Capturing the Moment

Me with a bull redfish ( Sciaenops ocellatus )    Fall is a wonderful time to be in Savannah. The weather is finally starting to cool but tshirts and shorts are still the order of the day. The water still feels great and the boat or beach is definitely still an option. My dad and I spent the day fishing for redfish (red drum), which I had never tried before. Imagine my surprise when we anchored the boat right behind crashing waves, in about eight feet of water, and tossed our lines in. I may have been even more surprised when a big red fish actually hit our bait. It put up a solid fight, running with the line multiple times. We were able to gently net it, and bring it up for a quick picture before releasing it back. One of my favorite parts of fishing is just seeing these beautiful fish up close. I grew up around these waters but because of the lack of visibility and snorkel conditions, I never had a way to see these fish in the wild.   After trying at that wav...

View into the secluded back bay of Elfin Cove   Located on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, just on the outside of Alaska's famous Inside Passage is the tiny fishing village of Elfin Cove. The inhabitants of this village, which can number in the single digits in the heart of winter, are cheerful and welcoming for visitors during the summer. Some small adventure cruise ships stop in to admire the boardwalks connecting the buildings around the secluded back bay of Elfin Cove, and to let their passengers try and find all of the small elfin and gnome statues that dot the trails through town. This is actually where the town got its name many years ago. A boat dog awaits the return of its family   There is a small post office and the town does hold local elections but the theme throughout is fishing. Boats go in and out of the harbor bringing in their daily catch and even a few fly-in fishing lodges have popped up supplying adventure fishing for tourists float planing ...

First view of a brown bear patiently fishing   We have had a few bear sightings this summer but nothing too outstanding. Usually the bear sighting are through binoculars from the bow of the big ship. Not today. Pavlof stream seemed like the perfect bear spot when I visited earlier this summer. A short trail winds its way up along the bank of a river, past a 15ft cascading waterfall, into the huge Lake Pavlof. This trail in itself is worth the visit to Pavlof. The lake is surrounded by towering snow capped mountains and is the only place in Southeast Alaska that you can commonly see the rare Trumpeter Swan.    This trip to Pavlof would prove my earlier theories correct. The first group ashore radioed back to the ship saying they couldn't make it past the waterfall because six bears were ambling around and fishing in the river! I don't think anyone was upset that we couldn't make it to the lake. It was about as good a bear show as you can get. We added more trips asho...