October 8
Last night the land was quiet and stars illuminated the sky in all directions without so much as a puff of wind. Upon waking up early this morning a different story was literally on the horizon, the calm before the storm. As the sky began to show signs of light the wind began to gently blow, soon turning windy with 50 plus mph gusts and heavy rain. In just a few more weeks the rain will turn to snow, and by the way things are looking, there will be a white Halloween.
It seems November is the roughest month of the year and although we are merely a week into October the weather seems to have finally switched over and is moving in with a vengeance.
On a nicer note though, I spent the last two days fishing. Although I didn't catch anything I had the
best time trying. If I wasn't casting my rod I was taking pictures of eagles, bear tracks, the fall colors, the river, and my dog.
It is hard to decide what to do when you have a fishing pole in your hands, and there are eagle's fighting over fish. The eagle's won! After accidentally getting this picture, I was happy about my decision.I was taking pictures of three of these eagle's fighting over a fish, when one of them took a leap and was airborne colliding with one that was preparing to crash the fish fighting party. Notice in the bottom right corner, a seagull trying to get out of the way before it becomes a meal.
Eagle's are everywhere right now enjoying the easy pickings of Coho and Chum Salmon. By November there will be approximately four thousand eagle's here to feast on the salmon. Haines has the largest concentration of Bald Eagle's in the world in late fall. The Haines Bald Eagle Festival is November 11 through the 17th. Bring your winter gear.
I didn't see any bears while fishing, but as I walked along the riverbanks there were many signs that the big bruins had been there.
Although I don't want them close when I am fishing, it's always special when they appear. I saw several different tracks, this one is the front pad of what I believe is a sow brown bear because of the cub tracks that were nearby.
This is the sows back foot pad. My shoe size is an eight. Which is about the same size as the bear track. Often a bears foot size is it's body size in height. Also, if you measure the width of the front pad and add one it will bring you close to the actual size. I measured the pad of this bear, it came out to approximately 8 inches, which tells me that it was a nice size bear, for a sow.Here is a video of a close encounter I had with a bear. The video is not the best quality due to adrenaline type shaking. The only humor I could find afterwards.
This bear video was taken by me in the September 2011. This was an extremely dangerous situation I found myself in, but it is also a fact of life if you spend any time in the outdoors of Alaska. I could see the bear when he was across the river on the flats, at a very safe distance. For some reason he walked to the edge of the river and sat down and watched me. After approximately ten minutes he stood up on all fours and started walking down river. When he was far away, we watched him walk into the river and begin swimming across, he then disappeared. The next time we saw him is when the video starts.
I believe what really happened is, the bear just wanted to go back the same way it went out. When I reached the road, the bear crossed it and disappeared. Whew!
