Here I am, stationed at one of the most beautiful places on earth, Anchorage, Alaska. With all this beauty comes abundant wildlife included game animals and fish...monster King, Pink or Cohoe Salmon.
In the summer of 1980, during the salmon run on the Russian River on the Kenai Peninsula, I was invited to go fishing for pink salmon. I rented a fishing pole from the base Recreation Center and the next day awoke early to load up my friends old Bronco with gear and other friends.
I sat down in the truck and heard a snap! Oh crap! I sat on my fishing pole and broke it! What the heck, I'll go anyway. It should be fun.
The trip was many hours to get there and my friend who was driving was very tired and gave us one scary ride because we had to wake him a number of times as he drove around bends over looking cliffs. Finally we made safely.
We all got out, the others unloaded their gear and went fishing. Me, I walked the bank and watched everyone else fish included the dozens of others there. This was called Combat Fishing because everyone was so close to each other on the banks that lines would get crossed and tempers would flare and most guys out there were armed for bear, literally.
So I walked and watched all day. Later in the day I was talking to my best friend Fred. He said he was about five yards behind me as I was walking and he watched fisherman watch me. The fisherman thought I was with Alaska Fish and Game and was there to monitor the fishing. Evidently as I approached fisherman the ones who snagged fish, which is illegal, threw them back into the Russian. I thought that was funny and wished I had known about that earlier because I would had a lot of fun with it.
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