Only in Alaska

[jlunseth]

I am just back from a salmon fishing trip to Alaska.  I have posted two pics.  One, looking out from under the wing of our Cessna 206, is of icebergs, but unlike most icebergs these are not in the ocean, they are in a large freshwater melt lake at the foot of the Bering Glacier, an unusual sight. The other is, well, an unfortunate event that happened on the other side of the river.  Someone landed a Beaver and it was apparent they were having difficulty with the load.  Periodically, the pilot would fire the engine up and taxi around on that sand spit, then shut it down, and it appeared they would take some cargo out.  About all he appeared to be accomplishing was to blow large volumes of sand on the poor fishermen on that side of the river. About the fifth or sixth time he fired it up, I was paying attention to a fish on the line when I heard tinka-tink and then nothing.  He managed, apparently, to stick the tires in the sand and put the Beaver on its nose.  There were rumors that they were going to fly the plane out with a helicopter, but the story I got the next morning was that they hammered the prop out and the pilot flew the plane back to base. We were back there later and saw it sitting on the tarmac.  The pilot apparently owns a fishing lodge on the river and, I kid you not, it is called Bent Prop Lodge.  

[Skates97]

Love the pictures, where were you fishing? I lived up there as a kid from 80-84, it was like heaven to me.

[jlunseth]

Tsiu River with Alaska Wilderness Lodge. Fly fishing for silver salmon. Catch them by the bushels. I have been going since about 2000. I love flying with the bush pilots, they can land on anything.  Obviously, taking off is another matter though.

[Skates97]

1 hour ago, jlunseth said:

Tsiu River with Alaska Wilderness Lodge. Fly fishing for silver salmon. Catch them by the bushels. I have been going since about 2000. I love flying with the bush pilots, they can land on anything.  Obviously, taking off is another matter though.

I never did fly fishing for Silver's, almost always used spoons or spinners for them. We used to fly fish for Reds on the Russian River, good times.

If you haven't read it you should check out a book by Lynn Wyatt, Memories from my Logbook: A Bush Pilot's Story. It is an excellent read.

[Yetti]

You need chrome browser to do this, but Google earth has bear cams and underwater bear cams.   https://earth.google.com/web/data=CgQSAggB

[thinwing]

I met the owner of that Beaver at dead cow lake flyin ...he and his wife run bent prop lodge and is a very safe pilot.Speaking of which at the same flyin ,I met a red Wilga ,heavily modified we all know as Draco,also recently totaled in a takeoff accident at Reno stead yesterday...