Patience is a virtue....

Patience is 99% of fishing!!!  

In Alaska....your patience is not with the fish you are hoping will be snagged by your lure...it's with the 47,297 bugs swarming around you!  

So, we started the day looking around a couple of the shops in Cordova.  There is one that I have wanted to see for a really long time...Copper River Fleece.  Coastie wives that have been stationed here in Alaska have raved about these jackets.  They are made for wet weather, but they are more jacket like than a coat.  I am not a coat person...so I was curious.  The jackets are amazing, you can pick your style, color, hood or no hood and personalize it with ribbon designed by Alaskan artists...you feel like it's made for you.  Well, they are crazy expensive, and even if I had an extra $200, I am not sure I could justify it to myself.  So, we carried on.  Although, I still want one!

We headed to the grocery store...where you can also buy an atv, with your sky high priced produce.  One side note, milk has a really long shelf life here...like a month!  Weird!!!  Along with your $8 a pound ground beef, you can get your fishing license!  So, I got my very first one, I was pretty excited.  We drove down to the spot that has been lined with trucks and rv's the last two days, marched through the bushes and picked our "lucky" spot.  Melissa reacquainted me with fly fishing...which I have not done in a very, very long time.  I did pretty good, I was able to laugh at myself when I totally goobered my cast!  I was very thankful for my physical therapist insisting I practice not throwing like a girl when I was recovering from my shoulder surgery...because it came in handy today.  We tried for a while...and gave in to the bugs.  On the way back into town and I glanced down at my hand...and it was covered in red circles where the tiny bugs bit me.  Now they itch.  I am not discouraged that I did not catch a salmon....I am gonna practice my patience, and try again tomorrow!