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Tuesday

Sonja over the bar, feet planted, rail glide. Wind whipping out to sea, trying to lift the nose and flip us off the shoulder. Gloriously clear and cold water, as cold as a witch's tit. Nobody on it, I passed on fishing the finger in the wind as a chest high set rolled through unmolested. Thought better surf this now and see where it goes as the tide pushes in from dead low, fun fun two lengthy sections linking, solo for an hour, then me and the detective for a bit more.

In the lee of the dune a large group of Orthodox something or others, clothed head to foot. Women with full length dresses and men with beards straight outta Pennsylvania yo! Not driving horse and buggies, no, mostly Yukon driven all SUV'd to the max. But if you looked in a certain direction removing the modern vehicles it could have been a 100 years ago......

Loads of their kids, loads, boys all dressed up and little girls with head scarves like their mothers and aunties. Climbing up the dune and into the teeth of 30 knots before it turned toward the surf and pushed them back down the steep sand. The wind cleaned the wave face and thinned out the lips in translucence as the marine fog filled in to the rock and grabbed the handle near the surface.....

SUP to good use

If you're hungry, this is when a sup comes into its own . Other than that I guess you could run it in knee high slop. It's not called Kook Bay because of its quality.

More harvested goods from the estuary (where you'll often find a SUP beginner), between the fish and the clams..... a lovely addition to the meal the locals are putting together tonight. Kawanda rocks!!

Hotspot

Easter's summer Zambezi steelhead.

It seems appropriate to fish(Jesus and the soup kitchen on the mountain miracle thingy) on Easter Sunday, in a relentless rain(the tears of god) with a howling wind in your face for good measure, a sort of castigation for mankind's "sins". Not many other sinners out though which probably means this will be repeated next year....

First confirmed summer steelhead after much discussion of clipped fins, un-clipped jaws and spotted bellies and other biologist nuances, whatever it was it tasted really good last night and Surftwin, post-tax hell week gets dibs at week's end for sauted and oven baked slab o' steelhead prepared Zambezi style......

When the cam goes down....

The surf sucks.....

Silliest River

Got lucky on the drift boat yesterday and got a couple of edibles. Went 2 out of 3 losing a wild fish after a long battle as we followed it downriver from pocket to pocket of cover. Finally it rolled itself in the shallows and released the hook. A nice release as we didn't have to touch him, good sized maybe 15lbs?

Weather never warmed up really, snow in the hills but a dropping river and only 2 other boats all day was pretty cool. Eggs curing, last week's steelies all smoked up and tying yarnballs. Sheeitt I'm going redneck!

Surf was being shredded by the spring north-west as we were reminded around each bend where it blasted us deeper into jackets...