Patience, Persistance,Positive Attitude and the Pope's

Do you know that feeling when you first meet a person and it seems like you've known them your whole life? I was fortunate this past week to meet 15 people that I felt that way about. Mel Pope and his entire family came to our place before they set sail on a cruise ship to Vancouver. Jane and I had wonderful time getting to know this family.

So, about the fishing. The weather was tough and the fishing was hard but with patience, persistance, and positive attitude the Pope's came through. The first day we didn't catch a salmon (plenty of hooligan and a few trout). The second day the youngest fisherman, Robert Allen, came through with a nice salmon. He did a tremendous job of hooking and landing the fish. He said it was his first king salmon ever but I could tell he is an accomplished angler for being so young. On the final day we started out by missing a couple of salmon. Not always a good sign for my boat. We continued to fish hard and about eight hours into the trip William caught his king on the "funky chicken" lure. I'm proud of the fact that William hung in there for three days before he caught a salmon. Shortly after William's fish Bruce caught a nice one on salmon eggs. Not long after than Mel Jr., using salmon eggs as well, hooked the largest king of the day coming in at 45lbs. It was a nice battle and it was great to see Mel catch a fish on the Kenai other than a silver salmon, trout, or hooligan. The last hour of the trip we tried hard to get the final king of the day for Mel III. It didn't happen but it wasn't for a lack of effort.

What a great way to start June. And, by the way, Rebecca, you're still the Queen of the Hooligan.