We have had a busy start of summer and have not had much time to get out and play.  So when one of our past duck hunters, Andy, sent an email he was going to be in Fairbanks for work and had some extra time we jumped at the opportunity to get out and fish.   We headed to Valdez to see if we could find some flat fish. 

In the end, mission accomplished.  We caught a lot of small 10-15 lbs fish that we released and found the big boys in another location.  The biggest tipped the scale at 160 lbs, a new personal best for me.  We ended up seeing a bunch of whales, puffins and dale porpoises.   We had a great trip!  Here are a few pics.

Andy, one of our hunters from 3 years ago, was up in Fairbanks for some work.  So we took off for the weekend to Valdez to try to catch a few halibut.  I think we did the job!  This is a couple of quick pictures.  I will post more in a couple of days.  The big one tipped the scale at 160 lbs.

Here are a few shorebird and swallow pictures from this spring in Fairbanks.

There are a few sandhill cranes left here in Fairbanks.  Most are moving out for the breeding grounds, these pictures are from yesterday.  This one is still trying to get a little before the flight north.

I have been an Alaska resident for a while now and I have found that I have started to take this great state a little too much for granted.   Sitting in the truck driving across this state regularly I find myself more worried about getting somewhere than stopping and looking at what I am going by, so this weekend when Diana and I needed to make a trip to Valdez from our home in Fairbanks we stopped.  We stopped and got back to my routes of photography. I wanted to share what I came up within 4 days, 2 of which I only took a couple of photos due to a good amount of rain. 

To me this is why you visit Alaska.  If there is something inside of you that has to see the best mother nature offers make a trip once in your life to the far north.  This is 12 of my favorite photos from the trip, minus the duck photos. 

Just got back from a trip to Valdez.  We did a bunch of photography while driving down and while we were down there.  The birds are moving north quickly now.  The little ponds are thawed and starting to come to come to life.  All the big water is still frozen solid.  The birds are staging in Valdez big time, lots of sea ducks around, harlequin are in big time along with scoter and old squaw.   Also got some nice pictures of gadwalls while there.   

Here you go, finally some diver pics. Down in Valdez for a little while and got out to take a few pictures yesterday morning. Here are the results of the old squaw and scoter. See More Inside -
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Well it is that time of the year. The wigeon had attitude this morning and wanted some action from the ladies. I have a cool video to post later, but do not have time to edit right now. Here are a few of the images I took this morning. Light still kind of sucked. It is suppose to be sunny tomorrow finally, you know where I will be!

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Well today’s wigeon where much more photogenic and played nice. Sadly we still had some cloud cover, so the light was not that great, but suppose to clear up this afternoon. I also put a couple of those real trash ducks in here, sorry they got in the way when taking photos.  See More Photos Inside!

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The birds are moving in, but the weather is not being very nice. Got rained on and had bad light all day. I finally gave up on my one spot that I liked the light and moved so the birds were backlit, figured it was better than nothing after laying in the mud for a couple of hours, haha. Cans started showing up, so nee some pics of those soon. Sadly we are suppose to have rain for the next few days.   See More Pictures Go Inside>>>>

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