Just got back to the lodge from the outcamp and have to get ready to set up Sunset Camp, another outcamp on the upper, upper Nush; north of my original camp. Tomorrow is going to be a big day, we run the boats up the river for two hours and start setting up the camp. It is more like a "little lodge". We still use the weather port style tents (see pic) but it is much nicer than what we have where I am now. It feels like kinda of a privilege getting selected to guide Sunset Camp being that it is the Holy Grail of waters for the lodge. We have other stuff that is on private lease but this is some pretty cool shit! The guest stay for two nights and fish and get wined and dinned. The only downside is that we have much more involvement with the guest. We eat with them and shit. I fly to my present camp in the morning then I jump in my boat and ride two hours upriver to Sunset Camp and start unloading the plane of food and beer and everything that you would need to live for the summer for a family of eight. A lot of stuff! We need to have the camp up and running before Sunday for the guest. This runs for three weeks then we tear it down and I don't know where I will go then. I do like the security of being able to guide on one body of water and get to know it and the fish. This getting moved around is kinda funky, but at the same time really cool. A returning guide came back today and is taking my place on the upper Nush at my original camp. This kinda puts me in limbo because I don't know where I will end up guiding in three weeks. I do not want to guide out of the lodge, there is too much uncertainty here and I like to wake up and know what the deal is.
This place is really run well and so it should be, it has a strong returning staff and they all seem to enjoy what they do. This season is a little different in the fact that we are a younger staff, not so many returning guides and grounds folk but the core people are here and it has gone rather smoothly. The lodge is a little tired but it should be, given the age and the high cost of building supplies and the hassle of getting the goods to the lodge. The Beaver aircraft we use are such a cool plane. The airframe and engine are from the late forties' early fifties (of course they go through inspection after inspection) but you can really load a lot of crap into them. I saw an ATV strapped to the float on one flying out of Anchorage last week, crazy! The pilots are top notch and are really cool and like being here. It's like we have our own little air force with a landing strip. Tikchik is one of the only lodges that run three Beavers and a Cessna 206, each Beaver costing close to half a million dollars. This gives the lodge the ability to handle the number of guests that we do. The plane is used just like your car, we jump in it, fly over to Dillingham, grab some fruit, wood, or whatever you need and fly back. The only thing is the cost of fuel and supplies, 25 gallons an hour at $10 a gallon. Not cheap! The owner gave a random, in-house and unsupervised drug test last week and one guy got sent home when he failed it for pot. That really set everyone back because we were running a short staff and him leaving made it even tighter. I would have pissed for him if he had asked.
My guide days have gone really good other than a few small mistakes on my part. Nothing super huge but I did hit some skinny water on the jetboat and slammed a guy off of his seat and into the floor on my first day out. I felt like a real jackass! I guess that is the only real douche bag move I have really pulled to date. Still kinda gun shy with the jetboat though, not real sure what it will do. You need to run it full tilt to get it to run the real shallow water and that is not what I am most comfortable with yet. The rivers are super fun to run, but kinda easy to get lost in all of the braids. Not sure how someone does it without the experience to read water. My whitewater boating days have paid off again. Not a total waste of 10 years!
Yes!!!!! the MOSQUITO'S are bad!! If the wind dies down it can get almost to the point of freaking out. The bite does not seem to be as bad as the ones on the Poudre in CO though, those little bastards hurt. Just figure that every day!
Gotta go, we have a task to load boat motors onto the planes for the next fishing day. This holiday week has been a real FUBAR with eight guest leaving early and the other eight guest wanting to chase salmon all week and the salmon bite has been off so we are scrambling to get things done. Right now it is great Rainbow fishing. I had a moment to fish while Breon (my guide roommate at the outcamp) and I were scoping out a small river that we guide on later in the season and hooked a 24" Bow (see pic) on my 2nd cast. Not much time to fish on my own but also got 3 hours 2 days ago and smoked them in the gravel bars swinging flies. The season is not over yet!
See ya in 3 weeks!
David
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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