July 20, 2009

July 20, 2009

It is drizzling again today so we don’t get moving very fast. We stop at Soldotna’s Visitor Center to use the Internet. We are right next to the Kenai River so I take a quick peak to see if the fish are biting. It looks like people are catching some, so I get my gear and try my hand for an hour. All I catch is another Dolly. No Salmon. No one else is catching any fish either except this young kid and he is pulling them in left and right. I take a break for lunch and then stop at the local tackle shop to buy what the kid was using.

After lunch I give it a go again still with no success. The kid is gone but his spot is still hot. Frustrated, I quit fishing and wait behind the guy fishing in the hot spot. I don’t have to wait long and I am in the prime seat. It works. In less than hour I catch my limit of three Sockeyes. All three were a treat to bring in with their jumps out of the water. They bent my pole completely over. I am the hot fisherman of the hour. On the way out people want to know what gear I am using. Aimee laughs because it is her knitting yarn I tied around the hook. One guy even wanted my leftover yarn. Before catching the salmon, I had several people tell me that my trout pole was too small for salmon. Not for a fish god it isn’t. But I have to admit I am relieved; I feel I can now leave Alaska, having caught my limit of the current salmon run.

Although smaller than a King, these three salmon are good size, one especially so. We get 14 lbs of filets which we take to the processor for shipment home. The processors in Alaska are a racket. They are very expensive. At the end of the day, it would probably be cheaper to just buy salmon at home. But then it wouldn’t be my fish.