Looking back at 2017

As I write this for publication on Christmas Eve, I realize another year is almost over. I want to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and that your “Santa requests” all come true. However, don’t forget the real reason for our celebration — the birth of Jesus Christ!

When I was young, time seemed to almost standstill at times. A day could seem like a week and a week like a month. Now that I’m a full-fledged member of the “geezer brigand,” all I do is blink and another week is gone.

What are some memorable happenings from this past year, both good and bad? On the bad side, we lost some ground in how the salmon of Cook Inlet should be managed. Because of a change the Board of Fisheries made, we lost around 40,000 silvers in a newly added opener at the beginning of the silver run to the drift netters. Combined with another 45,000 Coho harvested in an already established open period, essentially the front half of our Northern District silvers were removed before they even came north.

A good happening involved being drawn for the Nelchina caribou permit in Unit 13. We didn’t have any luck in September, but the season runs through March and I have every intention of trying to fill that permit before time’s up.

A friend of mine accompanied some friends of his on a muzzleloader moose permit hunt in Unit 20 recently. Four guys harvested four moose. Mike had offered some meat if they got any and he got a share for helping with the hunt. I was overwhelmed when Mike called to say he had a front quarter – the whole front quarter – if I wanted it. He still had a lot of meat for himself. I’ve been working on cutting and grinding the meat. What a wonderful Christmas present!

My wife was able to sell her inherited commercial set net permit to Mike’s fishing business partner. That helped both Mike’s business and my wife’s “bottom line.” For the first time ever, I won a door prize at the hunter education instructors’ meeting in early December. The prize just happened to be the grand prize – a Leupold range finder – which will help greatly with both bow and muzzleloading hunting, where range estimation can be critical to making a good hit.

On the negative side, my wife spent about eight days in the hospital this past fall with pneumonia and a collapsed lung, all resulting from a nasty infection in her lung. She’s still recouping but is doing well overall.

Another negative was the fact that I never even put my riverboat in the water this year. Between illnesses, poor king salmon fishing, and the harvesting of the front half of the silver run by the commercial drift fleet, I never had enough incentive to float the boat. My wife was not expressing the interest she once did in fishing, so I’m thinking of other folks I could take when next summer rolls around. I have several folks in mind!

It’s probably just as well we didn’t launch the boat because we suffered a significant short in the wiring of our small motorhome during a spring trip. A few weeks and a pile of money finally resulted in the problem being corrected. I did get to use the RV on our caribou trip in September, but my wife didn’t have much time on the road this past summer. We hope to correct that this coming season.

While I didn’t get to fish out of my boat, I did get out with a friend one day and was able to limit out on silvers. It was a fun trip even if it did rain most of the day! I was hoping to get some stocked lake fishing in, but it didn’t happen. I’ve got some new gear I hope to use while ice fishing this winter, once the ice freezes hard.

I got a lot of small projects done around the house and discovered even more that could use some attention. We’ll get to them eventually.

I was able to attend the Alaska State Muzzle Loading Territorial shoot. I won a few medals and didn’t damage my rebuilt shoulder because I intentionally limited my shooting.

While I didn’t get to hunt, fish, and shoot as much as I would have preferred, and have done in the past, it was still a good year. I’m hoping next year will be even better!