Thursday July 22

Got up and headed for the Kenai River.

The banks were lined on both sides with people fishing. Everyone was there. They have the fishing experience so dialed on the Kenai it’s ridiculous. There are paved parking lots at various spots along the river, paved walkways down to it, boardwalks alongside of it ,and fish cleaning stations at regular intervals. They make it so easy and user friendly to fish. It is completely part of the culture.

It’s just the thing to do for fun and it’s for everyone; a group of four middle aged women who

looked like they’d be going to the tennis club to play a doubles but they had rods instead of rackets, two teens on a date, little kids with their snoopy poles, groups of 10 drunken yahoos, old, young……there were all kinds.

I casted for a while, maybe an hour or so, slowly inching my way down to the spot where most people were catching fish. Once a person gets three fish they are done fishing and usually hit the road. So I was finally in the hot spot. Like everything in Alaska, the techniques used to take sockeye salmon are pretty unique. Six feet from the hook goes your weight. When you cast the weight must barely graze off the rocks on the bottom. As for the hook, you’d have best results with a bare one. However the rules say that you need to have some kind of lure, or fly , or something attached to the hook. Most people put a miniscule piece of yarn on the hook. It’s comical, because the yarn does nothing to help you catch fish, you simply need it to be in compliance with the rules.

So you sort of flip your line out there no more than 10 feet and let the whole shebang drift down with the current. When the line is directly below you (or in the knees of the guy immediately down stream from you), you sort of fling it from behind you back up stream again. The whole cycle takes maybe 8 seconds, so you’re basically flipping and flipping and flipping the thing….repeatedly all day long. The idea is that sockeye swim with their mouths open, the line between the hook and the weight or sinker sort of ends up in the crook of their mouth and slides ‘til the hook slides through and embeds in the side of their mouth. I know this seems crazy but there are so many fish in the river that after a while you do actually hook one. Better yet, if you are in a spot where the fish continuously pass, your odds go way up.

With a few pointers from a guy from Pittsburg I finally got one. The fought like the bejesus, and another guy netted it for me. I had another one on later on but he was hooked in the stomach, with the swift currents he was impossible to reel in. Eventually, after I smashed my finger in the spinning real handle, the hook broke in half and he was free to go.

I filleted the sockeye right at the very conveniently located fillet table, took it home, wrapped it in tinfoil tossed on some garlic and butter, cooked it right on my stove top, and ate it for dinner. It was…….delicious. I think I'm becoming Alaskan. Adding to the whole experience, there were two moose right near the truck when I got back after fishing.

Sorry for the hero shots of me with the fish. Also, check out the ball of line, lures, hooks, etc, that some guy fished up from the bottom of the Kenai River. Think many people fish there? After dinner caught up on the blog and called it a night.