Odd Pictures from Trout Streams, Page 44

Dipnetting to fill the freezer with salmon is not as tidy as catch & release fly fishing. Here's the process: 1. Beat the salmon as hard as you can between the eyes with a club, several times if needed, while it's still in the net. This makes it stop flopping so you can remove it from the net. 2. Cut the base of the gill arches on one side with scissors, severing major arteries that send blood spurting out of the unconscious fish's body, quickly killing it and assuring ideal flavor. 3. Thread the stringer in through one of the gills and out the mouth, and stick the fish back in the glacial river to keep cool.

After whacking ten or fifteen fish in the same spot, the riverbank looks like it warrants a CSI team.

A panoramic view from Finger Mountain along the Dalton Highway. This is one of the more developed rest stops along the highway, and the view is vast and spectacular. The "finger" that gives Finger Mountain its name is sticking up in the distance behind the cars in the parking lot.

View up from the river

Here's the view from my front porch in Fairbanks, Alaska, during a nice auroral display.