paul9•7mo ago

My dad still thinks he can run the dredge better than me. He can't.

3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

3 Comments

Three summers back on the Kuskokwim, I was just like you. I had the new tech and the fresh ideas. Then I watched my uncle, who moves like his joints are rusted shut, read a river bend I'd just scanned. He pointed at a slight color change in the water and said the pay layer was shallow there. I would have wasted half a day digging through overburden. He just knew. Sometimes that old experience is a different kind of data.

6

dakota3797mo ago

That color change on the Kuskokwim, what did it look like?

1

dakota_gibson7mo ago

Funny you mention that. My cousin swears by reading the water like that for steelhead. He once pointed out this faint, milky green streak along a cut bank, said it meant cold groundwater was seeping in. We dropped lines right there and hooked three fish in twenty minutes. Never would have seen it without him pointing it out.

5