Phil Lilley

Forgot this one.

I don't know where you'd get them but I still see people using cow bells and doing well. There's alot of leaves in the water right now and it's only going to get worse as fall marches on... you'll have to either deal with them or stay with power bait.

These are some pictures taken by Rick Osenga, a friend of mine who joined us the last week. He's retired and loves photography and thought his Alaska trip was an experience of a lifetime. Still lots of sockeye (reds). Party Time All bears are at Brooks. Margot Creek. Caleb with a nice char (Dolly). Moose affair at Margot. Mountains are Margot. Waterfall at 6,000 feet. Margot. River mouth at Brooks. Back on Naknek. Me and my son, Caleb. To the east at sunset, glacier mountains. Sunset to the west. Moonlite night at camp. None of these images were in no way touched up.

wildminnow- in hornyheadchub's defense, he was asking a good question, referring to a potential dangerous situation at a marina. taxidermist was "venting" about one experience he had a shop. All of us have had bad experiences at places- right? We've been on both ends of it- have a bad day at work and rub a customer wrong and your place is marked.. not that it's a bad place just not perfect. I can attest to this fact at my shop. I have bad days and am not the most friendly person and those I "help" walk away with a bad impression of Lilleys' Landing. Guess what I'm trying to say is that both taxidermist and divestudy have the right to defend their positions and I thank divestudy for entering into the conversation... I hope the thread continues in a constructive manner. We may have to consider adding a new topic - diving.

You know I hate sharing forwards cause they usually aren't what they seem... I suspected as much. Now I don't know if I should delete it...

My mom gave me a book before I left for AK a month ago with the above title. It's not the first time I'd seen or heard of the devotional. I took it to heart to read it each day and thru the daily reading, I learned alot. Being a Christian all of my life and hearing and studing the Word as I have, you'd think I'd know "more". But God has a way to show you new things everyday we look for them. This devotional has taught me this. If you have time and a heart for God, consider reading it. http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php Buy the book or read from their website.

Caleb has some great video he'll upload to youtube shortly. Bears and a great bull moose. I liked the bears, even though one made me drop my video camera in the river. You get used to them... without losing respect for their potential power. You'd never seen so many FAT, happy bears at Brooks as we did the last couple of weeks. 9m sockeye will make any bear happy I guess.

The Plan! You gotta love Robin Williams......Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message. Robin Williams' plan...(Hard to argue with this logic!) "I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan." 1) "The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good 'ole' boys", we will never "interfere" again. 2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, the Middle East, and the Philippines . They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence. 3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave . We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them. 4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers. 5) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby. 6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for awhile . 7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.) 8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything. 9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens. 10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH..learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan? "The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?' "

Congrats, Zach. Very impressive scores!

It makes a long day, flying 1800 miles. But it helps get me back in the right time zone. I feel like going to bed at 9 pm (6 pm back in AK) instead of being up all night and sleeping in till noon. But all is well this morning. My experience on the Naknek River this go round was much better than the first. Less stress and more fishing. No building and more BEARS! The weather was September-like... wet and windy. More wet than normal. The day we left (Sunday) it blew snow most of the day but nothing stuck. Alot of the low lying moutains were already snow covered which made the landscape all the more beautiful. We got everything packed up and boarded up before I left. The Johnsons flew out 24 hours after I did. They should be in the air over Canada right now. We put our valuables in storage in town so that the winter theives don't get to us like they did this year. I left my cabin open, not locked, so if you're up there, stop in and turn the heat on and stay awhile. Just sweep up before you leave. I debated on locking it... took a nice deadbolt up and installed it on the front door and everything. But they took a sledge hammer to the dining hall door to get it open last winter and I didn't want that done to my door. They'll get in one way or another. There's just nothing inside of value, except if they want to take my compost toilet, which they'll have to remove a wall or two cause it's too big to get out the doors now. We installed it before we built the doors in. Eighty-seven degrees was a shock when we stepped out of the St Louis airport yesterday. But it looks like it's going to cool down for us. I won't miss the 40-windy-wet weather of King Salmon and esp the colder weather that's ahead for them!!! But I will miss the grand outdoors, the mountains, the gorgous river and lake and of course the monster rainbows.

Life is full of situations when we just don't have control. We rely on doctors, medicines and in the end we just have to hold on to what we know. After my fall 3 weeks ago, xrays showed I had a spot on my right lung. The doc said they'd send it in to be read in Anchorage and for me to call back in 10 days. Turned out to be a scar from an infection... not sure when that happened?! Father, peace and faith... the Taylors need both. I ask that You help them with both. You know- You care- You love them. Do a work in their lives. Thank you-

I'll look into it but it may be a few days... be back home Tuesday. Phil

1. Always have a knife handy if anchored in a dangerous spot. 2. Lifejackets? They didn't have them in the boat apparently. They had time to grab them at least I'd think.

Sorry- call 1-800-284-2196 and ask for Jerry or Curtis and ask if we have any left.

Beautiful weather!! No rain today, first in 3 weeks. Sunshine too! Alittle wind and cool- ok cold compared to what it is back home. Only about 47. The crew we have in is having alittle trouble with hooking and esp landing rainbows. They're not used to shooting line. But today they did much better and landed some medium sized rainbows. Lost some pigs. Going to Brooks and Margot tomorrow. Winds are in the single digits which is unheard of. Hopefully the water at Margot is clear and dropped out. We'll see. No pics yet... we will have some tomorrow.

I've got used to, well mostly, seeing bears and being "50 yards" away. But I'll never lose my respect for them, no matter how darling they look. But walking up on one... that's a whole different story. I found myself turning and trotting away while telling the others, "don't run, don't run!" Not supposed to run from them, just talk and back away slowly. The slowly part is what, I think, everyone would have a problem with. As for the wolf, we just bought a copy of the paper. Cool! The ugys found a who set of wolf tracks at Margot last week. They were trying to figure out how many were in the pack. Phyliss asked their car mechanic the other day what he did all winter. He said after he gets his moose and may be a carabou, we goes wolf hunting almost everyday. They hate them up here and try to kill everyone they can find. They think lower 48 people are absolutely crazy trying to plant them and protect them. I think the limit is 10 a day.

My daughter and then groom-to-be spoke at a Christian School here in town about 18 months ago on the subject of dating. Parents in attendance too. Very few accepted or agreed with the concept- even the parents. It's the old school of thought- "They're going to do it anyhow, why fight it?" or "We dated and see nothing wrong with it". But it's a trap. It promotes the wrong things, esp at an early age when kids are not even close to being of age to understand serious relationships. What's that age? I believe it's about 20! Some kids don't even reach it at 20. Some never get it. But my equation involves a God and Lord who both bow to and are accountable to. He keeps them in line if they are submitted to Him fully. Praying together (sharing hearts) and studying together is a daily growth experience.

I have a room full of Ohioans and Jim from MI where ZM are all over the place. They all say each instance where ZM's show effected each fishery differently. In Lake Erie's case, it was good because the lake was a mess to begin with. But a lake or stream that is relatively clean, they can make it sterile, deplete the water of nutrients the ego system needs to live. In these already clean systems, the ZMs don't do as well- maybe in the case of Taney. Other streams in MI have adversely affected by ZMs. I don't think anyone can acurately guess how it will affect Taney at this point.

Oh man.. I'm glad this day is over. Leaky waders big time. They were fine Friday and now the seam at the left knee has given out and there a major leak in the crotch. Had to dump my left leg on the river. Not good when you're trying to get a 74 year old across the river away from a mom and 3 cubs. Cold- rain- tough ride back over the lake. River is up 4 inches from Friday and dingy. Hooked a few rainbows and landed a couple. Had 25 bears in sight at the bridge. Walked up on 2 AGAIN in the grass within a few feet. Not going to get used to that!! I may make one more trip mover to Brooks with Caleb but probably won't fish- just watch bears. It's worth the trip. Going to fish Naknek the rest of the week. I have to do laundry tomorrow so I won't be fishing. Hopefully they'll take good pics.

I couldn't leave this one alone. We have (had) a different view of "dating". Dating, in short, teaches kids how to divorce. Go with and break up. That's about what it's like. We encouraged our kids to be friends until they find one of the friends appealing. Why date someone who you would never marry? Why date till you ready for marriage or commitment? For the fun? For the sex? Both are dangerous and work against a healthy marriage. Gotta go to Brooks so I can't go further but will try when I get back.

Headed to Brooks again this am with a new crew. More bears... Local say October is when ALL the bears in the area go to Brooks cause they have the only sockeye still around. Crazy. Our guys are excited... I think. Grown men usually won't admit they're scared out of the minds so we'll see who squeals first at the sight of a bear at 20 feet. Hey Bill... sorry your record was beat- several times over. I think it will be beat again this week... we have some good anglers in camp. My son, Caleb, arrives tomorrow evening for the week. It'll be great to have him here. He's 21 and out of college working in Branson. Blessings!

But my fish isn't "official" and it wasn't measured so Kristina's fish was the biggest of the week, biggest of the season for clients here on the Naknek. THAT is what Micheal has to live with for at least another 358 days. Kristina's rainbow is the largest of the week, largest of the season as far as clients on the Naknek. Mine wasn't measured so it's not official. So Micheal has to live with the fact that his better half out caught him this year... for another 358 days.

29 inches? What's an inch?? Steve Brigman- 30 inch Nice pic Which is uglier? ???Inches??? Depends on who measures it... Brooks Sockeye I poke fun at the measurements because it became an issue here at camp. Actually going in, the talk was about breaking the "30-inch" barrier which was several times. There were some attempts to fudge on 29-inchers but Micheal kept everyone in line, for the most part. And my rainbow... Steve and I are guessing 34 inches and oh yes... I caught it on my spin cast using - yes - 4 lb line.

Well, I have a few more pics but my ftp program is giving me fits so I may have to attach them... Me, Phyliss and 2 clients went to Brooks today. Bears were good to us in the am but late in the day they started moving around. Had a mom and 2 cubs (2 yr olds which are pretty big) come in on us and pushed us in the march. Had tall grass on one side and I heard them coming through that area instead of following the river like we thought. Then they popped out of the grass AFTER we'd yelled, "het bear!" a couple of times as if to say, "hey! we want to play!!" But we knew mom was right behind so we hightailed it before she caught up. Then we walked right passed a bear close to the cabins at Brooks on the way in this evening. I didn't even see it- it too was in high grass. We walked right past it before one of the guys put his hand in my back and said "we need to go NOW!" It was about 15 feet from us and getting up, looking at us. I didn't even look, I just moved up the hill. Pretty funny- those 2 "old" guys beat me up the hill. Did see tons of sockeye and rainbows but the rainbows were held up in the snags again. Can't understand why they're there- the sockeye are laying eggs and there's tons of food but there they are stacked up in the trees (pic). I got on my belly and almost slid into the river face first to get this one so I hope you appreciate it! They hooked some nice ones but didn't land but a couple. The guys here did extremely well. Steve Brigman landed a 29 and then a 30 inch rainbow on consecutive casts (pics). Temps in the high 40's and drzzle early. We had a great day to boat back from Brooks- glass!