First camp trip of the year was started off at 10:34pm. That's not the time we set up camp, but got in the road. With Brandon working swing shift we had to wait for him to get off work. Then we had to get our stuff as well as Brandon's sister, Bridgett, and her boyfriend, Charles', stuff all packed into the boat. The drive was beautiful; ranging from clear blue skies to stormy, windy downpours. One of the advantages of the midnight sun is getting to see everything this beautiful state has to offer, 24 hours a day!
Tanner thought he was riding the part bus! He wanted to snack, watch movies, talk, mess with his sleeping baby brother, mimic his auntie and uncle. He managed to wake his little brother up at 12:15am, then he fell asleep at 12:40. Dillan didn't fall asleep until a little after 1:00am. This picture was taken at 11:11pm.
Our campsite, the first night, was near Copper Center. We set up camp and crawled into our sleeping bags around 4:30am only to be wokken up by Dillan at 6:30am. Not much of a sleep.
It was Dillan's first time camping. Tanner's first camping experience was near Copper Center at about the same age that Dillan is now.
Brandon and Charles threw their lines into the Klutina a few times. People were catching big ol' Reds where they were fishing, but no luck for our boys.
We drove down to Chitina and set up camp on a sandbar, along with many other campers. It was extremely windy and the sand blew everywhere. I have to say that I am thankful that it wasn't raining as well.
The scenery in this area was beautiful. With snow covered mountains, the river, plenty of green vegitation, bald eagles, and seagulls I can see why there is such draw of people to the area.
The boys and I spent a lot of time in the tent playing or in the Tahoe watching movies while the others dipnet.
On rare occasions, when the wind did die down for a bit, I took Tanner for walks along the river. We watched the fish wheels turn and threw rocks into the water. Tanner found a stick and pretended he was fishing.
The Reds weren't running, like we'd hoped they would be, while we were there. Not many people were bringing many fish back to shore with them. Brandon did catch a King Salmon though. It was his first time catching one. It was 36" and 20lbs.
After we wrapped up our dipnetting adventure we headed back up North to the Klutina, messed around there for a while and eventually headed back home.
We didn't catch anywhere near as many many fish as we'd hoped to, but the experience as a whole was great. Just as the Billy Currington song claims, A BAD DAY OF FISHING BEATS A GOOD DAY OF ANYTHING ELSE.
