With most of the essays and musings from my regular writers, and most of the ads, already submitted and pasted up before I left for Alaska, I can't remember for the life of me if I hid that elusive fish-hook before takeoff!  But it's not a matter of life and death predicament, so I'm going to hide a fishhook tonight, two weeks later, as though it's the only one in this issue of the Gazette.  Maybe it is.
Do you know how many kinds of salmon there are in Alaska?  We learned they were King (Chinook), Silver (Coho), Red (Sockeye), Pink (Humpies), and Chums (Dog).
We saw fishing boats with huge nets ready to haul in huge catches at one time, and we also saw individual fishermen standing in fast moving streams with long wading boots to the hips.  Each fisherman is allowed to take six salmon per day.
The salmon aren't hungry at this time, we were told, because they have only one thing on their mind -- and that's getting upstream to the place where they were born.  Nobody knows how salmon can find the right stream, after a few years of being away.  I'm wondering if that instinct isn't similar to that of a homing pigeon.  Anyhow, the homing instinct is so strong in salmon that even if they were born in a hatchery, they find the stream that leads to the hatchery.
One day we saw dozens of jumping salmon that were taking turns flipping their entire 20 to 30-pound selves totally out of the water.  Can't imagine why they do that.  Because they can?
After a couple of outdoor salmon bakes, I switched to other entrees.  Good is good, but enough is also enough.
And now I assure you that I opened every bit of my mail when we got home so that every single entry in this contest made its way upstream into this Hook Line & Sinker Contest! 
Steve Glaser of Victoria wins the drawing for $10, and a check to him will be in the mail shortly.  The fishhook was hidden on page 32 last month in the leaf blower of the Prairie Lawn & Garden ad. 
If you snag the fishhook hidden in this August issue of the Gazette, reel in the line and tell me of its location, then sink it in the mail to Box 387 in Victoria, MN 55386.  It's not a matter of life and death, unless you're a salmon, and it's easier than swimming upstream.