big groups that do still make it, to fill their usual slots. Ya, it is a bummer for local businesses trying to survive, but there is an up-side too from my demented perspective. I'm getting to meet some really excited and enthusiastic new guys, who have always longed to be "in the group", but haven't been able to get their foot in the door... With the regulars cancelling, there has been some new blood coming along for the first time. This morning, I had the great pleasure of chatting with an older guy who had some really great and pointed questions about the hangar. His memories and stories from the past were wonderful. He was a child then and remembered having nightmares of "Japs" in the closet. In addition to talking about racism and the vocabulary of the time... It was fascinating to hear his perspective on growing up in that time of hardship and fear. No "Monsters Inc" style monsters in his closet, it was a "real" irrational childhood fear, where his dad would open the door and show that there weren't any people with guns threatening to kill him. What a different world we live in now. OK, so things did get political too, in that the current crop of Americans have seen such a long time of affluence that we are probably incapable of rising to tackle challenges that we may potentially face. That "greatest generation" universally risked all to save the planet. Set aside their personal desires to fight for freedom throughout the world, then returned to a home that would have seemed so alien from the struggles they had just survived. A thankless sacrifice that took 60+ years to be given a memorial in our nation's capital. So few sacrifice anything now, let alone go without the latest IPod model... On another note... living in Yakutat, we can be pretty isolated from the real world in many ways. It is so appreciated when people come and share a little piece of their own world - something that may be common to them, but is pretty exotic to a family trapped in Yakutat's small world. The genuine Wisconsin cheese we had a couple weeks ago tasted AMAZING, so a big thank you to our generous visitor from WI. As I have mentioned before, Tanis is amassing a pretty neat collection of WWII artifacts for the museum. Another "donation" came in this month in the form of a "Carlisle Bandage" tin. EVERY soldier carried one of these throughout the war, so it isn't exactly a rare item, but we aren't looking for just rarities for the museum. This item resulted in yet another exercise in HomeSchooling research - yielding a treasure trove of info. The brass cases like this one were replaced with plastic in 1943, since metal was fast becoming a scarce resource. Let me just thank all of you who have taken the time to enrich our lives with your stories and occasional treasures. I know my kids are blessed knowing and experiencing the wider world through the sharing of the wonderful people that have passed through the shop, or have visited with us out on the Italio on a day fly-out. Thank you. August 3rd, 2009 - Fascinating Finds Not much in the way of exciting news around here lately... Just holding down the fort and renovating the hangar as time permits. Bored out of his skull, Tanis went on a little fishing expedition yesterday to what the kids call "Frog Pond", a deeper spot in the drainage ditch around the back side of the hangar. To everyone's surprise except his, Tanis managed to hook three fish and land two. One was an 11 inch cutthroat and the other appears to be a small 6 inch salmon. I can't really confirm the species identity, because it found its way into one of the rainwater totes along the backside of the building. The little bugger doesn't want to be caught a second time, so we'll have to wait for some of the water to get used up before we can rescue him and return him to the cesspool that is "Frog Pond". Yesterday, Eden was not to be left out of exciting finds... She managed to discover a 1929 quarter in amongst the teetering pillars of rust we call the "hangar doors". There has been very little to find laying around the hangar of any interest or value, after decades of neglect, pilfering and a total disregard for historic value by past tenants. OK, so it is just a quarter worth maybe five bucks in the condition it is in, but still a fun find for a 6 year old.
July 25th, 2009 - A Great Story Please give this story a read. A
noble cause, for two soldiers that deserve our thanks: I'm back from my last week of commercial fishing on the Akwe. That season is over and we are on to another focus. Sockeye still stream into the rivers right now and they have even opened the Situk to retention of king salmon again. We have a bit of a lull in town right now, usually between runs this time of the summer, even though with our big runs this year there doesn't seem to be any lull in the fishing. Just in the number of people fishing... More later, when I get caught up again... July 10th, 2009 - Busy Time of Year Well, I thought things were crazy around here last month... I can't seem to catch my breath enough to make many entries. I even managed to type up two long and thoughtful responses to one question on the message boards, only to both times have the entry disappear... I didn't type it up a third time... We are frantically trying to make renovation progress on the hangar, while juggling the fly shop and commercial fishing out on the Akwe. Unfortunately, the blog and fishing reports have suffered a bit under the short time availability. I hope you will forgive me. It will all be worth it in the end though. Once we get this side of the hangar renovated, we'll have the time to start displaying our WWII historic artifacts. With the economy the way it is, there are some spectacular opportunities around and we're trying to take advantage of those as time and finances permit. With a little luck and assistance, I think some of you will be truly excited to come and see what we've done with the hangar and what we have been able to add to the collection. Anyone interested in lending a hand with the birth of our little museum, send me an e-mail. This is such an exciting time. On that note, we had another Army plane come through Yakutat last month. I didn't get photos posted then, so here they are now... This is a Cub with a fun paint job. Apparently it served in Italy post- war for a while...
July 2nd, 2009 - A Hard Lesson to Learn Oh, what a nightmare... We worked so hard to get the forums up and running and it was so great to see so many people register so quickly and participate. Then a couple days ago, the site went blank. Literally, there was NOTHING. The site crashed with no back-up and all registrations and postings were lost. The site is back up and running, but we'll need everyone to reregister from scratch. Please go ahead and let's restart the forums. It will be backed up nightly now though, so if this happens again, we won't lose everything. OK, someone ask a question and someone else answer it... http://www.situkriverboards.com Thanks, June 21st, 2009 - New Features I spent yesterday making up a new feature for the web site... Down on the left, you'll see a link for "Other Fishing Spots". I will gradually be profiling a variety of other spectacular places in and around Yakutat to fish, besides just the Situk River. Looking for a great out-of-the-way location to get away from the crowds? Well, here will be the list of interesting alternatives. Of course if I publish these secret locations, they won't stay fishermen-free. Then again, if we spread the wealth and people disperse throughout all the great areas, we won't have shoulder-to-shoulder fishing issues anywhere... Maybe... First up is Tawah Creek. Barely a stone's throw away from the airport, Tawah has a lot of stream to fish far from anyone else's footprints. You just have to walk across the meadows that it wanders through. 4 access points along about 10 miles of river. Get the heck away from the bridge and you can have an incredible experience well away from anyone else... At least 6 different species scattered through an incredibly long 9 month season. And I wanted to extend a big thanks to the people that joined the message boards in the first couple days. A couple great questions were asked and several great answers were given by the people who fish this river. I did change the link on the left to read "Situk Forums" instead of "Message Boards". Not sure how much of a difference that will make, but it was a recommendation to make it easier to understand what it is... June 14th, 2009 - Situk River Message Boards and Forums We have a "work in progress" to introduce to you... Announcing the Official Situk River Message Boards and Forums!!! Go to http://www.situkriverboards.com and log into the new message board. It is still evolving, but for the moment, we have a basic board that functions. Gradually we'll add things like categories, photos and anything else you suggest that makes sense. June 12th, 2009 - Waxed Cotton... OK, for those of you have been harassing me about getting the oil skin/waxed cotton fly shop hats... They finally arrived today. If you want one, give me a call and we'll mail it out to you. As always, free shipping/no tax on phone and internet sales. Teen (and Eden) will be here "staffing" the shop, while the guys go camping for a cub scouts trip to Ankau. She would be thrilled to help you with anything you need, provided it isn't a really hard question... Gotta go get the kayak in the water and all our camping gear ready... June 6th, 2009 - D-Day
Unrelated to D-Day, Tanis completed his SBD Dauntless in record time. Too bad out of the thousands of these planes made, only 4 remain in flyable condition. Tanis' is NOT one of the 4... yet.
Yesterday was a dark day, as the state finished dismembering the snow pile. Everyone has been commenting about the huge pile throughout the spring and taking pictures. It would have been quite the tourist attraction if they had left the sloppy pile of dirty snow to melt on its own. Even with this hotter than normal spring, I'll bet it would have remained on the ramp through August. Oh well. Too late now. At first, they walked
a big excavator up onto the to and proceeded to knock the top off the
pile. On to global
warming... with the kids swimming in the airport "pool"
(aka fish tote). They had a ball, until Tanis noticed the
mosquito larvae swimming around with them and then they came screaming
back into the fly shop. May 25th, 2009 - Memorial Day As we continue to renovate the hangar building, I am constantly surrounded by reminders of WWII and the sacrifices that generation made for the world and for each and every one of us. With our cynical modern America, it is sometimes hard to imagine a time when our entire nation could rally around a cause greater than our own selfish problems, to put their dreams on hold, their families out of their minds and risk their lives to save and protect parts of the world they had most likely never before seen or heard of. We do not necessarily live in a safer world now - 70 years after the start of WWII. Instead of Adolf Hitler promoting an idea of exterminating millions of Jews, we have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust ever happened and promoting the extermination of all Jews... and his nation trying to obtain nukes. A handful of years ago, we had Saddam Hussein paying rewards to the families of suicide bombers as a "thank you" gift for killing people at random in Israel. Not that every threat revolves around the Jewish state, it wasn't long ago that we had an "event" here in the US that to my estimation only took America about 3 months to put behind us and forget... Now what was the date of that "event" again?!?! We seem to only remember that day when bitching about having to take our shoes off at airports. Once upon a time, our grandparents (or parents if you are an older fart than I am, or possibly even you if you are a really really old fart...) lined up to serve their country. Over 400,000 of these Americans did not return to see their children grow up, did not see the invention of the internet and instant information at everyone's fingertips. They did not see air travel become as commonplace as riding the bus, or the notion of traveling 2-3000 miles just for a week-long fishing trip. Heck, half of them had they survived the war would have returned to a home without indoor plumbing... Our world is so different from theirs... Well, actually much of my life is still spent without indoor plumbing and reading to the family in the evenings by oil lamp, but I digress... These men (and a few women) also didn't return to witness returning soldiers getting spat on two decades later, or military officers allowing heroin to be smuggled back to the US in the coffins of dead servicemen. Two of the lowest points in our country's moral history, but fortunately we have also come a long way since the 1960's and 70's in some positive ways as well. In spite of what the media and politicians told us a few months ago, America largely looked at the new President not as a man of a different race, but simply a man with a better tan than the majority of the country. I can disagree with his policies and the direction my country is heading, but the racism that was ingrained in our society (and segregated military) 70 years ago has all but vanished in the minds of most of America (unless we are being reminded of past injustice by certain special interest groups to keep their entitlement programs, but I'm digressing again...). Memorial Day is a time when we are reminded to honor the men and women who have served selflessly in the cause of protecting our freedom - freedom we take for granted and do not remember their sacrifices the remaining 364 days a year. Freedom is a difficult concept for most of us to wrap our brains around, since most of us have never lived without it and have never before in our lifetimes known a time when that concept was threatened in a meaningful way. We forget that the majority of the world does not share in our ability to criticize government, select who leads our government - criticize who we select to lead our government... We criticize our military involvement and accuse our military of needlessly killing innocent civilians that have been used by "the enemy" as a human shield. An enemy that wants as their stated goal to eliminate all freedom in the world. How does one propose to negotiate and open a dialog with individuals who actively pursue the end of Western Civilization? In these times of instant communication, every single gruesome death on a battlefield is transmitted to anyone's phone, not just the 6 o'clock evening news. Crashing fully fueled commercial airliners into populated high-rise buildings is a truly awful concept that anyone can recognize as the true face of evil. Verbally preaching the total destruction of entire races and nations to generations of school children isn't less evil, but it is harder to package in a soundbite. The men and women who have been and will take on a far more difficult fight to protect the freedom of the world - a world that probably has no clue their freedom is even threatened - should be honored just as reverently as those who defended us against Hitler's Nazism. We live in a nation that abhors war, yet finds itself in the unenviable position of being the only nation willing to do anything about world problems. We were hesitant to involve ourselves in Europe's problems 70 years ago, just as we were hesitant to involve ourselves in Europe's problems 95 years ago (a war for which this holiday was invented to honor). There is absolutely no question as to whether Hitler, or Tojo should have been stopped - and when it came down to it, stopped at virtually all costs. 50 million dead across the entire globe at the hands of madmen... We continue to be hesitant to involve ourselves in world conflicts, therefore Pol Pot was able to exterminate 2 million Cambodians in the mid 70's and 2 million Rwandans lost their lives because of America's hesitation to act. The men and women in our military may occasionally hesitate in the face of danger as any free human should, however they do not fail to act when the need comes. They act - putting themselves in harm's way to protect our rights and freedoms, as well as the rights and freedoms of people all across the globe they will never know or meet. Few fight in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Kosovo, or Somalia because they want to. They do it because they know they must in order to raise their children in a free world. Today we honor those who have fallen as the ultimate sacrifice for our collective freedom. We don't just lay flowers at cemeteries in Arlington, Normandy, or Gettysburg. We also celebrate and honor those who did return to enjoy the freedoms they fought to preserve, sometimes with debilitating emotional and physical scars and sometimes with horrors buried deep in their conscience that they never spoke of. Today is a day "the rest of us" are reminded of those losses, those scars and those horrors witnessed by generations of soldiers and veterans who gave us all the best years of their lives - gave us the selfish freedoms we all take for granted. This photo was sent to me this weekend in one of those long chain-messages that I'm supposed to forward to 20 people or else... One photo that reminded me just how disconnected I am in my semi-comfortable life. I fish for a living, while there are Americans who protect me for their living and can only dream about fishing. Today, I'm remembering what they have done and are doing for me.
May 23rd, 2009 - Part 2 Well, there was a little excitement around the hangar today... The kids were goofing off for the camera with Tanis giving Eden moose antlers this morning...
Then the real thing appeared... It spent about 10 minutes wandering around the ramp in front of the hangar and Alsek Air's building before the state DOT truck came and shoo'd it off...
Just another day in the life here in Yakutat. May 23rd, 2009 - Back in the Saddle Another trip to the water, for an afternoon of fishing... Tanis and I joined Matt Crossett for a couple hours of sea-run cutthroat fishing on Tawah Creek. A school of 50+ cuts had been loitering under the bridge to Cannon Beach for a couple weeks, but by the time we joined them, they had been fished over pretty hard by everyone and their brother. Matt hooked up a couple immediately and somehow I managed to snag one in the belly within the first few minutes. Then Tanis and I managed to duplicate the "let's scare off all the fish" act we did when we went steelheading together... Matt wandered downstream away from the bridge - primarily to get away from the constant bickering that is parenting a juvenile... In short order, he hooked another, so Tanis decided to abandon dear old dad for Matt's higher success rate. I told Tanis to be sure and ask if it would be OK for him to come and fish near Matt... "Matt, I'm going to fish here!" Um... not quite the good river etiquette I'd like him to develop, but like I said a couple weeks ago, fishing with a 10 year old is a lot like fishing with a 9 year old. Boy, these are some jaded cutthroat! In the crystal-clear water, you could see every single fish. You could watch them come up to the fly, look from one side, switch to the other, charge at it, even whack it with their head. Then occasionally, they would back off, come down below it and suddenly shoot straight up in ambush to grab the fly. It was a pretty spectacular show, even if we didn't hook a whole lot of them. Matt managed to land 4 all on a pretty large black krystal-bugger. I used a variety of Tanis tied flies and had about a dozen strikes, but I think my hook was just too large for their mouths. I ended up resorting to a tiny commercially tied Alevin for the one fish I landed. Boy, when he first came up to the surface, he vomited three half digested salmon fingerlings, so he was pretty engorged already. Tanis briefly hooked several fish, but they all came off before he was able to land them. I think the oversized salmon hooks were his problem too. He ended up having a ball down below the hole in the shallows, getting 5 inch salmon fry to jump 6 inches out of the water to take a bite on his dangling fly... I had a flashback to my dad yelling at me to stop goofing off and fish properly... I resisted the urge to spoil Tanis' fun. When we first arrived at the bridge, a cow moose ambled over to the edge of the lake to lap water. Even with Tanis' squeals and an occasional passing car, the moose didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave. We had a bit of cloud cover, the water was gorgeous, it was fascinating to watch the cuts and balls of salmon fry, we had moose, mountains and spectacular scenery. It was a great way to spend a couple hours, only 5 minutes away from the airport.
May 21st, 2009 - In Reference to Yesterday's Blog Entry: Bob, Nice to see your back at it even though I have been waiting for the tirade. When I first read your post this morning, I was going to write and ask you to get your testicles out of your wife's purse and post it. But then I thought how often my own wife is correct in those kinds of matters and decided you did the right thing by not venting publicly. So how is the snow pile? When is the book going to get written and published? When I showed my family the Situk photos and told the stories (lies) of each catch, they were impressed and very excited for me. As I explained how one fish was caught on one of Eden's flies, the girls (wife and two daughters) in unison, said "awe that's so sweet". Matt L. Ouch! Thanks Matt, but in my defense, I think she keeps them in her fly vest... Every day, I count the blessings I have that Teen "allows" me to have a fly shop, guide business, commercial fishing permit and WWII hangar to play in. Teen hates seafood and REALLY hates to touch fish. With that said, you wouldn't have believed the grin on her face the first time she hooked a huge silver on a fly rod. All the guys were gathered around her cheering her on! It is an amazing experience to have her guide with me side by side. Essentially, people pay me for them to help her catch a fish... I think they have more fun helping her than catching the fish themselves though. And thanks for hooking one on Eden's fly. She was absolutely glowing when she heard her "interesting" design caught a fish. Now we have to keep her from following people around the store with her little cup of flies to sell, looking up at them with those eyes and guilting them into buying her flies. She looks like "The Little Match Girl" - barefoot and starving child labor... Another great blessing in my life. Eden LOVES fishing and the outdoors - so long as she can be in a pink princess dress. I need some pink waders.. For her! Not for me!!! May 20th, 2009 - New ADF&G Weir Web Site I typed up a really long tirade as a follow-up to my fishing report entry about rude fly shop owners... Why I better understand and feel their pain... Well, Teen wouldn't let me post it, so I haven't been blogging anything since then... Sorry. So, to jumpstart the blog after a whole 12 days off, here is the new web page for the ADF&G weir counts: http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/FishCounts/ You have to select the river you want and it has some really cool graphs that show the averages for the past three seasons. It really shows a late progression, as well as a decline on the total numbers each of the last three years. We'll see how this one shapes up and if we see another decline... They did count 50 fish passing through yesterday, so we may yet see our spring run... May 8th, 2009 - Odd Comment... Last night, one of the guys camping at the bridge came in for a fresh batch of flies to try. They have been spending the day around the campfire and going fishing in the evenings when the fishing is a little better. Boy, those guys can start to stink after a week by the fire. Usually from BO, but yesterday like a barbeque. I was hungry already after being here for 14 hours, but that smell really was driving me nuts! The ol' Pavlov's Dog, with me drooling over the stench of a fisherman. Why do chicks use floral perfume to supposedly attract guys? I need Teen to stink herself up with campfire smell! Now THAT would be a big seller if you want to attract guys. Only chicks would be attracted to other chicks smelling like a flower arrangement. I want my chick to smell like smoldering moose steak! No, I was NOT attracted to the guy! Um... How 'bout that Bears game... May 4th, 2009 - Great Ol' Planes Living in Yakutat and loving old planes, we do get more than our fair share of cool eye candy. Tonight, a 1946 Consolidated/Vultee L-13A landed and is spending the night, on its way to a new home in Anchorage. This is a post-war reconnaissance plane, and a mighty neat one at that. The huge cockpit is enough to fit 8 seats, yet just has two up front. Tanis saw it taxiing in and went a bit nuts! He couldn't wait for me to get the hangar doors open, so he could get a closer look. Here is a closer look for you...
May 2nd, 2009 - Fishing with a 10 YO Well, to sum up Tanis and my fishing trip to 9 Mile on the 29th... Fishing with a 10 year old is a lot like fishing with a 9 year old... We went out and set up camp, wadered up, wandered down below the bridge, found fish almost immediately, started casting and... It was far more important for Tanis to get his fly back than to have fish in front of us. "Dad, go get my fly". This was his day, so we did what he wanted. The fish didn't seem eager to have me standing next to them, so away they went. We wandered our way back up to the bridge and made a few fruitless casts into the pool, but then Tanis wanted to go play in the fire... That pretty much sums up our fishing adventure. We roasted Spamdogs as dusk turned to dark. A couple groups wandered by on their way to their cars, with one group stopping in to visit around the campfire. This is the first time I have ever camped up there at the bridge... Come to think of it, this is the first time I have camped near other humans that weren't with me... It was a great experience. That is what makes this steelhead season such a wonderful time of year around here. We are all essentially in the same boat. It is a catch-and-release fishery, so you don't have the compulsive numbers guys as much. They treat the river with respect, they pick up after others... Just a great time of year with great people who appreciate this place for what it is - warts and all. There were a total of 4 cars and 4 tents including ours. Two singles and two doubles. We had one group of 5 also fishing, plus a group of 2 and another with 3. 16 people TOTAL in the entire upper river. Everyone treated Tanis like one of their own. If I haven't said this already, it was a great experience with some great people around. The next morning, we wandered down below the bridge again, but no fish in the spots where we had seen them the night before. By 9am, only 6 boats had launched, so it was looking like a pretty slow day on the river - pressure-wise. We headed out after having a brief amount of time on the river, but it also left Tanis in the mood for wanting more in another week. We didn't hook him a steelie, but the season is young and I'll have to try and get another hall pass from the fly shop monitor (Teen) so we can try again next week. I had left something out there near the bridge, so after the shop closed, I drove back out that night. I found 17 cars around the area with 6 tents in the parking lot alone and who knows how many scattered through the trees. Holy Cow! What a circus! I'm so glad we hit it when we did and had the wonderful experience the night before. The ferry had come in and I think a big wad of fishermen had come down from Anchorage for the weekend. The outbound flights are booked heavy today and tomorrow, so looks like that is exactly what happened. Pretty incredible weather for it, even if fishing was on the "challenging" side. I'll post today's fishing report on the other page now... April 29th, 2009 - We Have a Winner! This is Tanis' third year of participating in the Pinewood Derby. He has never made a fast car, in fact he hasn't ever won a race. He wanted to make a tank, not exactly a streamlined design, so he didn't have very high expectations going into this. He had his sights set on the ribbon for "best design", knowing "fastest" was going to be out of his reach. To everyone's (and especially his) surprise, Tanis managed to go undefeated throughout the evening to take both ribbons for best design AND 1st place for speed. He was trying as best he could to be humble, but the boy was beaming. He was beaming before the races started, with how proud he was of his car. I think he had a pretty darned cool birthday. Now tonight, we are heading to 9 Mile to camp and to see if we can hook him his first steelhead. I'll let you know tomorrow how that goes. In the meantime, here are a couple non-fishing photos... A big congrats to everyone who participated and those parents who helped out. Second was a very close battle between Joshua and Quinn. Good job guys. We had 8 participants, which is a pretty good showing for Yakutat.
April 28th, 2009 - Tanis' Birthday Well, besides it being Tanis' 10th birthday today, we have the Cub Scout's Pinewood Derby tonight. The shop is now closed for the day (5:30pm). Eden made her own little pink hotrod as well. Here is how his "car" turned out:
We'll let you know how the race goes tomorrow... April 27th, 2009 - Sunny Skies, Losing Our Snow Pile With 2-3 river reports a day, I haven't really had anything coherent to say on the blog page of late. So... Just to fill some space, we'll talk about snow. One of the first comments all newcomers seem to make is, "I've never seen a snow pile that big before!". Well, it has shrunk a couple dozen feet off it's top height this year already and now the state has started carving it up and hauling it away. Bummer, since it is quite the tourist attraction and would be cool to have still sitting on the ramp through the summer...
It was cool and foggy most of the morning, so the sunny high temp only reached 46. The water temperature just shot up over 44 degrees - warmest so far this year! A VERY slow morning and afternoon should be a pretty good evening, with the fish starting to wake from their cold-water comas. OK, that's about all I have. Traffic through the shop is pretty slow today in the nice weather, so I'm heading back upstairs to work on sheetrock. April 25th, 2009 - Open Boat on 28th-30th! Joe had his fishing buddies cancel on him this week, so he is looking for a fishing partner or two for drifting the river this coming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He already has the boat lines up, but would prefer not to handle the boat and fish alone. If anyone is interested in sharing a drift boat this coming week, contact him (or me...). He is staying John Latham at the Blue Heron and the number there is (907)784-3287. April 22nd, 2009 - A VERY Quiet Day This has been a VERY quiet day around here. Not a single e-mail came in all morning. Apparently the EarthLink server was down and all messages to my inbox were lost. If you had a question and sent an e-mail, send it again. I didn't get anything... April 21st, 2009 - Where's My Dinner? Last night, Teen promised me she'd bring me out some dinner. Two hours late, I was wondering just what awful things that kids had done to delay her. I was getting a little hungry after all. Turns out there was a rather large whale in the bay, right next to the dock and swimming around the boats that are tied up. Our little shack-of-a-house does have an incredible view of the bay and watching out our windows can seem like a National Geographic special sometimes. Usually, it is just the pods of porpoise circling around the herring and baitfish schools before taking turns crashing through the dense biomass to feed. About once every 4 years or so, a whale will wander into the inner bay and last night was our visit for the next few years. They let my dinner get cold, so they could sit in the sunset watching a whale from the porch. Did she bother to take a picture for me to see? Of course not. Women! Where's my dinner? April 20th, 2009 - Open Late! Just in case you didn't notice the change in our hours... Yesterday we officially changed to an 8pm closing time. A few of you expressed concern about being out on the water between the hours of 8am and 6pm... Well, I would expect more than a few of you will be out on the water after darkness sets in - especially since we have had the last evening high tides at 10 and 11pm... I'd be out there at the mouth working those incoming schools in my headlamp... Also, I am usually working on the hangar upstairs till 10pm every night anyway, so don't hesitate to come out late if you need something. I'll need the break from mudding and taping anyway. If the lights are on, just honk and I'll come down. Last night, we had a leaky wader emergency at 9pm and the guys seemed concerned that they were inconveniencing me... Um... if all you want is one single Glo Bug, that's $1.35 closer to paying my power bill, so don't hesitate to "inconvenience" me all you want. Had a visit from a family from Juneau today. I didn't catch his name unfortunately, but the younger guy is a WWII buff. He wanted a tour of the hangar (unfortunately there isn't too much to see yet, but I'm limping closer and closer) and I carted out some of my old newspapers and things to show off. They were talking about grandpa's time stationed in the Aleutians and his time in the ball turret of a bomber. We are losing that generation so fast now and another generation capable of sacrificing it all as they did to save the world will never come again. We all owe them so much. One of my goals with the hangar will be to tell the story of Alaska's experience during the war. If you or anyone you may have known served in Alaska during, before or after WWII, please contact me. I'd like to have stories and photos of their experiences shown on the walls throughout the building, along with artifacts and documents that I have collected over the years. It doesn't have to be just Yakutat, but anywhere in Alaska. Imagine being plucked off the farm as an 18 year old, shipped off to some "nowhere" with a funny name in a territory that wouldn't be a state for another 20 years... Get off the boat, ride the train out to somewhere half-way between barely a town and the end of the tracks. Then carve an airfield out of the muskeg when you probably haven't ever even been on a plane! This of course all happened a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor... Yakutat's advanced long-range strategic bomber base had it's grand opening in August of 1941 - three months before we entered the war... Kind of makes you wonder what we knew and when we knew it... Help me keep this history alive!!! I never expected to have a role in preserving this ol' building and the history it represents. Photos and personal stories are the two things I need help with the most. Over the past decade of guiding and the last year working in the shop, Teen and I have met so many really incredible people. You can't begin to understand what your support and encouragement has meant to us. Thanks! April 18th, 2009 - Part 2 Eden has been pestering us for two weeks now for one of the little stuffed moose toys we have here at the shop. Well, she has to buy it with her own money, so we have been telling her she needs to save for the whopping $7 to buy it. Well, yesterday a kind fisherman bought three of her flies, putting her half-way to what she needs. Apparently she knows a little about suggestive selling. Today, she badgered these poor guys into buying one a piece. Looking up at them with her sympathetic eyes, holding out her little tin of flies... She bought her moose, plus a candy bar for herself and a bag of cashews for her brother. Not a bad day for munchkin sales today. I asked her if tomorrow she would try that sales approach with fly rods instead... April 18th, 2009 - FAQ's So there are the bear questions and the bug questions... What to bring, fish counts, etc... One of the most common questions of late has been "Who is this 'Teen'?" OK, since it is a very odd name for an adult, here is the answer... "Teen" is short for Christine. My 40 year old wife is eternally a "Teen" because in Australia, that is actually a somewhat common short version of Christine. Sometimes, you get a little baggage when you have a mail order bride and I definitely imported mine. She actually moved to Montana when she was 13 when her mum married a "Yank". She doesn't have any accent, unless she is on the phone with her mom. Teen is still an Australian citizen, so can't vote and according to my sister, doesn't have an opinion because she doesn't vote. Teen: Wife of 15 years, mother of my children, fly fishing babe and fly shop model. And after reading this to her, a very blushing bride... Always important to embarrass and humiliate your loved ones publicly whenever possible. April 14th, 2009 - Jobs I'm down in Seattle right now, buying supplies and loading my container for shipment back to Yakutat. I thankfully fly home tomorrow morning after 4 hectic days down here in the real world. As odd as life in Yakutat can be, there really is no place like home. While at Home Despot, the guy behind the Special Services counter suddenly burst out, "Fly shop?!?!" after reading my invoice. We had a conversation about fishing, which seems to follow me around where ever I go. His coworker said she always wanted to learn how to fly fish... It is a common reaction when people young and old realize that I make my living (or at least I try to) on the river fishing. When I'm not fishing, I get to talk fishing. What makes the fly shop great is that when the conditions really suck out on the river, we still get to be "about fishing". We tie flies, we talk about what went wrong, what went right, what we caught, what we didn't... "About fishing" is almost as good as "fishing" sometimes. Especially when the sleet is sideways, or the fish are "between runs". Trips down to "America" are nice for the chance to see family and visit with friends again. I went to my uncle's house to look through some of the artifacts they have been discovering in my grandmother's basement. Uncle Ron wanted me to come over and take a look at a few things they had found, like an old WWII signal light box that had my dad's name painted on it. No idea what he could have used it for - probably his grade school lunchbox, for all we know. Ron had found some great photos of grandpa Len, like his high school graduation picture and some of the things he had stuffed away in that moldy and damp basement. Grandpa was a marine radio repairman, who flew his Cessna 206 up the Gulf of Alaska every summer to fix radios all along the coast - from Ketchikan to Bristol Bay. Back in the mid-1950's, Len was sent to a tiny village to fix the cannery's radios. He fell in love with Yakutat and came back year after year with grandma Mable for the next 4 decades to "work", repairing the radios on fishing boats and planes. Along the way, he brought his sons up from time to time and when my dad was laid off from Boeing during the "will the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights" recession, my unemployed dad built a little plywood troller and headed straight to Yakutat. My dad loved to fish and to fix airplanes. He spent nearly two decades in Yakutat doing both. Uncle Ron was talking about just how much grandpa Len loved what he did. When people had a problem, they called him. They were desperate to have him help them, therefore everyone always loved to see grandpa arrive. He would solve their problem and so they were always thrilled with him when he left. How could you not appreciate living a life, where your work was to bring relief and joy to all that called upon you. Grandpa was very good at what he did. A year after he died, a fisherman told me he was saving an old tube side-band radio for Len to fix because "Len is the only guy who can fix these things". Unfortunately I had to tell him it was time to throw that radio away. I remember being with grandpa on a job in Naknek (this was actually Teen's first trip to Alaska - long before I bought the cabin back). He paused with a bundle of brightly colored wires in his hand... then he snipped the brown wire and went on with his work. How a colorblind guy could tell the difference between all those virtually identical wires, I'll never know. Grandpa loved Alaska, loved tinkering with radios, loved planes and loved to help people. These things were his "job". Believe it or not, I hated fishing when I was a kid. When I was 14, my dad essentially asked me what I wanted to be when I great up. Commercial fisherman was not my answer. You never understand the value of what you have until after you lose it. I bought my dad's cabin and commercial fishing permit back from the guy dad had sold it to shortly before he died. It took me about 10 years to grow up, get my act together and realize getting the ol' cabin back into the family was more than just a need. My dad started out hand-trolling, but decided to sell the boat and fish the Italio River instead, where he could raise his family together on the beach. The Kracker-Lass was way too small for a family. Heck, I think dad thought it was too small for just him and me when I was 5 years old! He would put me in the gill-net skiff and let out about 50 feet of line, so my constant chatter wouldn't drive him nuts while trolling all day on the tiny boat. If any of you have experienced Eden's constant chatter here at the shop, well now you know where she gets it... Dad LOVED to fish. He loved fly fishing for steelhead, but oddly never touched a fly rod after coming to Alaska. He loved fishing regardless of how he did it. Trolling, or gill-netting - it didn't matter. He was scratching a meager life out for his family doing something he absolutely loved. When fishing was slow, he would go to town and work on Yakutat's fleet of small planes. He loved tinkering with planes just as much as he loved to fish. The first paid job I ever had was sorting buckets of rivets, sweeping rooms and opening access panels on planes in the hangar we now have our fly shop in. Both grandpa Len and my dad lived a blessed life doing what they loved to do - day in and day out. You would call it "work", but the jobs they chose were a love. If we could all be so fortunate... During what I refer to as my "lost weekend" (college years when I was not in Yakutat), I learned to fly, met Teen and experienced the wider world outside of Yakutat. I gave up my desire to become an airline pilot when I realized most of the commercial pilots I knew didn't love flying anymore. It had become just a job to them. I remember something profound I saw while working at Crest Airpark in Kent, Washington during my lost weekend. The Red Baron Pizza flight team came to take people on rides as a promotion. The second the clock ticked 5pm, all the pilots had an open beer in hand - even if they didn't drink any of it. They had their practiced excuse as to why they couldn't take another flight. They fly historic open cockpit biplanes for a living and in the end it is just a job. What was different about how my dad looked at his "jobs"? And grandpa Len? Well, here I am fishing for a living. Fishing was something I was "forced to do" when I was a kid and it took me a while to realize just how blessed I was. That started to dawn on me during my lost weekend, when grown men would get all teary-eyed when I would explain the life I had (and walked away from) growing up. It wasn't till I had lost all this that I came to understand just what a bozo I was for not appreciating the blessed life I had. 11 years ago, I was first exposed to fly fishing and suddenly, "fishing" was a completely different world from chucking spinners out and reeling them back in over and over. It was like something I had never known. Fishing now is something I love. I don't think fishing changed. The way I look at the world certainly has though. Grandpa solved people's problems and loved doing it. Here at the fly shop, I get to do the same thing. Most people swing though the shop just looking for a souvenir, or some little item of not much consequence. Some come in hoping for that little piece of information that will turn their so so trip into something special. I certainly don't have all the answers and so many of you know far more than I do about "my" business. Often I come away from a discussion with a lot more gain than anyone else in the room. Sometimes, I am able to help solve someone's problem. Worst case, I get to talk "about fishing". Better case, I get to go fishing. Best case, I get to go fishing with my young son who also loves fishing. Something I didn't ever force upon him for obvious reasons. I truly have a blessed life, with a "job" that brings joy to me as well as to those who come through the shop. The best part is in having my family with me for the entire journey. And now with the hangar, I also get to play with planes too. What could be better? I can't begin to imagine... -Bob PS. My apologies if some of these posts this week are a bit on the long and "reflective" side. I turned 41 last week - the age my dad was when he died. He was such an old fart then, but now I understand just how young he really was. How much he had to look forward to... Ken Fanning had asked him if he wanted to start a guide camp out on the Italio back in the early 1980's - something he didn't get to do. I started my guide camp on the Italio 10 years ago, not having a clue dad wanted to do that until after. He also wanted to have a fishing shop at one point, but again never did it. My dad gave up many of his dreams along the way (like floating the Italio) and unfortunately passed away before fulfilling many of them. He still had a very full life for having it cut in half by cancer. I have learned not to let those dreams get stopped without one hell of a fight. You only get one of these lives, so you have to make the most of it. After getting my pilot's license, I went without flying for 13 full years. I just didn't have the time, or money to continue flying. Then one day out on the Italio, an old WWII warbird landed near the cabin and I was back in the air and behind the controls - and in my all-time favorite plane. Teen shakes her head when it comes to the opportunities that seem to drop in my lap all the time. What are the odds of a WWII plane landing and taking me for a flight... Not just any plane, but one that came from an era I am fascinated by. She has a better understanding now that everyone has these opportunities before them. Most of the time, we don't recognize them for what they are and let them sweep on by us. I just don't let things pass me by. Keep your eyes open. There is an amazing opportunity just around your next corner. Don't walk by it without noticing... April 11th, 2009 - Teen's Mom is Doing Great Thank you for all your encouragement and support over Teen's mom. Her heart has checked out to be in great shape, so now they are grasping at straws to guess what caused the "heart attack-like" symptoms. Sue is a sweet and wonderful lady, a dream of a mother-in-law. Glad she is strong and healthy and not going anywhere anytime soon. Ready to come up and tangle with a bear. I wouldn't bet on the bear... Teen had a great solo day at the shop with a few visitors and questions she could handle. Big thank you to Matt for stopping in after the morning jet just in case she needed some advice or assistance. The guys have been great with her in sharing their own tips with the shop maiden. I hate being out and away from the action especially right now with the leading run starting in. I ended up with two great and detailed river reports late on the 10th - one of which in the terminal in Juneau... I'll go post that info on the river reports page now... As always, my biggest problem on my first day in the real world is a cramped hand and feeling like an idiot when I try to wave at every %$#@ car I pass on the crowded roads down here in Seattle. It takes me a day to stop compulsively waving at passing cars, who's drivers look at me like I'm some sort of freak. Well, I guess I am a freak. I live in Yakutat... by choice... April 9th, 2009 - Roller-coaster Ride this Week Just to let those of you know who had a chance to meet Teen's mom last year here at the shop (Teen's parents came up for most of September to help with the kids, while Teen covered the shop and I guided on the Italio), Sue was med-evacced from their home in Dillon, Montana to Missoula for what appeared to be a heart attack. She has been released after spending the night and undergoing extensive tests. Tests are all inconclusive and her heart appears to be healthy. We are still waiting to hear more and for her to undergo more testing at her home hospital with her own doctor. Also, I'll be flying out for a couple days this weekend to check on my own mom. Teen will be here at the shop every day, but with limited hours on Easter Sunday. She will have the shop closed Sunday morning, but open up at 2pm for anything you need. Otherwise, hours are the same as normal. I'll be gone Saturday through Tuesday, but I can still answer questions via e-mail. Be nice to Teen and share any advice you are willing to part with, so she'll have some good secrets over me... Thanks! -Bob April 5th, 2009 - Thought for the Day Well, no day is complete without someone throwing a baseless accusation at me... There were some people who wanted to get control of the hangar last year, after we invested a big gob of money into renovating it. Funny, no one wanted it before we fixed it up... So in that spirit of whiny boobs, here is my thought of the day, sent to me by someone this morning: "Those that matter don't mind. Those that mind don't matter." Have a great day. I am. No one can take that away from me, but they can sure take it away from themselves. -Bob April 4th (and 5th since it became so %$#@ long!), 2009 - The Prestige of Being the Owner Not much to report on today, with business being so slow and the road now being open. The 3-5 inches that were expected didn't materialize, so the trace we received wasn't even enough to cover the yellow spots in front of the house... So without much else to do, might as well make obnoxious political statements when there isn't anything "fishing" to talk about... So... this morning Teen and I were talking on the drive to "work" about the economy, which evolved into corporate bail-outs and criticism of CEO's, etc. America has gradually evolved into a strange place lately. GM and banks and AIG now have a government funded safety net, so they aren't at risk of failure. We certainly don't want businesses to fail, regardless of how crappy their products may be, or how poorly they are run. But they should. Capitalism now appears to allow for all the benefits when things are going well, but we have now removed any of the risks associated with bad decisions. At least that seems to be the way it works for the huge companies with lots of voters - I mean "employees". More on that later... So many of you have become such good friends, I might as well give you a little insight into what it has been like running this shop for the first year... Life in Yakutat can be a struggle under the best of circumstances. Our economy was struggling when the rest of the country was thriving. There are a lot of reasons for that. Putting all our economic eggs in one basket (fishing), opposition to diversification (anything "new" is bad) and poor decisions by our government (with limited real-world experience in our hiring and elected position choices, you tend to get more "Yakutat-as-usual" decisions) that harm business development, we have a lot of strikes against us for trying to make a business work. We have had wonderful support and encouragement from most of the community out here with the fly shop and the hangar project. But... we have also had some odd opposition from places and people that only stand to gain by having new businesses start and succeed. I'm sure one would have these issues regardless of where they try to start a new business venture, but in the small world of Yakutat, some of those issues do seem to stand out more, or are felt more pronounced. Having a larger economic pie to draw from would help cushion the blow during an economic downturn, at least one would think so. Ask any fly shop owner down in the real world and they would say keeping their doors open is just as much of a struggle as it is here in Yakutat. I have the blessed opportunity to sell products that no one else in Yakutat has ever sold, so I do lack the local competition in the spey line and fluorocarbon "industry", as well as selling the level of quality that only a specialty shop like this could do. Simms, Sage, Under Armour and the like are tough contracts to establish, so I don't have to worry about "local" competition. What does hit all specialty fly shops hard - just as it hits the electronics, clothing, food and just about any other industry - the gigantic box stores and the internet. Costco, Cabelas, Amazon.com... The ease of sitting in your underwear ordering online from a big faceless e-commerce site, or dropping into the mega-one-stop-shop (hopefully with more on than just your underwear) may be easier than supporting that little shop down the street, or the shop near your favorite destination stream, but ironically it is rarely a money saver. Some manufacturers mandate that all retailers must offer products for the same price - regardless of how much volume they sell. Simms requires that Cabelas sell G3 Guide Stockingfoot waders for $399.95 regardless - the same price that we sell them for, or your local home-water fly shop sells them for. I did have a couple pricing surprises last year. On a brief trip through Juneau just before we opened, I went into an outdoor clothing store and saw that the "sale" price for Under Armour items were still 15% over the suggested retail price. My own business partner suggested we mark things up higher because "people are used to paying more in Alaska"... My reaction was a firm "hell no". You shouldn't expect to be ripped off just because you don't have a choice. My goal instead has been to build goodwill with our customers, so they know we aren't going to milk them dry just because they don't have a choice when their waders rip mid-trip. Your reaction has been wonderfully encouraging for us, when many of you have ordered through us for some of those big ticket items. They usually get drop-shipped direct from the company anyway, so I'm more than happy to eat the drop-ship fee and shipping to make those sales. Another surprising price story came when two guys came in during the season to buy a Rio Versitip line. The "buddy" told the customer to buy it here NOW, because he had paid an extra $10 at their store down in (I think it was) Virginia. Why the heck would anyone in the real world mark up their prices above the SRP? OK, in Juneau I can maybe understand it, but down in the lower 48?!?! No wonder so many fly shops are losing their customers to the box stores. For Teen and I, we don't need a lot of volume to make this fly shop work. One pair of good waders can make a poor day into a really good day - in part because we don't have any employees. It is just us, so we don't have some of the expenses that a lot of stores and shops do. Yes the lights cost money to turn on. Heat, coffee that may or may not get drunk, phone and internet... Our biggest obstacle for opening and running this shop has been in acquiring inventory. We have a pretty good pile of stuff this year. Of course many of you remember last year when we ran out of just about everything we opened with and struggled to get the shelves filled back up again. On our first season, each sale we made was rolled back into trying to grow the inventory. My learning curve was a VERY steep one and I'm still learning a lot every single day we have the doors unlocked. I can't thank you all enough for the suggestions, comments and criticisms you have shared with me over the past year. Ahh... but the economy... What are we doing to prepare for the road ahead? Well, to start with, season 1 was so much more of a success than we expected, that we are pretty thrilled with where we are today. Success brings a lot of challenges too. We ordered one of each sized jacket last year because that was all we could afford for inventory. We had a couple dozen hats, but I still hadn't finished our final logo (you may possess the "limited edition" work-in-progress hat!). Heck! We opened a fly shop and I didn't have ANY fly tying materials except for a box of thread! What the hell kind of fly shop opens without a single feather?!?! Well, one that is just doing the best it can, I guess. Of course we now have 41 different colors of Glo Bug yarn... We had the noble goal this year of adding so many of the suggested products and services that you turned us on to last year, but that has been where the economy has hit us the hardest. Steelhead traffic looks to be OK based on the bookings, calls and e-mail I'm seeing, but the salmon season is shaping up to be a potential disaster. The meat/spin guys are just simply not coming this year. I have high hopes that the fly guys won't be as effected as those others (it will be a great year to have the river all to yourself!). Fly fishermen tend to be more experienced, more focused on this passion they have and more willing to take this once-a-year special trip to do what they love. The groups looking to just fill a freezer, or go on a drinking binge away from their wives aren't here for the experience on the water, waiting to feel the sensation of the take. Even so, we have had to reevaluate what we'd have on the shelves and focus on doing what we have really well before we put our limited resources into trying to expand into new territory. Our #1 priority is to make sure people are warm and dry. Right now, the snow is deep, the water is running very cold and the worst thing for a trip is to be miserable the whole time on the water. Who cares how many fish you hook if you are in pain from the cold, or soaked to the bone when the light snow flurry turned to miserable rain and back again. Next up is to have the specialty supplies needed for a productive day on the water. Lots of hooks, lots of feathers and yarn. Tubing, weight, bucktail, thread and flash. Lines, leader and every imaginable fly for THESE fish. Ya, lots of the fluff too... shirts, hats, Alaska souvenir crap and some really cool locally made jewelry for bribing the wives into letting you come back again... Teen may live in Alaska and like to fish, but ultimately she is still a chick... This entry is long enough that she probably has already stopped reading, so I think I'm safe... Although I still don't have the web site functioning, I did get an e-mail this morning (thanks Nik!) asking about the cost for a pair of Simms G4Z waders. Part of our conservative "scaling back" has been to just stock the whole sizes on waders, even though I wanted to get all the medium-king/extra-large-short sizes this year. Not to worry, if you want a specific size, it is just a phone call, or e-mail away and I can have it drop-shipped right to you (free shipping, no tax). Just as quick and convenient as ordering online, but we can make sure it is the right fit (according to the charts) and exact model you want. Or make sure you want the "light peach" marabou instead of "coral" (looking at them side by side there is virtually no difference, but I love to terrorize Teen and tell her how important the "subtle" difference is to the fish...). Cabelas is building new super stores all over the place and yes, I do buy a lot of stuff from them for myself. The question you need to answer for yourself is, "Do you want to have access to gear when you really need it?" Before last April, it wasn't possible to get a sink tip in Yakutat at all, let alone a ring-neck pheasant skin, or ANYTHING made of Gore-tex. You have to support the smaller shops if you want them to survive. Teen and I have done really well in our first season and are really excited about the future, but so many fly shops are dropping like flies (no pun intended) all over the country. Make sure you support your local shop when ever possible, or it isn't going to be there when you need it. Sure, support your destination shop too (like Situk River Fly Shop), but especially your local home-water shop. Break a rod while on a trip and all the super stores in the world won't get you back on the water when they are hundreds of miles away from the hole you are standing in. Funny how the gigantic corporations are getting billions of dollars in bail-out money to keep them afloat. Guys who ran companies into the ground still get their multi-million dollar bonuses. Who the hell ever decided anyone deserved a bail-out at all? As a small business owner, this shop lives and dies based solely on my decisions. I live and die solely on my decisions. If I make poor decisions, I lose all I have invested into the business and I can't afford to feed my family. A pretty strong incentive to make good decisions. For instance... we chose not to mark things up extra for the "Yakutat-as-usual" pricing. Yes, it does cost more to ship SOME items to Alaska, but for the most part, USPS is the same regardless of where it gets mailed. Our milk is over $9/gallon, our gas is $4.99/gallon right now even though it has dropped down to $1.60 in the real world... You can sell fewer, but make more on each item. Or, you can sell more items and do just as well at a lower price. The latter is the choice we made here and it has worked out well (so far). Last year, people were buying jackets and rods and reels that they could have bought at home, but they chose to buy it here. They chose to buy these things often as they were about to board the jet for home! You can't understand how appreciated you are for doing that and helping us make this shop a success. By earning your trust and goodwill, Teen and I hope to never need any bail-out. Of course we'll never become "too big to fail" that one would ever be offered. I'd rather run this shop as a place where you feel you have a home. A place where you want to invest in keeping it open and successful. So far, I think we have "accidentally" been successful. I spend a LOT of time here in these rooms and ultimately, I want it to be a place I love coming to every day. If I have to take a day off to stand up to my nipples in ice water, well... OK. If I have to. If I start making moronic decisions that make you not want to share this with Teen and I, at that point we will deserve to fail. I hope you will keep us on our toes and help us along the way as you have been during our first year. The risk of failure is a strong motivator for success, something the bail-outs and safety nets have taken away from those "important" industries. I'm pretty darned proud of what we have created entirely from scratch with no prior experience to guide our way. From renovating this derelict building to figuring out and tracking down what items we wanted to sell to putting the whole package together to meeting all the new friends and family that have taken the time and care to support and help us through season 1 - what a wonderful motivator to continue to try and make this even better. Thank you. -Bob and Teen April 3rd, 2009 - Free Firewood Available It cracks me up how we get so many campers out at 9 Mile during the snowy steelhead season, but virtually no one camps during the warmer salmon season. Probably because of everyone's terror of bears... I completely forgot about saving all my cut ends of wood for people to use as campfire starter when I took a load to the dump a couple weeks ago. Sorry. With that said, I do have a bit available on a first come, first served. I'll have a few boxes in the hangar waiting if you ask. Only while supplies last... Did I mention the road will be open as of 6pm tonight? April 1st, 2009 - One Year Anniversary... We are officially open again and just beating back the crowds... Well, with the roads still snowbound, I wouldn't expect much fly fishing traffic... It is a gorgeous, crystal-clear sunny day today, after just a trace of new fluff last night. No need to them to plow the runway in this weather, so my guess is they will make some really good progress on access to the river. Lots of snow and ice in the parking lot, so if you come out, be careful and watch your step. I'll be here... waiting... did I mention I have a fresh pot of coffee on... waiting... waiting... Maybe I should go fishing instead... I wonder what Teen is bringing me for lunch... March 30th, 2009 - Part 2 Well, I went to the Forest Service "Outfitter/Guide Meeting" today. I was only able to sit through the first two hours of it before I had to leave... Sorry if there was any important info there that I missed. One thing that does effect us... Last year they had said we could have a shuttle van service to the river from the shop. Well, this year they say we can't. Sorry. No rides. I did hear that Bob Fraker missed the meeting because he was out on the Situk cutting boat passages through the logjams and deadfalls. They said he was about 4 miles upstream from the bottom and hadn't reached the middle section where the worst areas are. If you see Bob on the river this year, give him and his guys a nice wide birth, or at the very least thank him and Frank for the work they do every year making it possible for everyone to drift the river. It'll take them a few more days to make it through the entire river, but that should match the few more days it takes the state to open up the roads again. Most of today ended up sunny and warm, with an occasional snow flurry that blotted out any sign of a world beyond 10 feet in front of you. The snow is falling once again as I type this and get ready to head home. Just received my big Simms order, so tomorrow will be a busy one stocking the shelves and racks. Lots of new fly patterns arrived today too for me to play with on the river. That is the #1 reason I buy things... So I get to play with them. Why else would one open a shop? Expect your trip to be a cold one this year, with a lot of deep snow to slog through. It definitely looks like "one of those years"... March 30th, 2009 - Renovations and "Finds"
Taking on this gigantic building has been a challenge for obvious reasons. We have most of the second floor sheetrocked now, but have the arduous task of mudding and taping ahead. Bathrooms will be in probably around May, hopefully before June. There is just so much to do and so little time, especially once the fish are in the river... I may just have more "important" places to be... I get asked constantly if we are discovering any really cool artifacts when we work our way through the rooms of this 38,000 square foot WWII building. Unfortunately, the answer is usually "no". The building has definitely been robbed of anything of value, but also anything that would be considered "character". The very few exceptions have been the old pool table up near the movie theater. It has been subjected to extensive leaks from the old roof and that side of the building is in far worse shape than the side we are currently working on. We did however "find" an old radio in one of the rooms recently cleaned out. "Radio" may be an understatement, since the thing weighs about 700lbs!
This is definitely an object that we want to hang onto and somehow put to use. Not in the traditional sense of getting the radios to work, but it does show just how far technology has advanced in the past 60+ years. Most of the tubes have been replaced with more "modern" equipment, but "modern" still means 40+ years old at least. Well, back to sheetrocking... and a few loads of garbage to the dump, now that the roads are plowed for the day... -Bob March 26th, 2009 - Ready to Open Received an e-mail a few days ago saying a group was coming in early and would be stopping by the shop. Well, that was finally the catalyst to get me off my butt and clean up the shop. After 3 months of closed doors while I worked on renovating the rest of the building, Teen and I had our work cut out for us. New boxes of goodies needed to be stocked, but not till after everything was wiped down and ready to take it. Still waiting for my spring order deliveries, but they should be coming throughout the next couple weeks.
The morning started off nasty, with howling winds and a thick layer of fresh slop over the ground. About 3-4 inches of wet white glop. The sun came out a couple times, followed by either silver dollar sized flakes, or good ol' fashioned rain. The state has their loader back up and running, so they should be back to work on the upper road tomorrow. They expect to have the project completed including the parking and turn around areas by April 1st, but with unpredictable weather and equipment, there is always the chance that it could be an extra day or two. Sold one of Tanis' flies today to the guys. Tanis went immediately to work on another to replace it in his bin. You know how it will go... his one-of-a-kind creation will end up being "the" hot fly with no way to duplicate it after it swims away in the mouth of that huge monster... March 23rd, 2009 - Opening Day is Fast Approaching The shop reopens officially on April 1st, along with the official "target" day for reopening the road to the Situk. I'm trying to update the "Latest River Conditions" page with road updates, since there hasn't been anyone out fishing since last November. That will very soon change though and we'll be back to real river reports. The shop is all clean and nearly restocked. We are being a little conservative about what we are ordering this season, with the dire economic news and large numbers of trip cancellations. Looks like the steelhead season is still going to have a strong showing of people, but the salmon seasons are going to look pretty scarce out on the river. Boy, the way things are looking, if you want a river to yourself, this will be the year to come. Most of my time this past winter has been consumed by the hangar renovation. We have most of the sheetrock up now, but a lot of mudding and taping yet to do. The next shop to open will be offering more outdoor gear like the camping gear, specialty stove fuels, kayak and boat rentals, etc. A lot of the things people have been asking us to sell in the fly shop, but will be more appropriate in the next store. Stay tuned for more updates as the season progresses and I have more time in the shop (and on the river) to blog about... -Bob March 19th, 2009 - A Day of Threepeats We don't follow sports much. Super Bowls and the World Series and March Madness don't really carry much weight when you are this detached from the real world. March for us does carry one sporting event that we follow with a near religious zeal - the Iditarod. Yesterday morning, Lance Mackey crossed under the burled arch in Nome for the third consecutive year, with 15 of the 16 dogs he started off with 1161 miles earlier. He decided to drop the dog and have it flown back to Anchorage because the dog just "wasn't having fun"... He had an incredible team that tackled the long journey and some mighty hellacious winds to beat the competition by over seven hours. Coming in second was Sebastian Schnuelle hailing from Whitehorse, just over the Canadian border from here. He's just about as close to being a "local" as we'll get here in Yakutat. DeeDee came in 13th after clawing her way up the standings. She is always my favorite. Tanis of course participates in the "Iditaread" every year, where he selects a musher and has to try and read a page for every mile his musher travels. He picked Lance again, but the problem for a 9 year old picking the top musher is he has to read FAST. Tanis was still in Kaltag when Lance made it into Nome, so he has another day or two to complete his race. There will still be plenty of mushers behind Tanis before the Red Lantern is extinguished. Then late last night, we received the news from Anchorage that the Yakutat Eagles girls basketball team won the 2A state championship for the third straight year. Congratulations to them for having all that hard work and effort pay off. We are proud of you! Quite a day of sports for us. I couldn't even tell you who played in the Super Bowl... March 13th, 2009 - More Snow, Less Road Progress The state had been making some great progress on clearing the lower road, but we have now had about 4 days of snow. Temperatures have not been blow freezing, but the "snow" (and I use the term loosely) keeps falling. About 4-6 inches of slop each day. With snow on the runways and roads around town, the state guys have to do their day job and only when they have spare time can they dedicate it to restoring access to the river. Their target date is always April 1st, but sometimes (like last year), they are able to open the road up earlier. Even April 1st depends on how much time they have to work to keep the runway and airport open. Therefore... the pile
continues to grow and is now nearly twice the height of the hangar... March 6th, 2009 - The Snow Pile Continues to Grow
The plan this week is to thoroughly clean up the fly shop after a winter of construction and dust. We should be ready to reopen mid-week, although the actual opening date isn't till April 1st. We have been doing a little business when someone calls, or drops by and pounds hard enough on the door for me to hear upstairs. We are busily continuing the renovation of the hangar - trying to get the bathrooms and kitchen in before the spring rush of fishermen hits. This morning, we had another 6 inches of really wet and sloppy snow fall before it turned to rain. Now we have bright sun shining to melt much of the mush away. The gigantic snow pile in the middle of the airport ramp grew a few inches taller, but I think the new layer of snow on the ground will melt away instead of adding to the over-all depth. I mentioned yesterday on the River Conditions page that the state has already started work on the lower road to clear the snow. They will do the lower road before starting on the upper road. They are only doing it as idle time permits, so each day they have to plow snow off the runway and main streets around town, the they won't be able to work on restoring river access. It is supposed to remain sunny through the weekend, so hopefully we'll see some more snow melt. March 4th, 2009 - Server Access Restored My sincere apologies for not blogging all winter. I lost access to the server the web site was stored on and it has taken us this long to get things switched over to new servers, etc. This is just a quick hello today, while I'm trying to catch back up on a few things. The shop has been closed "officially" since December 30th, but we reopen April 1st. I'm here every day working on the hangar, so if you need anything, just e-mail me, or call the shop number. I'll have a status report for you tomorrow, plus catch you up on all that has been happening over the last 3 months. I had so much to blog about, but I'll get that news out over the next couple weeks. More tomorrow... -Bob
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