In the summer of 2012, I decided to move to Alaska to work - mainly to fish. I applied for a bunch of jobs with my brother Sam, but we didn't have much luck since we were both planning on going to Korea in the fall to teach English. Through networking, we were able to get a job at this place called Tongass Trading. I was a t-shirt salesman for this fake Del-Sol clothing line and Sam stocked apparel. Our jobs were pretty easy, but we didn't care so much about work, we wanted to live there and fish. We worked 40 hours a week, which meant we had plenty of time to fish. We had the luxury of some of our best friends, Braden and Julie live right up the street from us and they had access to a van from their work. We fished almost everyday that wasn't raining. We started fishing for trout at a lake, but only caught small fish. It is amazing to look back and think that we started catching trout, then rock fish, starfish, ling cod, chum salmon, crab (a story for another time), chum salmon, pink salmon, king salmon, and halibut. It was the best summer of my life and I will never forget the memories I have with my brother Sam, who is one of my best friends. We fished with bears, almost died on a backpacking trip, and had an amazing routine each night - watching Simpson's with pizza and ice cream in bed. Oh yeah! Ultimate Life!
Welcome to Ketchikan!
Fishing with the bears
My first salmon, it was a chum.
Our crab trap. Our first night we caught like 20! Not bad for a couple of guys from Utah!
Our boss took us out in his boat and we killed it. I caught a 52 lb. halibut and a 30 lb. king salmon.
The hike that almost killed us.
The 30 lb. king. It fought like a mother.
Ugly suckers, but they tasted delicious. Good ol' Ketchikan Rockfish!
A sand shark. Kind of scary reeling this in, because they fight like halibut.
We would catch these starfish things on the docks. They look pretty, but they are gross.
It was beautiful. Every night looked like this.
The first batch of trout we caught.
I think this was a yellow tailed rock fish. It was delicious!
The night Sam and I became the salmon slayers. So fun!
One of the best / funnest moments of my life was catching this King Salmon by a technique called, "Snagging". It took me almost a half an hour to reel it in. I hooked it on the tail. (You can see that it is cut)
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