Bear watch in Valdez

We all decided to go "snag" "fishing for salmon in Valdez. We pulled up just in time to see these bear cubs crossing the road in front of us.

They quickly ran the other way across the road. This was an excellent area for them to be able to get all the salmon they could eat from the bay on the other side of the road.

We watched the bears for a long time. This is mama bear on one of her 4 cubs.

Mama bear went off by herself while her cubs played together. We were very close to them. Maybe less than 100 feet. We stayed pretty close to the truck just in case, but Mama Bear didn't seem to mind us at all.

Mama and 4 cubs.

We went down the rocks to do some "snagging". This was my first fish. It was nice, but we threw all our fish back in. We already have a freezer full of salmon and halibut. At this stage in their life cycle, all the salmon want to do is swim upstream to spawn and then die. The waters were teeming with salmon. We used a 3 pronged hook to snag them, no bait. It was fun.

We all snagged salmon. Bob is showing off one of his.

Joe had fun too. The tide was coming in pretty quick, so we couldn't stay much longer.

After snagging, we went down the road to the end of the Alaskan Pipeline. Here is where the oil is loaded on ships.