Day 26 - Fishing in and around Fairbanks

Sunday 7/16/2006

We had a couple of things to take care of today. We needed to swing by Home Depot to get some light trailer mending parts and then some other items from Wal-Mart. It turns out that they were easy to find in this rather small town and they were, in fact, just next door to each other. I went over into HD while the kids worked through our shopping list at Wal-Mart. Karl got a Salmon fishing rod. They had tons of complete and good kits for around $35. I also bought a pan and a funnel in case I needed to change the fuel filter myself. As we returned back to the campground, the kids wanted to go out fishing. We decided to stop at the Chena River State Park, which was not far from the campground. There they were able to fish in a mostly clear river. Erik brought waders so that he could walk out. As Erik and Isabella got started with their fishing, I went back to the campground with Karl to drop of the food we had bought. I also made sandwiches for the kids. While I was in the trailer, Erik called and asked for his wool socks. It turns out that it was not such a great idea to walk out into the ice cold river water with waders and no socks...

When I got back to the State Park, it was still raining. The kids had moved in under a bridge. I asked Erik to talk to one of the local fishermen, that was tinkering with a boat by the river. He did and he also learned that this was not exactly a good place for fishing unless you had a boat. The fisherman gave tips about another place, called the Chena Lakes Project. We loaded up the gear, ate in the truck and headed for that place. It was not far from the North Pole. We were allowed to fish 300ft after the dam gates. It turns out that the Salmon had already run here a few weeks ago, but there were still a few out there. The Park attendant indicated that fishermen had caught quite a few over the past couple of days so the odds were good that our kids would get some too.

Erik and Karl trying their luck at the Chena Lakes Project, outside of North Pole

But despite all the trying, the kids did not catch anything except for sea weed. Everyone got a good laugh out of that. We headed back to the campground and started to get ready for the trip north. I spent some time trying to attach the bathroom door track to the ceiling, since it had come lose a bit from the pot hole journey from Dawson City. We ate dinner and then went to bed.

Some idea of where to find Salmon around here

Isabella and Erik with their only catch: sea weed

Karl's catch: second tooth of the trip comes out

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All Pictures (c) 2006 Hamnqvist, Background features the Yukon Sky.