Friday July 2

So the plan is king salmon.....boat leaves at 8am. Boat driver Ivan is a no show. Apparently his cell phone (and his alarm) fell in the river a few days ago and it's still drying out. We decide to come back and try it again at 11......pending the locating and raising of Ivan.

Good to go at 11am. Ivan gets a mock standing ovation. Guide skip seems pretty excited that I want to catch one on the fly rod......most people are not into that. Skips been fishing and guiding for like 40 years and has never caught a king salmon on anything else but a fly rod.

The boat ride up is pretty cool....we turn the last bend and there are the crowds. The outlet of this river (the only one legal to fish for kings within 100 miles) is loaded with people. Whatever, I jump in line and try my luck. I cast and cast and cast for the next 5 hours to no avail. I saw a few mosters swim buy and even saw a few landed, just not by me. I gave it a solid effort...that's all I can say.

Skip spills the beans on a few great spots for trout which I decide to hit tomorrow. Skip was a pretty cool guy, still pumped for fishing after guiding so many years. He's lived in Talkeetna his whole life. His place has no running water and he needs to truck water in himself a couple times a week.

Every Friday night at 5, there's a concert in Talkeetna common. Had some pasta and watched the show. Sweet little husky pups on the common too.

Decided to check out the raging music at a nearby restaurant only to find the infamous Ivan inside. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. Born and raised in Talkeetna. 40 kids started his freshmen year of high school and only 20 graduated. Drugs, especially meth, took over many of his friends. He said the problem was huge. The drugs weren't brought in, most were manufactured in secret labs in the woods. He said he couldn't recognize a few of his old friends.