My friend Paul goes fishing in Alaska with some of his co-worker friends every couple of years or so. When he gets back my freezer gets stocked with halibut and salmon and I have to hear about the trip over a cold (Alaskan Brewing Company) beer. The beer is great and the fish is great, but hearing the stories gets me quite upset with envy.

They fly into anchorage and stay on the Kenai River in some cool little cabins. The whole trip is orchestrated and they are scheduled for outings with various Alaska fishing guides over the course of the next week. One day they will go King salmon fishing from a boat in the river, one day they will go out halibut fishing offshore, etc. But the thing that gets me is the messing around they do in the Kenai river from shore right in front of their cabins.

So you just grab your rod, walk out the cabin down to the river, and start throwing the lure out from the bank. They are always there when the Sockeye Salmon are running and from the way he tells it they don’t go more than 10 casts without hooking a nice fish. They keep the big ones and hire a local guy from the cabins to cut ‘em up, freeze it all and ship it back to his house. Now that sounds like the life.

Of course he always ties into one monster King Salmon with the guide service and ships back plenty of Halibut filets as well. What the heck is wrong with me? How do I allow him to keep doing this without forcing myself in on this trip? somebody please smack me with a salmon steak.

-Disgruntled Landlocked Fisherman