So, here is the story. In 1991 I went salmon fishing with some friends up in Alaska. I was stationed at Eielson AFB at the time, just outside of Fairbanks AK. We were headed south of Mt. McKinley to go river fishing for spawning salmon.
But, I didn’t have a good enough fishing reel… Ok, so yeah, it was an excuse to go buy a nice big fishing reel! 🙂 and so I did. This is the reel I bought. Well, on the trip down, as you can see, the handle broke off. It was stuck in the back of someone’s bronco and the frost heaves and bad roads did their damage. It must have banged hard enough on the trip down that the handle broke. So here I was fishing for salmon on the side of a wild river in central Alaska and no fishing pole. Oh well, it was still a pretty trip! 🙁
In fact, that trip was the first time I had ever seen a grizzly bear in the wild. We were fishing (they were fishing, I was watching) and on the other bank, not 100 feet away a big ass bear wandered down to the river and totally ignoring us, waded into a deep pool up to it’s neck and started fishing. I could see his shoulders swinging around as it swung it’s paws under water trying to catch fish. It only took about 5 minutes and he came up with his first salmon clutched in his claws. He waded up to the bank and dropped the fish. He stepped on it w/ one paw and bit it just about in half and ripped off a great big mouthful. Then, leaving the other half on the shore, he waded back into the river.
Anyway, he cought like 5 fish I guess and eventually wandered off into the woods. There were maybe 8 guys fising the other side of the river (plus me not fishing) and we all let out a collective sigh when he disappeared into the brush. Thinking about it now though, I belivee we were safer when we could see him!
My fishing reel I never got to use.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention why I started this long reminiscence! 😉 So I cleaned my garage the other day and came across said broken reel. You’ll forgive me for not throwing it away, it’s still brand new! So I came across it and started thinking about that rip and you know what? I looked up Daiwa reel parts online and bought a new handle for it! Sure, it sounds like a little thing, but to me it’s not. To me I am now completing that fishing trip in which I never got to fish, and at least in my mind I’m finishing it. And in the mean time, I have a brand new (WORKING!) Diawa reel!
Neat story. One question, where was your old 300???? You could have at least caught a fish. Dad
Just wasn’t thinking. If I’d had it along I could have for sure. But, I’ve still got it. It’s out in the garage. I think I’ll load some line on it and take Nicholas fishing this weekend.