Big Sky...small water...Big Fish

Kings are just starting to come in!

This feisty hen was served for dinner

at the lodge, encrusted in coconut and

served with Mango Pineapple Salsa, unbelievable...

Our Pilot fishing, originally uploaded by k8.Rogue Angels.

So this week...I really have no idea what day it is anymore....and the only time I really know the time is when I have to meet the float plane for a pickup....which brings me to all the new adventures I have been swallowing like a grayling on a...ha ha like I would tell anyone what they have been taking and where..I have been doing fly out trips as we patiently wait for the Coast Guard to send me a license-which frankly at the rate of my fly out trips the CG can keep taking its merry little time...

Anyhow my strength here seems to be on the fly fishing end of things anyway and I feel pretty useful in escorting people out for rainbows, grayling, and char on the fly. We have managed to watch them all munch several presentations with the aggression of a tasmanian devils-kid you not. I gleefully cheer on the fish as they burst their chrome out of the water raging a fight beginners will not soon forget...if ever. This is really nothing to brag about-so hear me out... but yesterday I mistakenly dropped the f-bomb with my client when the second rainbow in a row over 22 inches completely crashed his dry fly and went flying up into the air-Vertically!, only to tear like a bat outta hell right into the sweeper on this insanely small stream and watch it turn on a dime out the back of snag city, flash us the universal sign of insubordination, and bam! went reeling downstream while I could only manage to mutter the unsophisticated obscenity as my brain pathetically attempted to cope....he looked at me surprised with the labrador head tilt and said, " I agree."


So I think I am reaching Joan Wulff's alleged sixth stage, fishing through others. My soul feels like its sitting at the table on Thanksgiving with the action I have helped people find...however I must say that I do cherish those five minutes at lunch break to cast though...fo' sho'I am really having some of the happiest days of my life out on the water heightened by a plane ride over sick tundra and lakes there and back again. The level of gratitude I express daily is becoming a deep foundation of who I am:

I may have expressed a bit more gratitude this afternoon when the pilot landed early and signaled us out of fishing through gale force winds. Pulling through that wind and whitecaps only to be a teetering seesaw tossed around in the air like pigskin definitely highlighted my plane rides thus far. I can't believe the intensity of the situation and my supreme calmness through it all...I really wanted it to continue....man, I am sick....I love the flying.....absolutely love it....love the feeling of my stomach hopping around inside me like popping corn....it is a drug like feeling....(um...I think anyway...) This pic was on that flight...don't I look absolutely alive and glowing!?!

And for the record, my time has been spent between Beavers and Cessnas. I have also had the joy of steering the beaver--may I improve on the very poor poor steering jobs I have demonstrated....I wonder what the clients are thinking when they see me put my hands on the handles????....Much easier to fly without people though I have found....'prolly safer.
Been tying lots of flies when not out on the river.. would love to post a picture, but alas! if I did, Heath would find out and there would be a dead body out in the Alaska bush, and it would be mine! :(
Weather has been phenomenal the past few days... bright sunshine, blue bird days with just enough breeze to send the mosquitos outta here! I h8 the mosquitos. period. h8 them. I felt like I was going to lose my mind the other day fishing in the evening when they were so thick they were crawling up my nose- i ended up fishing the other side of the run with a slight breeze because I thought I was going to go mad. They make me cough when I accidentally inhale them, and then begins a series of gagging and hacking...pretty darn unpleasant...I thought my client was dying on the river yesterday, but he had just that experience. I h8 mosquitos....so I take a deep pleasure in eradicating them whenever I see them if I am not fishing. I am becoming a mosquito bounty hunter. I tried using my mitten scissors to pinch the wings off one in the plane the other day, this is so gross...that was so full of someone's blood that it could not fly or move...just batted its wings futively...it managed to escape between the cracks, escaped the bounty hunter. I am itching a bite on the back of my hand right now....i h8 them.

...but I love this:

Korkers boot ad: (Korkers boots rock btw)

Was l8 to the float plane the other day because of a moose......way better than being l8 due to traffic or being out of fuel....and all of this life is way better without a cell phone much less a crackberry...I am just now becoming accustomed to occupying my mind space instead of instantly texting or emailing while I am waiting for someone....it is hands down a healthier lifestyle. Although I must admit that I have wished to ring some friends at crazy points out there and say hi! This is my best effort to do that..... :)

xoxoxo

-k8

ps: this is my sweet little home that I get to come to every night and de-wader and pass out. (sometimes I eat there, and other times I drink beer there...mostly sleep tho')

my walk to my bungalow:

Oh, and look close, cause on the left is a duct tape pirate flag- made by Nanci's daughter, Riley....it is my favorite landmark on the walk home besides my tree there.

I think I want to paint my truck this color green....