August

Another year when my

 son was 10 or 11 and he led

the Valdez Fishing Derby

 for about half an hour 

one day with a 12-pound fish.

Some fishing stories came up tonight. It all started with a picture of a grizzly bear with a Pixie lure hooked in its nose. The jokes and puns flew around, a few of which ended up in the paper and online. Something about an adolescent showing off his nose piercing and another about being a teen being hooked on something and also the allure of a fishing tackle box. So it goes.

There are some things you can count on in August around here: huge cabbages and huge pumpkins for a couple. We had a picture tonight of a pumpkin expected to weigh close to 1,800 pounds when it's weighed at the fair Wednesday. And another thing you can take to the bank is silver salmon in Port Valdez. I made my living for a while trolling for them and on a few occasions actually went after them for fun. I had some success chartering, lots of limits and a few derby winners.

One I remember most and the one I told tonight involved getting hooked with a lure. I was fishing with my nephew and we managed to hook a pink salmon using a lure that had two hooks in line. When I went to grab the fish, the back hook which was loose got me right through that flap of skin between the thumb and forefinger, all the way through.

So there I was with a three or four pound fish jumping and twisting, flapping and flopping and fighting against a hook through my hand. Unused to this sort of thing my nephew wasn't sure what to do until after several shouts and curses, I finally got him to hand me the dikes. Still fighting the fish I finally got the dikes on the shank side of the hook and cut it. The fish when flopping into the bottom of the skiff we were fishing from and I pulled the hook end out the other way. You have to be thankful for the antiseptic qualities of salt water. I dunked my hand and swished it around until I couldn't stand the cold any more and pulled it out. The bleeding had stopped and that was all there was to that. When we got home I put a Band-Aid on it and it healed very nicely. And for once I was glad we had caught a pink salmon. If that had been a 15-pound silver I might have been in a whole lot worse shape.

A pink wasn't all we caught that day. I think we sent about 90 pounds of silver salmon meat back to his family the next day.

Just one more reason I have never cared for fishing much.