(SitNews) Ketchikan, Alaska - I thought time went quickly when I lived in California, but I had no idea.

The routine of California for ten months, Alaska for two made years fun and swift.

In the three weeks since I had moved to Ketchikan from Prince of Wales, it was clear plenty had changed. As I flew over for a weekend fishing trip after school one Friday, I saw how the lush green alpine had turned brown and the limited amounts of snow were almost completely gone. Thankfully, rain had kept the rivers up and the silvers were stacked pretty thick. Saturday morning I had my limit fast, before mom had finished cooking blueberry pancakes.

The Ward Lake Nature Trail is underwater after 9.46 inches of rainfall measured for September 27th and 28th.
Photograph by Jeff Lund ©2014

My buddy Howie showed up just as I finished my six and got six of his own in maybe an hour.

Howie and I did a little silver salmon summer send-off last year too. The difference was it was in July just before I retreated to warmer parts of the world. But thanks to the rapid events of the past year, I’m still here. Sept. 30 marks the 1-year anniversary of leaving California.

Ferris Bueller told me life would move pretty fast, but I didn’t put much weight to his philosophizing because I was a naive kid riding my Huffy to the river to catch silvers while flooding my American-made XtraTuf boots.

Now I’m eating chorizo and eggs Tweeting about the weather while hoping life doesn’t continue at the pace of this past year otherwise I’ll wake up tomorrow and be 40.

Seriously, the alpine hunting season is already over. Didn’t I just write about being excited for it?

It was already a week ago Howie and I caught those fish. It has already been a month since school started, two months since my last buddy from California was getting introduced to a life he only read about, six months since I caught a steelhead, ten months since I went on an adventure with wolf trappers which altered my perception forever, and eleven months since mom had a second brain surgery.

Can I pump the brakes a bit here?

It has been a great year, so I don’t feel like I need to wake up and start living, but seriously. Tomorrow. Forty. I’ll flip open my laptop (or whatever there is at that point) and see images of more and bigger fish, deer, bears, goats, and whatever else sparks my interest. Shoot, I might even be married. But let’s not get crazy.

I’ll hope I took a deep breath in those moments to enjoy, and didn’t just move on to the next fish, deer or whatever I’m in to at that point. Hopefully I’ll have some images in my mental vault of bear, mountain goats, elk, moose or even a caribou.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My immediate concern is not hunting big game, it’s finishing this coffee and column so I can get to Ward Lake on time and help with the Regional Cross Country race. By the way, didn’t I run around Ward not too long ago as a runner myself?

I think that’s the only part of my life which doesn’t go fast. Me when I run.

Jeff Lund ©2014

Jeff Lund is a Teacher, Freelance Writer, & River fishing guide (Tranquil Charters) living in Ketchikan, Alaska
Contact Jeff at Email – aklund21@gmail.com

http://www.jlundoutdoors.com

SitNews ©2014
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Ketchikan, Alaska

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