You know you live in Alaska when....

You go fishing only to see this bear!

Do you see the black bear in the trees? Well, we didn't....until we were about 5 feet away from it! It was an incredibly amazing, and bit frightening experience!

We had just walked up on the boardwalk of the river after fishing all day. We had walked about 6 or so steps when Darron suddenly jumped back yelling "BEAR!" We all looked to the side and saw this beauty watching us from the trees. We see bear at the river all the time, but generally IN the river...not on the Boardwalk. With guns in tow, we were able to safely walk past her with no problems.

I guess we had been fairly warned by this sign! :)


This is the Kenai River, about 2 hours south of Anchorage. This is our favorite fishing hole. When the salmon are "running" we generally catch them here, along with everyone else as you can see. Believe it or not, this was not a crowded day. When the fish are really hot, it's literally almost shoulder to shoulder fishing. Some might say it's not fun to be that packed in, but as long as there is a fighting salmon at the end of my pole, I have a blast!

And here are our trusty men filleting all the fish we caught! The limit on red salmon is three a day. Darron can catch a fish in a mud puddle, so he always limits out. I had actually caught about 5 this trip, but only 1 was legal....the rest were either "snagged" in the tail or head, or got off right as I was about to have it to the shore. Oh well.

We try and make it to the Kenai River a couple of times each summer to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL river and mountains, along with good friends and fun fishing. This was our trip last Monday....Darron played hookey from work and we went for the day with Craig and Becca. We had a GREAT day, saw 4 bear total, and came home with 3 salmon each for the freezer.

I'm about to put my on the smoker now....

I truly love living in Alaska and all the adventures it has to offer....I just wish my family lived here with me!