Thursday, July 23, 2009

Halibut Fishing In Homer, AK

Here are a bunch of pics from our fishing trip in Homer. It was an AMAZING experience. We caught tons of fish and the highlight of the day was the 140 lb. halibut that we got. It is huge, as you can see in the pictures. Tanner, a 13 year old that was with us, hooked it. He and I worked on reeling it in until we couldn't do it any more. Then Skip brought him in the rest of the way. It was crazy because as soon as it got to the boat the captain shot it in the head so that it wouldn't tear up the boat or knock someone out! CRAZY!! We caught 4 different kinds of fish and had a buffet of all 4 a day later. It was yummy! The best part is that we caught our fish for the year in a day!

The ride out was 3 hours. We saw lots of beautiful scenery and slept some!

There were a bunch of sea lions on this island. We also saw otters and seals on the ride out.




I caught this yellow-eyed rock fish, which I guess is pretty rare.
It is a pretty creepy looking fish!


When the captain was fileting one of the halibut he found this crab inside!



Measuring the 140 pounder!

These are the lips of the 140 pounder!
These are just the fish that were the biggest. We actually caught a lot more!


Monday, July 13, 2009

Great Outdoors Backyard!

So we are staying in Skips backyard where he grew up and it is awsome. His dad owns some acerage behind the house that is just pure woods. It goes forever with no houses. In fact it is so thick that when we decided to go exploring through it the other day we had to take a machette to cut a trail! It was a little hard for the kids so we didn't get very far but Skip and I are going to venture out some more on our own once we get a chance.

This is a view from the house.
Here is Skip trying to site in the pellet gun in case there is a bear! Or a squirrel!
Starting out! You can see our trailer set up in the background and Skips dads house behind the truck.
This is Skip cutting the trail.
Kennedy with her walking stick! She didn't get much use out of it cause I actually had to carry her most of the time.
This stump was really cool so we had the girls pose on it!

We got to pick and eat fresh blueberries.
And cranberries too!

This is a fungus that grows on the trees. People cut these off, paint on them, and sell them. If you can imagine Parker, he has collected 7 of these things, 500 rocks, 40 sticks, etc.!

So needless to say, our kids have a blast playing in the yard!

Parker-6, Hailey-8, Thatcher-10

Parker-6, Hailey-8, Thatcher-10
AND THEN THERE'S...

Kennedy-2!!

Kennedy-2!!