Alaska Part 2

Where was I again?  Oh yeah, Homer.  The tiny fishing village with lots of bears!  Well, I've made it through another week in Alaska without any serious wildlife confrontations.  The only bear I saw all week was a dead black bear in the back of a pick-up truck, but that's fine.  I got to see lots of wildlife this past week.  Bald eagles were all over the place, lots of moose, strange long-legged birds, and variations of fish being hauled in by the fishermen.  Speaking of fish, I ended up doing a little fishing myself.  I mean how can you go to the "Halibut fishing capital of the world" and NOT fish?  Let's get real here!  So I went out with my dad and brother to reel in some monster halibut.  For those of you unfamiliar with halibut, it's expensive.  Really expensive.  You won't find many places that will sell you a pound of uncooked halibut for less than 20 bucks.  So I was thinking I was going to pick up a rod and begin to reel in fish after fish all day long.  But there's a very good reason that halibut is so expensive.  It really isn't that easy!  The easy part was getting my line to fall 200 feet down at the ocean floor.  Within 20 seconds I was getting fish biting.  But that's just the beginning.  Then I had to haul that sucker 200 feet up to the boat, while it's thrashing about.  And believe me, these fish aren't small.  I was bringing in 15 pound halibut, and I could have sworn I had a great white on my line.  But apparently those are just the babies.  Big halibut can get over 300 pounds. Check out the pictures to compare for yourself.

Big Fish

Small Fish

I'd hate to have to reel one of them in!  I couldn't feel my arms by the time I was done fishing (notice the struggle to pick up the fish in the picture).  But I sure felt them the next morning!  But in the end, I came off the boat with enough halibut for...well...a long time.  My freezer at university is filled with frozen fillets, now I just have to figure out how to cook them!  But that's what Google is for, right?  And on the topic of university, it's sweet!  Even though there are more moose than people on campus so far, I'm already liking the place.  Lots of running trails!  I went on a run with a few of the guys on the XC team this morning, and I had no idea where we were going.  I was lost 10 minutes into the run.  For all I know, we could have been running in circles, because there were trails everywhere!  Way too many to comprehend.  Once I figure them out, I'll be able to fully appreciate the multitude of running trails, but for now I'm just plain confused.  Maybe I should bring a map tomorrow.