Alaska’s Emerald Isle – KODIAK
Kodiak is the second largest island in the United States, it’s home to the largest US Coast Guard base, has the biggest bears and supports all 5 species of salmon plus halibut, lingcod and rockfish. This is why I’ve dreamt about Alaska since I was a 10-year-old boy!
I first visited Alaska in the late 60’s but was just passing through en route to Vietnam as several of us NFL’ers were invited to visit the troops with the USO tour. We had an unscheduled layover in Anchorage. This gave me a chance to drive a few hours south of the city to look around. I visited the Anchorage area a few more times after this but stayed fairly close to town. My visits then were limited to wintertime as football dominated my life during the summer fishing season.
In the early 90’s, while filming in LA for the American Gladiators series, George Weaver introduced himself in the hotel lobby and gave me a photo of silver salmon he’d caught recently on Kodiak Island. He’d written his name and phone number on the back and invited me to come fish. A few years later, I had an opportunity to visit Alaska again and I called George. It was quite the trip. We caught loads of salmon and halibut and I was introduced to a lot of great people. A year later, Audrey and I both traveled back to Kodiak and we became fast friends with the Weaver family. Hard to believe but that was nearly 25 years ago.
This past week we joined George and Janice at their new place in Port Lions – a small, remote village on Kodiak Island. We fished, relaxed, explored, met some great folks and enjoyed the thunderous local 4th of July celebrations!
We produced several successful episodes of our outdoor adventure series, North to Alaska, from various locations on Kodiak Island. With so much to do and see, it never disappoints.
ZONK