Fishing and Flying

Yesterday afternoon, I flew the Super Cub Float plane from Fish Lake, elevation 300', out about 30-40 miles to a "Mountain" lake.  The lake's name is Pineapple Man (no idea why) and it was up in the base of the mountains at 1,600' elevation.  It was a tricky place to land a float plane.  One side of the lake had a bluff with a good deal of elevation.  Pineapple Man has a curve in it about 4/5 of the way from the exit point.  There are large trees and a rise in elevation at the straight end of the lake.  The curved side has more swamp and is a better approach (less chance to clip the trees).  I had to fly into the crook of the lake on the swamp end, then part way down the lake (1/5 the way), with high rises reaching on either side of the lake, I had to turn the plane between the two high rises in order to land on the straight part of the lake.  I was going to draw you a picture, because Lance video taped the landing with my camera, but he apparently didn't push the right button, so no video, and no drawing, because I forgot my camera this morning.  Anyway, some of the pictures I took and have posted below will help with my awkward explanation.

To give you an idea of how small Talkeetna is, a lot of the locals are already calling me by my first name.  Also, I had to get a one day fishing license and went to the local grocery store.  The girl that sold me my license, and the girl that was the first one to congratulate me on my float plane certifiation, (her name is Kelsey) is also a student at Above Alaska Aviation.  She is from Idaho and holds two jobs here in Talkeetna.  One at the Lodge (300 rooms on the hill), and one at Nagley's Grocery.  Not unusual for people to work 16 to 20 hours a day, 7 days a week.  I asked someone about weekends off and they explained that "Winters" are their weekends.  

Already landed and floating on Pineapple Mann Lake (I uploaded these out of order and my battery is running low)

On the way to Pineapple Lake, this is Larsen Lake

I think this is the approach to Pineapple Man Lake before turning to land between the two rises

On Pineapple Man Lake

After Fishing the whole length of the lake (the wind carried the plane the whole length and we had to paddle a couple of times to keep the plane from hitting the shore), I step taxied back to the beginning of the lake in order to drift back again.

Here are some pictures from the return flight from Pineapple Man back to Fish Lake and our limit of trout.  I must have lost 20 trout trying to get them up to the plane (no net).  I caught 3 of the 4.  The biggest and smallest were mine.  We had the three small ones for breakfast at the B&B and Bill at the B&B is taking the big one to some friends house tonight to gill outside.  He and Grace and their two daughters have been really good to me and I look forward to Bill's enthusiastiasm in the morning when I share my previous days adventure.