Fairbanks woman reels in 199.5-pound halibut not once, but twice
by Tim Mowry / tmowry@newsminer.com
Fairbanks Daily Newsminer

FAIRBANKS — This is a story about the big one that didn’t get away. Actually, it did get away for a little while, but it came back.Melody Dalbec, of Fairbanks, caught a 199.5-pound halibut in Valdez on Saturday not once, but twice. After it escaped the first time, she brought it to the side of the charter boat she was fishing on, the Dan Orion.
“Once we got a good look at him, the captain got a little excited,” Dalbec said of captain Dave Wiley. “He harpooned him, and the next thing
I know, the line broke, the harpoon came out and the fish was gone with my lure and my line.”
This was how Wiley described it: “It thrashed around so hard the dart ripped back out of the halibut and it ran back under the bottom of the boat and the line broke.”
Disappointed but not deterred, an exhausted Dalbec — it had taken her about 30 minutes to get the fish to the surface — grabbed another rod and continued fishing.
It wasn’t long before she and two other fishermen got their lines tangled and captain Dave Wiley told the three anglers, one of which was Dalbec’s husband, Randy, to reel their lines in so he could untangle the mess.
“It was obvious when we were reeling in that we had something,” Dalbec said. “I could feel my husband reeling, but there was no pressure on my line.”
When Dalbec and the other two fishermen finally got their cluster of lines and sinkers reeled in to the point where Wiley could untangle them, the captain noticed a fourth line.
“I started pulling the mess over the side, and there was another line in the snarl going over the side,” Wiley said. “I looked down and there’s that great big fish a few feet past the snarl.”
That much was obvious because the fish had guts falling out of the hole where Wiley had harpooned it the first time, as well as the lure still in its mouth.
“Sure as tootin’, it was my fish,” Dalbec said. “I looked at (Wiley) and he said, ‘Wow, I’ve never experienced anything like this before.’”
The fish was the biggest halibut caught during the 11-day Halibut Hullabaloo Tournament, earning Dalbec two tickets anywhere Alaska Airlines flies. The fish also was big enough to take the lead in the Valdez Halibut Derby, which would be worth $15,000 if her catch holds up until the end of the derby on Sept. 5.
Chances are slim that will happen, considering the smallest fish to win the derby since it started in 20 years ago is a 210-pounder back in 1992 and six of the past seven winners have been more than 300 pounds. But that doesn’t bother Dalbec.“I’m just tickled,” Dalbec said. “It’s a story I’ll tell my grandkids forever.”
The fish came up a half-pound shy of the 200-pound mark when it was weighed, and Dalbec said it probably would have been more than 200 pounds had they been able to get it on the boat the first time she caught it. “It had to be down there an hour bleeding out with entrails dragging behind it,” she said.
It was only Dalbec’s second time halibut fishing. The charter was a gift from friend and fellow dart team member Alison Koss, who won a raffle for a two-person charter last winter.
“It was either a bear gun or a halibut charter,” Dalbec said of Koss’ prize. “She won the raffle and took me as a friend.”Dalbec’s husband, Randy, and friend Case Sanders, another dart team member, joined them.“We got the trip on luck, and we got the fish on luck,” said Dalbec, a 41-year-old special education secretary at North Pole Elementary School. “It was a wonderful trip.”
In addition to catching her big halibut twice, Dalbec also reeled in a two-for-one special when she caught a rock fish that was in the mouth of a ling cod. While she could have kept the rock fish, the ling cod wouldn’t let go of the smaller fish so she tossed them both back.“He wanted it more than me,” Dalbec said of the ling cod.

http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/8031378/article-Fairbanks-woman-reels-in-199-5-pound-halibut-not-once–but-twice?

Get ready it won’t be long before Chuck and his co-horts will be out to set up a data base and instant check on everyone’s antler collection.

Man allegedly stabs another with antlers

Anchorage Daily News

Published: July 1st, 2010 11:08 PM
Last Modified: July 1st, 2010 11:09 PM

An Anchorage man is accused of stabbing his roommate with deer antlers that he pulled off the wall in the heat of an argument. Jesse Harris, 27, was charged with domestic violence felony assault.
Police say that just after 3 p.m. Thursday they got calls from neighbors about the disturbance in the 2400 block of Douglas Drive in Turnagain. A man was calling for help, a neighbor told police.
When police arrived, they found the victim suffering from stab wounds to his back and ankle. The victim was not seriously hurt.
Police say the men were arguing about the ownership of a vehicle.

This had me laughing my you know what off makes me want to go out and buy a dozer.

Fairbanks man accused of threatening Census worker with bulldozer
by Chris Freiberg / cfreiberg@newsminer.com
FAIRBANKS — A Fairbanks man has been accused of threatening a U.S. Census worker with a bulldozer.

On Wednesday, the Fairbanks District Attorney’s office filed one count of fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, against 50-year-old Carey William Bliss.

The Census worker, only identified by his initials in charging documents, went to Bliss’ Tall Spruce Road home June 2 looking for information from Bliss.

Bliss reportedly was uncooperative and grabbed Census forms from the worker, according to a criminal complaint filed in court.

Bliss then said, “I know how to get you off my property,” went to a bulldozer in his yard and started it, court documents allege.

The worker then got in his car and backed out of Bliss’ driveway as Bliss followed him in the bulldozer, stopping at the end of the driveway.

Ruben Del Valle, a spokesman for the Census Bureau in Alaska, said that while there have been reports of violence toward Census workers in other parts of the country, it was the first such incident he had heard about in Alaska, home to Noorvik, the first U.S. city to be counted in this year’s Census.

Census workers receive training on how to deal with such situations, which they then report to supervisors, he said.

While Bliss marked his property with “No trespassing” signs, according to charging documents, Del Valle said courts repeatedly have found that Census workers are not violating any laws if they are only going to a door seeking information.

Bliss has no prior criminal record and was not arrested in connection in the case. Court records do not list a lawyer for him or any upcoming court dates.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Fairbanks man accused of threatening Census worker with bulldozer

Living in Alaska’s backwoods sooner or later you are going to butt heads with a member of the local bear population, that’s a given.  Over the years we’ve had our share, some scary some down right hilarious at least after the fact. Both of these stories are true and none of the name were changed to protect the stupid.

Bears and Taxes

So what has one to do with the other? Be patient I’ll get you there. You see the first summer Jenny and I moved to our homestead we lived in a small back pack tent while all of our gear was being flown in. Our land was almost a mile from the lake the float plane was landing with our stuff. More often than not the air taxi brought loads in faster than we could haul them back to our place. Anything that attracted bears went to the homestead first; what was left on the beach was shoved under a tarp along with a portable radio playing G. Gordon Liddy shows, with the g-man on watch you would think things would be secure from intruders. As I said earlier we were living in a small tent most of the summer. From the time we arrived at our homestead several of the local black bears scoped out food tent, most nights they would check out our perimeter, and that was the extent of things. If one crossed the line a round over the head would convince him to take his business elsewhere. So when our early warning system (our dogs) alerted us to an intruder I naturally assumed it was one of the little black bears. In July its pretty light all night in our part of the country; so I carried a .38 leaving one hand free to swat ‘skeeters. I crawled out of the tent to convince the latest invader pickin’s would be better elsewhere. Have you ever stepped out of your tent in the middle of the night and be eyeball to eyeball with a seven or eight hundred pound brown bear with nothing more than a .38 in your hand; most police departments don’t even use .38’s any more. Situations like that help you to forget the million or so skeeters chewin’ on you. I asked Jenny if she would mind stepping out of the tent and bring the rifle with her while I kept our guest entertained. I don’t know if it was my John Wayne impersonations or the 7mm round over his nose but he decided he didn’t like our hospitality and went on to find other forms of entertainment while we went back to sleep. Still trying to figure the tax connection? Remember I told you some of our things were still on the beach under a tarp? And g-man was on the radio; well this bear was a democrat. The next day we went the lake to pick up a few loads only to find all of our things neatly rearranged over a ¼ mile of beachfront. The radio was nicely folded while a number of boxes had been unpacked and meticulously disorganized; one being several years worth of tax records. Luckily most were still in their zip lock bags without to many teeth marks.

Bears, brakes, and bungee cords

One of my first real Alaska adventures was to drive an John Deere 450 dozer from the lodge where it was stored for the winter and drive it to Danny Thomas’ (Danny Thomas the gold miner not Danny Thomas the actor) mining claims. The trip was about 25+ miles across tundra and swamps. The first trip out was sort of a accident, Danny usually went out by himself. This time the 450 died about 7 or 8 miles out, I was working for the lodge where Danny staged out of while he was coming and going each summer. I drew the short straw and was flown to a small lake a couple of miles from Danny with a backpack load of parts and tools. It was late in the day when we got the dozer running but Danny was anxious to get going again. Danny was also very sociable, a common trait in bush rats, so he ask me if I would like to ride out with him. Sounded good to me it didn’t make any difference that a plane would be out to pick me up or that I had just started my new job. This was an adventure I could always find another job. For the next several miles Danny entertained me with stories of his claim and its history. Seems that his claims was where the mother lode of all mother lodes was located, he just couldn’t find the exact spot, but it was there the guy who sold it to him said so. Danny told me he always spent the night at a trapper friends cabin a few miles from his mining claims, since we were running 9 or 10 hours late because of the break down I assumed we would pull over for the night then stop by their place at a reasonable hour. Not Danny 3 o’clock that morning we pulled into Lawrence’s camp where Lawrence and Mrs. Lawrence were patiently waiting with two of the biggest dogs I had ever seen. The whole time we unloaded Danny was assuring me they were harmless, the dogs were friendly to. We spent the rest of the night on the cabin floor and woke up at the crack of noon to the smell of fresh pancakes fried in bear grease, another first with many more to come over the years. After breakfast Danny and I headed down trail for the last leg of our journey. Lets fast forward a few miles here. Dannys claims were at the mouth of a small creek that ran into the Susitna River. The last mile of the trail started at an area of muskeg then wound through a heavily treed hillside. In Alaska, especially on shaded hillsides ice can hang on until well into June some years. Something else about Danny, he wasn’t big on fixin’ things until they up died. Well at the top of the hill above the claims there was a dip that was ice and this was late May. Like I said before Danny wasn’t big on fixin’ equipment, the grousers on the dozers tracks had been worn slick since the rock was a boulder. So now were a mile from camp with the dozer and a trailer full of the summers supplies sitting on ice, tacks spinning and nobody goin’ any where. An hour later we walked into camp everything else is still at the top of the hill. Danny did keep a well stocked camp I’ll give him that we had all the equipment need to get things unstuck and down to camp. We decided since Danny knew where everything was he would get things organized while I take one of the Hondas back to get some food and sleeping bags. As luck would have it the only thing that would start was an old 3-wheeler, with no brakes and no front wheel drive for climbing hills, oh well I’m off. The first ½ mile was pretty smooth going it was until I hit the steepest most twisted part of the hill before things started down hill. Did I mention Danny was big on was bungee cords, he believed the more the better. This includes bear guns bungeed to the Hondas rack he figured if it fell off the 3-wheeler what was the point of having it in the first place. Back to the story. I was just making it to the top of a steep curve while one of the local grizzlies was coming around the same curve headin’ down, another first for me. So was trying to stop a 3-wheeler without brake on a hill while reaching behind me trying to take 16 bungee’s off a 12ga on the rack behind me. It’s physically impossible to keep a 3-wheeler from rolling down hill while you undo bungee’s and not take your eyes off the grizzly above you. Luckily for me this bear was well fed and had a since of humor. After a short standoff the bear shook his head and headed back up the hill probably thinking what a bear has to put with now days.

Alls well that ends well, I didn’t get bear ate, we got the dozer back to camp,  my boss flew out to pick me up, and I kept my job for 7 more years.

If he is nothing else Judge Holland is consistent, I can’t recall a single one of Judge Hollands decisions where he ruled  in favor of Alaskans than over predators. Now USFW can fiddle while Rome burns and the wolves of  Unimak feast on new born caribou calves.  The Unimak herd is crashing USFW doesn’t seem to give a damn about  people of Unimak.  The Unimak herd is the only island herd in Alaska and the people of Unimak’s only source of red meat. When will the desk jockeys get it through their heads, ungulates feed people not wolves. The Alaska Board of Game did extend the wolf hunting and trapping seasons so for now at least the locals can do what needs done.

Judge blocks state’s wolf kill on Unimak

UNIMAK ISLAND: Federal agency bound by environment regulations.By MARY PEMBERTONThe Associated PressPublished: June 7th, 2010 11:17 PMLast Modified: June 7th, 2010 11:18 PM

A federal judge on Monday denied the state’s request for a preliminary injunction that would let it kill wolves, a step it said was needed to protect a caribou herd on an Aleutian island that is a subsistence food source for Alaskans there.

U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland said that while sympathetic to the state’s argument, he had to abide by law when ruling against the state’s request to immediately conduct predator control in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge on Unimak Island. “Somebody’s governmental pride will be bruised here and there is no avoiding that,” Holland said, before ruling in favor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”It is the federal agency’s prerogative to decide what they have decided.”

Read more here….

This one hit home with me I didn’t know the guide but I have been there, Wrangell Police  haven’t let out many details yet. Although on another forum someone who said they knew the guide heard that they had just taken a brown bear. If this is what happened I can picture the scene. The hunter just had a dream come true, the guide helped him achieve it they are both happier than a couple of kid in a candy store. The next moment one man is dead anothers lifetime dream has turned to a lifetime nightmare. When I read this when it came my heart went out to both of these men and their families.

After you finish the main article scroll through the reader comments, these are very telling. The liberal mindset really come out and their true agenda is brought to daylight. Nobody knows all the details yet neither of these men deserve some of the anti-hunting hatred some of these commenters are spewing out.

Anchorage Daily News / adn.com

Published: June 1st, 2010 05:29 PM
Last Modified: June 1st, 2010 05:29 PM

A hunting guide from Wasilla was shot and killed late Sunday during a guided brown bear hunt near Wrangell, Alaska State Troopers said in a press release Monday night. The shooting appeared to be an accident; troopers say they have no indication of foul play.

Read more…Anchorage Daily News

Alaska is probably one of the few places where you can view wildlife from your front porch. In the winter moose are a common sight in downtown Anchorage.  Summer bring in the bears, bear’s are so common place in Anchorage the cities web site has a special map for bear activity.   All  human/bear encounters have the potential to go bad as in this Anchorage Daily News article. In this case it was the bear that got the short end but things could have turned the other way had it not been for the ladies dog and her quick thinking husband.

Anchorage Daily News photo

Dog intervenes in grizzly attack, but bear is eventually shot
EAGLE RIVER: Woman hid behind a truck; bruin returns after husband fires warning.
By LISA DEMER
ldemer@adn.com
Published: June 1st, 2010 06:58 AM
Last Modified: June 1st, 2010 06:58 AM

A longtime Alaskan says his dog probably saved his wife’s life after a young grizzly bear charged her Sunday night by their home in the Eagle River canyon, near the nature center.

Michael Weiman, 64, scared the bear off with warning shots, then, when it returned, he shot and killed the bear, Anchorage police said.

Weiman said his wife, Marianne Hamilton, was walking their 10-year-old boxer, Mojabe, on an abandoned airstrip that’s part of their property on Bear Ridge Circle. It’s an area of big lots where homeowners are used to seeing a lot of wildlife, including moose and grizzly bears, he said. They had seen a bigger grizzly earlier in the day on Sunday.

That evening, they were enjoying the sunshine. Around 9 p.m., Hamilton went to walk the dog.

“The dog stopped and wheeled around. Marianne turns around, and here comes a bear,” Weiman said.

It was on the airstrip, in the open. Its ears were back, and it was coming at her, he said. “She kept remarking about the eyes, the eyes. The eyes were big and coming,” Weiman said.

He heard her screaming, grabbed his .44 pistol, ran outside and saw the boxer “intervene and cut the bear off.” Hamilton ran behind a pickup truck. The dog chased the bear across the road.

The bear turned toward the dog, and Weiman fired three shots into the ground next to the bear, each one closer, as he tells the story.

“Over the hill it went,” he said. But as soon as they all got inside, the bear was back.

“The words I said were ‘Hell no,’ and I grabbed my .30-30,” Weiman said.

He fired. “Very swiftly it was done and I’m not sorry,” he said.

He said he’s lived in Alaska 41 years, been a hunter all his life, but never hunted bears. He said he’s a nature lover. That bear, though, was acting dangerously. The grizzly was young and smallish, maybe 150 pounds, but its claws were 3-inches long and razor sharp.

He called 911 and Anchorage police officers came to his home and told him what he needed to do. He skinned the bear and will turn the hide in to the state Department of Fish and Game, which auctions the hides of bears killed in defense of life or property.

Residents of the area are used to seeing bears, most of which never cause a problem. Most people carry a gun or pepper spray when they are out walking in the spring and summer, Weiman said. But on Sunday, winds would have whipped spray into the user’s eyes and the bear could have attacked, he said.

“People get so complacent and they think the bear is a little teddy bear. They aren’t.”

Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/05/31/1301997/dog-intervenes-in-grizzly-attack.html#ixzz0pcAy2ZIn

I’m taking a day off all the doom & gloom political garbage today. This is for all of us who think we’re to old to do some of things we’ve dreamed about. Yesterday out only neighbor Bud turned 86 he still puts up a thousand square foot garden and gets insulted if I offer to help with his firewood. Bud served with the Alaska Scouts during WWII the scouts were an elite group that fought the Japaneses on Attu  & Kiska Islands. Anyone who knows Bud would understand why he lives the way he does, Bud was raised with the “just do it” attitude. His family moved to Alaska at the height o the Great Depression like most others they didn’t have much money so instead of going to the government with their hand out they came up with a plan. They moved from Illinois to the Seattle are where they worked for a couple of years doing what ever they could to make a living saving every dollar they could. In his spare time his dad went to the local library and got books on boat building and  shaping wood. during that two years Bud and his dad built a boat took the motor from their,  put it in the boat, then carved a prop to power the boat. With the boat finished they loaded family something like six kids from toddle hood to 14yo. They landed in Petersburg, Alaska a few weeks later. When he retired at 65 Bud and his wife filed on the land where he lives now. He cleared all his land for his garden and house at an age most of us are kicking back taking life at a slower pace. His wife passed away a few years ago and he slowed down some but if he doesn’t get in an eight day he thinks he’s getting lazy. Bud told me once “when I get to old to put in a garden an get my own firewood call my boys to come and get I’m to old to be out here”. From the way thing look now it may be a few more years before I have to maake that call.

The ice went out from the lake we use for the local airport so several families with vacation cabin will be out over the weekend to help Bud celebrate life.

When I decided to start this blog I planned to do more lifestyle than politics. However there are so many hot ticket wildlife issues going on in Alaska right now it’s hard not to jump on my soapbox. The attached Anchorage Daily New article is about one more example of on group who are offering a caribou herd to the alter of gia. This really irritates me you have a food source that people depend on is being decimated by wolves yet it is the wolves that are being protected. In the video I posted yesterday Ashley Judd blabbed about managing wolves with scientific principals. She’s right they should be, but they are not they are being managed by a bunch of gia worshipers who treat them, wolves and other predators, like gods while ungulates become the blood sacrifice. It is the ungulate herds that traditionally feed people over the eons not wolves. In Alaska wildlife has and is the traditional mainstay for both rural and urban, courts have even ruled that all Alaskans are subsistence hunters. Alaska is unique among the states in that all resources are jointly own by the people. This includes wildlife, making the Alaska Department of Fish & Game the primary manager of all wildlife in Alaska including federal land. However in Katie John v Alaska the Ninth Circuit gave the federal land managers control of subsistence hunting & fishing on all federal lands and certain waters in Alaska. Title VIII of ANILCA set up the Federal Subsistence Board and Regional Advisory Councils. The regional Councils are made up of local users who meet twice a year to discuss local subsistence needs as well as other subsistence issues then advise the full Board whose job, among other duties, is to allocate fish & game for subsistence uses.

Last spring Secretary of Interior Salazar met with the chairs of all ten of the regional council’s. One of the items discussed was predator control on federal land. The chairs urged the secretary to align federal predator control programs with those of the state. Too many federal land managers look at this as the state usurping their authority when they should be looking out for the interest of the people. Until federal and state managers come together on predator control predators will continue to win and gia will get his sacrificial caribou.

All that said the people of Unimak should not have waited for the wolves to destroy one of their primary sources of food before acting. They were the ones there they should have been hunting and trapping the wolves long before they got out of control. People have gone to long believing the government will fix all their problems when they had the means to take care of them before things got out of hand.

Anchorage Daily News
Legal action threatened over state predator control in refuge
By MARY PEMBERTON
The Associated Press
Published: May 24th, 2010 06:45 PM
Last Modified: May 24th, 2010 06:45 PM
A federal agency threatened legal action if Alaska moves ahead with plans to kill wolves.
In a letter Monday, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service cautioned the Alaska Department of Fish and Game about proceeding with plans to kill wolves on refuge land on Unimak Island without a federal special-use permit.
Doing so would be considered as a trespass on the refuge and such action would be referred to the U.S. attorney, according to a Fish & Wildlife Service news release.
The letter was in response to one that state wildlife officials sent last week to Rowan Gould, the Fish & Wildlife Service’s acting director.
In that letter, Corey Rossi, director of the state Division of Wildlife Conservation, said, “Immediate action is required to protect the herd, specifically this year’s calves.
“Waiting to take action places this year’s calves in too great a jeopardy,” wrote Rossi, a strong proponent of aerial predator control where wolves and bears are killed to increase moose and caribou numbers. Federal agency is required by law to follow a certain process — a process the state is well aware of but apparently doesn’t want to wait for, said Fish & Wildlife Service spokesman Bruce Woods.State Fish and Game Department officials declined Monday to answer questions or comment.
Wade Willis, a former state wildlife biologist and a vocal player on the conservation side of Alaska wildlife politics, supported Fish & Wildlife’s action.
“Fish and Wildlife cannot tolerate the state’s attempts to obliterate the last 30 wolves remaining on Unimak Island,” he said.
“Federal management authority always takes preference over state management mandates. The USFWS is mandated to protect natural diversity and abundance. Alaska prefers to manage for a game farm, where wolves and bears are decimated to allow unchecked commercial guiding and trophy hunting.”
Last week, the state Fish and Game Department announced that beginning about June 1 it will shoot some wolves on Unimak to protect caribou calving grounds under its aerial predator-control program.
The department plans to use two biologists and four pilots to kill wolves over three weeks on Unimak, which is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.
It would be the first time in recent history that aerial predator control was used inside a national refuge in Alaska.
Caribou are a subsistence food for people living on the island, but their numbers have declined sharply. In 2002, there were more than 1,200 caribou. Last year, fewer than 300 were counted. The state has an unofficial estimate of up to 30 wolves.
In its letter, the Fish & Wildlife Service said it recognizes the urgency of the situation but is required to follow federal law when initiating new management programs on its refuges.
It also points out that the federal agency has been working with the state to better understand the biological factors in the herd’s decline since concerns were raised in December. To that end, it has issued permits to allow additional radio collaring and biological sampling of wolves and caribou, the letter says.
The federal agency hopes the jurisdictional issue can be resolved without going to court. If it can’t, maybe the court could resolve it “once and for all,” Woods said.

The arrogance of some people amaze me. You have to listen to Ashley Judd expel her vast knowledge on wolves and wildlife management. This woman is clueless to listen to her you would think the wolf is a helpless house dog I’ll never understand the mindset of gia worshipers . Wolves are far from helpless they are one of the most efficient predators on the planet earth. If Ashley and her cohorts up at the Defenders of Wildlife could only watch a pack of wolves take a moose down and eat it alive. Or watch a pack hamstring 10 or 12 caribou then eat 2 or 3 of them awhile the others are left to die. The second video is the Alaska answer to this nonsense.