Saturday 6-26-03

8:30am leaving Eli’s with my bunny and the Minnie Winnie. Headed north..

Glory's Story: Left Kuya’s house around 8:30am. Had shower and chocolate milk for breakfast. Mike said a small prayer before we left. Kuya prayed with us. Really appreciate Kuya’s hospitality. He definitely is one of a kind kuya. Heading up north to Alaska. Pray for a safe and fun trip up north.

MC:

Stopped at about 10:15am to get some breakfast at BurgerKing in Woodland. Started having problems with the MH starter. The MH won’t start. Oh no! What to do? Finally got it started at BK then went across the street to the grocery store to stock up on groceries. When I came back out the MH wouldn’t start again. After a few minutes I got it to fire up. While it was still running I called Dan at Olson Bros. and he gave me the phone number for T and T Tire Factory in Tacoma. Was able to get MH to T and T without further incident. When I pulled up and stopped in their parking lot that was the last time the MH would start. It basically died right there in the parking lot. The lone mechanic was very helpful and thought he could get a starter sourced and installed within a few hours. Yay! We waited about 2 hours for the starter to arrive and then it took another half hour to get installed. I guess breaking down in Tacoma. The mechanic did such a fine job that I stuffed an extra $20 bill into his pocket in a show of my appreciation.

Review Day 1:

What started out as a problem ended up being what we determined as a “miracle”. That was our starter dying. Our miracle was that God had it die before we crossed the border and got out into the middle of nowhere. The other half of the miracle included:

            -Making it to T and T Tire Factory before it died

            -Dan from Olson Bros. giving me a good tip where to go

            -“Jason” at T and T ordering and receiving our parts within 2 hours

            -Being back on the road within 2-3hours

Once we got back on the road we made pretty good time – other than driving through Seattle of course. Exceeded my day 1 goal of making it to Hope –as we made it all the way to Clinton B.C. 482 miles for day 1. Not bad. Gives us some cushion for the next few days. Weather was hot and sunny. We are both sweaty and sticky right now.

Sunday June 29^th

Got my first mosquito bite last night when we stopped at a rest area to sleep. Without thinking I went outside in my shorts to try and adjust the headlights. Before I was done a few minutes later I had been zapped a couple of times.

MH is performing well. Top speed has been about 65mph. Have had some handling problems whenever I encounter crosswinds. Have to slow down to about 55mph whenever the winds hit or else I get thrown all over the highway. Also, I don’t go uphill worth a darn. But, overall, the more moderate speed is making for a more comfortable and safer trip.

Stopped in Williams Lake at McD’s for breakfast and gas.

Stopped in Prince George for gas at Chevron – they have an air conditioned potty room!

Glory:

Went to bed last night at 10:30pm. We finally found a rest area where we parked for the night. I didn’t do any driving yet, but I was still tired. I zonked out in no time. I slept in the back bed while bunny slept on the top bunk. Morning – got up at 6:45am. Got ready to drive. We said a little prayer and went on our way.

1:45pm lunch time at some rest area close to Bear Lake. Rest area okay. Potty doesn’t stink.

3pm – driving north – saw a baby black bear – maybe a yearling. At 3:30 we saw another one.

4:40pm – Chetwynd - 67797

6:55pm – Fort St. John – 67900

Stopped at rest area 30 miles outside of Fort St John to have dinner. We are going for mashed potatoes, gravy, and pork chops.

Mileage – 67931 We’ve done 549miles so far today.

MC:

We chose to take the Dawson Creek route instead of the shorter cutoff through Hudson Hope. I wanted to avoid the narrow, steep, twisting hills. The Dawson Creek route was pretty straight although very windy.

Saw 2 black bears today, one on each side of the Alpine Lodge near Pine River. The second bear was in the middle of the road as we came around a blind corner. We probably saw him for a good 30 seconds as he made his way off the road down the side hill out of view.

Final stop – 67992 miles at 10pm. Just down the hill from Pink Mountain RV campground which had closed at 9pm. 610 miles today.

Monday June 30^th

68075 Prophet River 9:35am

68127 Fort Nelson 10:33am

1:21pm – stopped for lunch in front of Mt St John in the rocky mountain pass. Tetsa River Summit area.

2:55pm Muncho Lake 68276

6:15pm Watson Lake 68434

MC:

Ever since last night at about 11pm it has been raining. Definitely has made for a cooler trip today. We’re both wearing sweatpants today. Not much going on other than driving. We’ve seen 5 bear along the road today. 2 near Smith River Falls. 2 just after Coal Creek. And then another one that we stopped to get a picture of along the highway. Also saw a mangy looking coyote and some deer. We have yet to see any moose, though, I’m sure that will change soon.

Stopped outside of Watson Lake around 6:30pm to make some dinner. Current mileage is 68448 miles. We’ve done about 456 miles so far today. We will drive a bit after dinner. Probably get near Teslin. Be in Whitehorse in the morning. Gas has been very expensive in Canada (big surprise). About 82-89 cents per liter x 3.8 liters per gallon.

Tuesday July 1^st

7:30am 68565 off to Whitehorse

Glory:

Woke up and got ready. Had mosquitoes in the MH all night long. Oh no. Don’t know how they got in but a couple were sure annoying last night. Made my coffee and it boiled over. Oops. But I have good café mocha. Said our morning prayers and off we go towards  Whitehorse.

Teslin – 68591 8:07am

Whitehorse 10am – 68697

Hope to get some good food and shower today here. Sun is out again today.

11am – Just finished lunch. We had lunch at A&W. Then we tried to find a shower place. Will stop at Tags to see what they have. Hopefully we can find a shower. Need to get some groceries, too. We should be close to Anchorage by tomorrow afternoon.

1pm – Haines Jct 68790 – stopped and took shower and pictures of the mountains

3:30pm – Destruction Bay – Kluane Lake 68855

7pm – Beaver Creek – 68966

9:22pm – Tok – 69070

11:25pm – 69162 – stopped outside of Chistochina for bedtime.

Saw 3 moose, 3 eagles, 1 black bear, 1 porcupine

MC:

Not much to report today. Just lots more driving. Started 100 miles outside of Watson Lake. Made nice drive to Teslin and Watson Lake. Stopped for Brunch at A&W Whitehorse. Very sunny and hot. Also being July 1^st it was Canada Day. There was a parade going on.

Highway is getting worse the closer to the border we get. A few bad spots around Kluane. Kluane looked gorgeous as usual. Also had a good wind going that kept things cool as we stopped and rested for lunch. Made it to Haines Jct in the afternoon and took much needed showers. Highway from Beaver to the border to Tok is rough and bumpy with lots of gravel patches. In Tok we stopped for dinner at Fast Eddies. We both ordered way too much food. I got a large pizza and bunny got spaghetti. Drove towards Gulkana until 11pm. Richardson Hwy is broken apart due to the big earthquake. Many gravel patches – but that really isn’t that much different than normal years I guess. Found a pull-out area about 50 miles from GlenAllen. Hope to make Gulkana tomorrow morning and check the bridge for reds. Miles today 597. Odometer 69162.

Wednesday July 2^nd:

Woke up around 5am. At about 5:30am I had to go poop and I decided to go outside for some reason. Went outside into the bushes above a small stream. Not a great idea. My butt got attacked by skeeters big time.

Glory:

69191 – Gulkana

9:51am – It’s raining. We just stopped by Gakona lodge to get Bunny’s fishing license. Got some shirts, too. Of course, Bunny was jealous so he got the same shirt, too.

Ate left-over spaghetti for breakfast. Bunny ate some of his leftover pizza. Now, I’m just going to sew the curtains while bunny heads off to go fishing in the rain at the Gulkana river. We’re only about 180 miles from Anchorage. We should be there soon depending on how long bunny decides to fish.

MC:

GlenAllen – 69203

Got some Almond Joys. Used my bundle of $1 bills to buy gas.

Got to Wayne’s condo at about 4:30pm. Miles 89390. Total of 2490 miles.

Went fishing today at the Gulkana river at the bridge crossing. It was raining hard but I was anxious to get my line wet. Of course it was all in vain as I got nothing. Walked down around the corner from the bridge to the “bend hole”. Water was high but I thought I could tell where the hole was. When I got to where I thought it was I saw a fish roll, so I stopped and started fishing. I was on the opposite side from normal so I fished left-handed. Having a fish roll when I showed up was a good sign I thought. Not sure if it was a king or a red, but a fish is a fish, eh? Despite the rain the 'skeeters were swarming all over. Even in the hard rain they attacked relentlessly. I had my hood up and pulled the draw string so only my eyes and nose were peaking through, but still it was a battle on every cast. I would cast, shake the bugs off my hand, shake them off my head, give a Kenai tug, and then start over. I was beating my head silly between casts trying to kill the bugs that penetrated my hood. Every other cast I would dip my exposed hands into the water to drown the bugs climbing on my hands. Misery. I finally gave up after an hour of nothing but bug bites.

After the fishing fiasco, we made our way to Anchorage. The Glenn Hwy really sucks as normal. Narrow, windy, twisty, heavy traffic, rain, wind, gravel patches – what a joy. The worst part is the Caribou Creek maintenance project and the following 25 miles of narrow twisting turns. Coupled with the wind gusts, that part of the drive was extremely stressful.

Thursday July 3^rd

Miles 69397

Glory:

Got up at 8am and took a shower.  I wanted to stop and get coffee but bunny said maybe that won’t be the first thing this morning. We stopped for gas and lo and  behold next door was an espresso place as well. So I got my coffee as well. After that we headed over to the car wash place. After that we headed over to Lightspeed Lube to get the oil changed. I’ve noticed that there seems to be more espresso places around the town. Seems like there's an espresso drive-thru place at every corner now. I’m liking this town.

Its 11am now, going to the rod repair store to drop off bunny’s broken fly rod from last year. Then we’re going to look for an RV repair place because bunny is hearing strange sounds coming from underneath the RV. Hope to get some food sometime.

MC:

Visited Wayne’s house today. The outside is complete, but the inside still needs to be finished. It is quite an awesome mansion. So many rooms. He will need to get to work on a big family soon so he can fill up all of the rooms.

Took off this afternoon and headed out to Portage Glacier to do some sightseeing. We got to the Visitor Center at 5:30pm and the gate to the center was to be locked at 6pm. So we didn’t go in. We went down the road a ¼ mile to the parking lot at Byron Glacier trailhead. Then we hiked the trail (about 1 mile roundtrip) to the glacier. The trail followed a small glacier river right up to the base of the glacier. It was a really excellent trip. Bunny found the snow bridge on the other side of the rocks (moraine) and we just hung out there and took in the scenery. When we returned we had snacks and then went up the road a bit to an open gravel lot. We parked in the gravel lot and made camp for the evening. Excellent scenery all the way around.

Friday July 4^th

Woke up at 8am. Bunny was still zonked out so I took a short walk down the road into the Portage Lake visitor center. I crossed over the locked gate. I went potty in the bushes. Came back and finished reading my Winston Churchill book. Bunny finally woke up at 9am and cooked us eggs and sausage for breakfast. Afterwards we decided to go up to the Crow Creek Goldmine which is up Alyeska road. We paid $3 each to walk around the area and look at the old mining camp. Not as much fun as the hike up Byron Glacier. We did see the old buildings and pictures, and then walked down to the creek where some people were panning and sluicing for gold.

After that we headed to Potter Marsh and checked out the spawning Kings. There were definitely a couple of monsters in there. Next, off to Wayne’s condo for a shower. Then we headed to Ship Creek to see if we could see some Belugas swimming around the mouth. No luck there. Then we dumped the RV at Williams Express and headed up the hill to Wayne Manor. Nobody there when we arrived, so we parked and took naps and rested.

Glory:

Sun is still out. Went and got some food after helping Wayne paint his boards. We’ll sleep at the condo parking lot tonight. I go home tomorrow night. So sad.

Saturday July 5^th

Glory:

Oh so sad! I’m flying back to Dallas tonight. Recount of yesterday went: We left Portage after breakfast. I cooked eggs and sausage. Too much sausage. Then we drove to Crow Creek mine. On the way there we stopped at the Girdwood stopping area. It’s this little corner where there is a gas station and some shops and restaurants. Went in to get my coffee and the lady in-front of me had a beard! I got my coffee and it wasn’t very good at all. It was a local roast they said and it wasn’t good at all. It could also be the kind of cocoa they used for the mocha. At any rate it wasn’t any good.

Down to Crow Creek mine. It’s a cute little place where you can go pan for gold. It’ll cost you $8 to pan for gold though. Of course, not everyone gets some gold flakes, but there’s always a few that’ll try their luck. The creek itself was pretty awesome. The view was great! The rest of the area looked “commercialized” more like props – the cabins etc. Oh well, at least we know what it looks like now. No need to go back there anymore.

Then off to Potter Marsh. I was hoping they’d have a potty room but they didn’t. Had to hold it in. There were some salmon spawning there and those were cool to see.

Then off to Wayne’s condo for shower and potty. Then we drove to Ship Creek where we saw some Belugas in previous years. We didn’t this time though. The tide was too low. But there were a lot of people fishing for kings still. We had some munchies there then set off for Wayne’s house.

Got to the house but nobody was home. We just parked and I took a nap. I woke up when Joe-Dad and Glen came home. Then Wayne showed up. Then we started working in the house. I helped paint some wood boards and put the 3^rd coat on some logs in the roundy-round area. Bunny and Wayne were rehashing some of their memories together while we worked. It’s so cool listening to them talk about their shared past. I’m glad Bunny has a great friend in Wayne. Wayne swears a lot, though.

His house is taking shape. They only have to get the window trims and doors and they’re ready for the hardwood floor and carpeting. He said they should be able to move in sometime in August depending on how the repair job in the master bedroom shapes up.

When we were ready to go Mike said “it’s 10pm”. The sun was still out and bright. We tried to go to KFC but they were already closed. Ended up eating at A&W. Had our dinner at 10:30pm. Then we went to Wayne’s condo to freshen up for the night. They ended up talking again and when bunny noticed it was getting dark we decided to go back to the motorhome. And sure enough it was almost 1am.

Saturday morning we got up and took a shower then walked around the corner to get my coffee. There was a major wind storm going on. This time I went to a different coffee place and they had good coffee.

I go back tonight. Boo-hoo. And bunny is happy! All he thinks of now is fishing. He’s gonna forget me. I know he’ll have an awesome time. I hope and pray that the MH will work great for him. He needs to find a shelter for the MH for the winter.

I have to take a cab when I get to DFW. I hope my car is still okay. I left it in the garage at the office. I got to go to work on Monday.

Sunday July 6^th

Yesterday we hung out at Wayne Manor and helped him by working at the house. I helped him load the flatbed and go to the dump. When we came back bunny and I then stained more boards and coated the roundy-round with schlack. About 6pm we finished and I took bunny to KFC for her last meal. Then I took bunny to the airport and dropped her off. Sob…I miss my bunny.

Drove to the condo and arrived at the same time that Wayne pulled in. We hung out for awhile and then I headed off to the Kenai. Had to see what they’ve done to my airport hole. Got to Soldotna at about 1am. It was still light all the way down on the drive. As soon as I got to the airport I went down to recon the hole. There is 5 metal stairways down into the fishing holes. 1 short boardwalk/platform overhanging the fence hole. The trail is now 1/3 gravel and the trail down the hillside is via metal stairs. In all it looks bad but it is not as bas as I thought it would be. The problem is that it makes access way too easy for non-fishing types. It will lead to over-crowding by women, children, and old people, and space-wasters. Water is a bit high already and is off color. There are signs of the early season algae bloom all over the banks. Went back to the MH and prepared for early am fishing. Then took a quick nap.

Up at 4:45am and on the water at about 5am. There were 6 or 7 people fishing already. My log hole was open, though it was difficult to discern exactly where the hole was since it was covered up by limbs and stuff. Between 5-6am there was about 5 fish landed. I landed one of them and foul-hooked and released a second. Fished until about 9:30am without even a hint of another hookup. Anyway I landed my first fish of the year. Hooked it lefthanded, too. It was a pretty good battle. The fish made 2 runs but eventually I drug it to the bank. A nice sized hen. My foul hooked fish ran downstream twice and I had to break him off without further ado. Later in the morning I saw a moose jump into the Kenai down at the fence hole and it started swimming across the river. He made it half way across the river to the bottom tip of the island. It started to shallow up there and he got his feet on the ground. Then he continued across the river to the other side. About halfway across the second half of the river he ran into the deeper stronger current and got second thoughts about going across. So, he turned back and started swimming back to my side of the river all the time getting pushed farther and farther downstream. For awhile, given the struggle, I thought he was going to drown, but eventually he made it all the way back to the bank and lept out, shaking himself dry before leaping off into the bush. Pretty cool. After fishing I headed back to the MH and processed my fish, making single meals, while holding one out for dinner. Then I took a nap. Got my other “first” out of the way.

In the evening I had some very fresh salmon for dinner. Then I fished two more evening sessions without any luck at all. It is very slow. However, I am glad to be “home” and back at my spot on the river. Even though it is slow, I like being able to fish without anyone else around me. Makes up for a lack of fish.

Monday July 7^th

Up at 4am and on the water by 4:30. I was 0/3 on hook-ups. I landed one snagged dolly varden - which I released of course. Headed into town for groceries and a shower. Fished the afternoon starting at 1pm. A pulse of fish came by around 2pm. I rolled 2 over before hooking and landing a nice one. Soon after I hooked another one and played it for a bit before he spit it. The fish never came up, just shook and pulled up and down in one spot until the hook came out. Hooked and lost 2 more after that. With all of my lost fish I felt like a rookie.

Back to the rig at 5:30pm to get ready to head to Seward. Meeting Joe and Glen for a halibut charter tomorrow out of Seward. Counted 23 terns today at one time circling around the gravel bar and diving into the Kenai. It is very difficult to count them because they are always flying around in circles and figure eights, but finally got a good count.

Too many idiots coming down without boots trying to fish while keeping their feet dry. Thanks for the stairs F&G.

Lots of German speaking people so far. Was kind of hoping the would stay home this year. However, looks like maybe they missed the mark and will be gone by the time the run hits hard.

Lots of Texans here, too. Some of them are pretty clueless.

Fished next to granny today. She hooked one fish and a trout, but didn’t land it. Cussed up a storm. She had pretty good technique, though.

There’s a guy who drives by the airport in his suburban everyday. Whenever he drives by he continually honks his horn and yells curses at us tourists. It’s pretty humorous. He even keeps honking all the way up funny river. Either he hates tourists or he’s trying to avoid hitting a moose.

The sunrise and sunset are pretty interesting right now. The first couple of nights the sun sets in the NW and rises in the NE. As a result, the sunset never ends. It just moves across the sky to the right and becomes the sunrise. Pretty soon it will darken up a bit, but these “nights” have been awesome so far.

Stopped at Hamilton's at about 7:30pm. Mark was not there. I bluffed the gal “Cathy” into giving me the freezer key. I put in a whopping 7 pounds of salmon. $2.10 and 6 packets of fish. Left my other boxes in the outside freezer room.

Headed to Seward to prepare for tomorrows halibut trip. Parking up Resurrection River towards Exit Glacier. Cleaned up the MH in case Joe and Glen stop by to spend the night. Need to be in town at Aurora charters for a 6:30am check-in.

Miles 69834

Tuesday July 8th

Got up early and made it into town at about 5:30am. There was a warm gentle breeze flowing through town. Walked through the docks before any of them were open. Finally checked in at Aurora. Check-in lady was kind of slow. Got onto our ship the Emerald Lady or something like that. We had Captain Chuck. The two deck-hands were Blake and Joel. Joel was okay. Blake was a snot-nosed young teen-ager with a short attention span, more kid than man. First thing I noticed is that there were a lot of people climbing aboard. In fact there was 14 people fishing off the boat today. That’s about 8 too many. There was me, Joe, Glen, Tallguy, Tom, Fritz, Wolfgang, Evan, and Mark.  Mark looked suspiciously like Bill-the-Tangler from a prior year. Also we had young girl #1 and #2, Dad, and the 2 Mexicans. Next bad sign was when Capt. Chuck announced that we would have 2 hours for halibut and 2 hours for Lingcod. What? This is a halibut charter first, right? Hmmm. Both Joe and I muttered about that quite a bit. That’s what happens when you let a rookie like Glen make the reservation. But I really noticed that we were doomed when during our ride out to the fishing grounds I looked over and saw Mark/Bill the Tangler eating a trail mix containing “banana” chips. Bananas! Oh no! The trip out wasn’t bad. Took an hour and a half to get out to the mouth of the bay into PWS and then another hour plus going left to get to Montague Island. The trip was fairly uneventful. We saw some silvers jumping. The engine whining noise inside the cab was so annoying and painful that I had to stuff paper towels in my ears in order to withstand the noise.

Finally we got to Montague Island and started fishing. I knew I wanted to fish from the back, but stupidly I followed Joe and Glen up to the front port side of the boat. Halibut fishing was extremely slow. The young kids and girls got bites – of course. Joe and Glen and I set there and got dick. Got a couple of tangles with idiots on the other side of the boat who didn’t have a clue what was going on. I got some small hits on the way down a few times so I reeled back up to check my bait – and it was gone. Of course our deckhands were goofing off making goo-goo eyes at the 12-year old girls. So, I had to finally cry out for “bait-boy” to get his butt over to our area. It took forever to get my first hookup. It was small, maybe 20 pounds. But, given my lack of action and slow hooking rate, I had the captain put it in the boat. In hindsight that turned out to be a good move. After that more tangles ensued as well as more lost bait. We almost moved to another spot when just as we were about to pull anchor a “bite” started to hit. Of course I spent most of the bite tangled with the idiot on the other side of the boat who had no idea how to reel in his line so we could get untangled. I spent literally 45 minutes waiting for that idiot and the deckhand to work on untangling the lines. Needless to say I missed out on most of the bite period. Finally, I hooked another ‘butt that was a good 25 pounds. Kept him, too. That turned out to be a good thing because that was it for me. After everyone had limits we went out for lingcod. Deckhand Blake and Joe caught lots of cod. I got skunked. Had one on for almost 5 seconds. It was huge. As soon as it came off my line it went onto Evan’s line. It was a monster.

On the way back in we made about 45 minutes before skipper threw a rod in his engine and lost all of the engine oil out the exhaust of the boat. Finally he had to shut down his engine before it seized up completely. It’s funny because as soon as we started back Joe kept saying that his engine sounded like crap – like it was going to throw a rod. So anyways skip kills the engine and there we are floating . Then the sun came out and it was scorching hot. We drifted and drifted. Aurora 2 came by and gave us 2 quarts of oil. With that we were able to make another 5 minutes before the engine died again. From our spot it was going to take Aurora another 1:45 to get back to the dock and another 1:45 to get back out to us with oil. Given the time it would take them to offload their cargo and source some oil it would be at least 4+ hours before we could expect to be back. No way. So we drifted and drifted. Then with all of the silvers jumping about we all asked if we could fish for silvers while we drifted around. Fritz, trying to keep the moral of the crew up, offered to sponsor the 1^st silver caught to be worth $50. So we started mooching hoochie-skirt jigs for silvers. Mark/Bill got one on pretty soon, but started celebrating a little too soon, so the fish got off. Then I got one on and landed it. Fritz wanted to pay me the 50 bucks but I told him he could keep his money, but he insisted, and shoved the 50-dollar bill into my palm. What the heck. I kept fishing and the sun kept getting hotter and hotter. I walked all around the boat trying to stay in the shade but it was pointless. My head, neck, and lips got scorched. Guess it is supposed to be hot again tomorrow, as well. After another hour or so, we could see the fog start piling in and coming right towards us. A couple of other boats appeared out of the fog headed for home. Captain asked if any of us wanted to go in on the other boats. Before he could finish his sentence I had volunteered. See, I needed to get back in with my fish and get to Cooper Landing by 10pm in order to get the fish in the freezer so I could head back to Soldotna with an empty freezer. So I abandoned ship. Joe and Glen and tall guy did, too. I was the only one who got his fish with him. Joe and Glen had to stay overnight and come back in the morning in order to get their catches. So, I motored in on the rescue vehicle with my fish. I was outta there. I quickly processed my fish in the MH and then kicked ass getting back to Cooper Landing.

Wednesday July 9th

I got back to the airport at about 11pm on Tuesday night. I laid out my fishing stuff and cleaned up the MH from the hurried trip. Got some sleep. Alarm went off at 4am – but my body told me that I was exhausted, so I rolled over and went back to bed until 8am. More sleep was definitely required. Anyways up at 8am – much better. Sometimes you don’t realize how hard you’ve been pushing yourself until the moment comes that you need some sleep. I was so tired last night that it was actually hard to go to sleep. This morning I made good breakfast: oj, muffin, eggs, and milk. I then took a walk and checked out the river. Only about 6 people in the water, despite the fact that the number of motorhomes has doubled (or so it seems) since I left the other day. I walked up and down the row of motorhomes checking them all out. So many huge class A’s and 5^th-wheels. My MH is the smallest and oldest vehicle parked here today. I feel like the odd man out or the white trash of the neighborhood. Oh well, I can out fish these stiffs. Most people have towed up extra rigs behind their monstrous rigs. A lot of nice camps have been setup. I however, am the nomad – always picking up and moving. Most people here are from Texas, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Florida, and Colorado. There are also a couple of rigs from New Mexico. Lots of Texas folk. Currently, I am the youngest person I see here on a permanent basis. Nearly everyone else is a retiree.

The weather report for today is “hot”. I hope it’s nothing like yesterday. I am hunkering down today, just going to hang out in the gravel pit. No spending today. Eat my groceries and hang out and rest. I’ll pick my time for a casual 3 hour fishing session when I think the time is right. Maybe around 4-5pm.

Total miles after Seward trip is 69932miles. Roundtrip from Soldotna to Seward = 190miles.

Called bunny and talked to her for awhile. Called Silver Fox and booked a charter for Sunday the 27^th. That will be for Eli and myself.

Called Rod and chatted for awhile.

I’m hot, fish-stinky, unshowered, and unshaven. It feels pretty darn good. Got this city boy washed off of me finally.

Made it down to the river at 2pm. Walked down and the guy with the goofy “jazzcap” was in my hole with a kid and an old guy nearby. I asked to squeeze in. I asked the old guy how he was doing. He said they hadn’t been doing any good today. I told him that was going to change now that I was here. Took me about 20 minutes before I mouth-hooked a small hen. The old guy offers to net it – I decline – telling him that if I can’t bank it I don’t deserve it. The small hen was easily landed. Later when I cleaned my small hen it turned out to be a puny buck. Go figure. Like Wayne always says – gotta get those small ones out of the gene pool. Fifteen minutes later I turned another one but it never made it up out of the water to be identified. Twenty minutes after that I hooked a larger hen. This was a better more intense battle. It took 2 good runs down and away before I turned it into the bank. Fished the next hour without touching anything. It’s always funny watching the reaction of people who put in more time yet catch less than me. It usually breeds a type of fishing jealousy and resentment that I thrive upon. After fishing, I went back to the MH and cooked a slab of my puny buck. Good for dinner! Dilly-dallied around the camp for the rest of the evening. Resting, playing solitaire, going for walks. Have a new neighbor today – Mr. Maine. He came over and talked for awhile. Funny accent those east coasters.

Thursday July 10th

Where’s the fish?

Finally changed my leader today.

Lost my first fly today.

I am currently 4/21 (landings/hookups) over the first 4 days. Ugh.

Some people just don’t know how to deal with a snagged fish. I witnessed the old guy with “my hat” stand there for 2+ minutes tugging on a 100-yard-downstream-fish and muttering “ahh, I think he’s in the belly”. No duh. Finally I got fed up with him and barked at him “ you better get down there and plier it off before you kill it”. That finally motivated him into action and he finally started downriver after the fish. I guess he didn’t know how to snap-off a runaway fish. I’m not sure what he was thinking, just standing there tugging on that darn fish. It wasn’t going to move upstream. It wasn’t going to come off. Was he just waiting for the fish to come to its senses and swim upstream to him? Was he waiting for someone else to go take care of his fish? Hey, if you snag it, then deal with it – and promptly. Either go get it and plier it off or snap off your fly. Just tugging it and holding it backwards until it is dead isn’t an acceptable option. Sheesh-Tarumba.

Some people park way too close. Any why do they always have to line up their windows on your windows?

You can’t catch sockeye without getting your feet wet.

Humongous tackle boxes and 10ft sturgeon poles seem to be the rage this year. So do buckets.

Not so many blue caps yet this year. But everyone still talks with a drawl. I think blue-caps have been replaced by camouflage. I guess there’s a lot of duck hunters here.

I really like the forest trail walk behind the gravel pit. Nice atmosphere. Quiet and serene. Lots of birds. I wonder why I never bothered to walk the whole trail before.

Went 0/7 this morning. On the water at 4:30am. Apparently should have been there earlier as two idiots were already in my hole with fish on the bank. Hooked up right away and lost my mouth-hooked fish right at the bank. I hate that. I’d rather lose them right away than get my hopes up. Have seen the eagle again today. Also the kittiwakes and terns are out and about.

It’s 3:30pm and I’m skunked so far. Need to avenge myself today. Soon I will go fishing again.

Evening fishing session provided 1 fish at the fence hole. Water continues to rise to flood-like levels even though there has been absolutely no rain. All of the hot weather is melting the glaciers. High water level equals difficult bank landings ahead. Oh well. As I remember it, the log hole fishes good at low water and high water levels. It sucks when the water is in between.

I am now 5/22

Each time I clean a fish my new friend the kittiwake gull appears and lands right next to me. It chirps and cries until I throw it some sockeye scraps. Then he flies away satisfied. Funny how unafraid of me he seems. In fact, he is pretty bold in the way he yells at me until I feed him. Of course, after I feed him, the sea gulls take notice and start to swarm above me. I hate that cause they’re always letting go with a big white poopy bomb.

Coming up on the weekend pretty soon. Tomorrow needs to be a break-through fishing session for this salmon run. I’m getting a little impatient as the run has yet to materialize in good numbers yet.

Friday July 11^th 

Down at the river at early am. Still not early enough to get my spot. What a drag. Had to fish above jazz-cap and his friend with the white beard. Jazz already had 2 and whitebeard had one on the bank. The river has continued to rise and is now fishing like 2 years ago. Standing very close to the bank and hooking up shallow. It took me a few minutes to get into the game. Eventually, whitebeard limited out and I caught up with jazz-cap. My first sockeye, easily the biggest of the year so far, was a self-hooker in the shallows. He was in the dead-water trough just above the log hole. With no nets around I walked him upstream out of the way of everyone and landed him on the last remaining shard of gravel bank. He gave a couple of good tussles before succumbing to my fly rod. The next fish, was also a big one. Picked him up right at the feet of jazz-cap who let himself start to stand too deep. I really put some pressure on jazz as I tied up the score 2-2. That fished inspired within me a Rod-like verse that I hummed to myself

"This fish was a good fighter, but not great - he came to the bank and prepared to be ate."

After jazz-cap finally limited I slid down to Marvin’s rock. I self-hooked another monster who flopped and ran repeatedly. I had to give ground and chase him downriver a bit before he came under control. Eventually the fight lasted too long and he came free. Fifteen minutes later I hooked another – a pathetic RR buck. He was a pretty easy landing. I hesitated in keeping him due to his size, but I wanted to limit out and retire for the morning. Kept some of my first fish for a meal, processed the others.

Dilly-dallied around and went for a walk at about 5pm. Walked the trail loop then went down to the river and saw that Marvin and Charmaigne were fishing. Fish were coming in at a pretty good rate in the evening. Watched Marvin land 3 fish.

Saturday July 12^th

Up about 3:30am. I knew it would be a good day and I wanted to beat the spot-stealers. I got my spot this morning – never did see the spot-stealers. Perhaps they are over and done with for the year. We (Marvin and myself) hooked up quite a few times. It took me a couple of hours to really get it going. Marvin landed two which I netted for him. Then I got two in a row which he netted. After that fishing began to slow down. After his good start, Marvin struggled a bit and finally decided to quit with just two fish. Overall, the morning was pretty good, even at 3:45am. From the time I got down I saw 2 young guys hooking up right and left down at the fence hole. Every time this one guy hooked one he let out a taunting laugh that reminded me of Mike James. From 3:45am to 4:30 he probably hooked up 10 or 12 times, each time with his maniacal laughter.

After fishing, I cleaned my fish and then set off to do my chores for the day. Got some gas, dumped, filled water, and took a shower. Headed to Coopers Landing to drop off my fish and clean out the MH freezer. Headed back and stopped at Safeway to get some groceries and more coho flies and some 40pound leader. Even though I was using 30pound leader it seemed to be brittle and break fairly easy. I decided to step up another notch.

Made it back to camp. It is way hot again. No breeze going either. Tried to take a nap but the upper bunk was just too darn hot. I never did get a good sleep. Read my book “Black Sheep One”. Went for a walk on the trail loop. Took off my shirt to get some sun on my whiteness. Ended up walking down to the river and watching things. Marvin and his gang were there (Marvin, Charm, Roland, and Millie). Told them I would come back and join them in awhile. Took me about an hour to get ready to go fishing. Got down and squeezed in right away. Fishing was still excellent. The crowd had really turned over – so there must have been some fish being caught. Lots of new people I hadn’t seen before – Filipinos, Germans, and black guys. All kinds of “groups” coming in today - mostly in packs of 4-8 people. I hooked some good fish. Some of them are starting to get big now. Brought 2 more to the bank in the afternoon (released them).  At the end of the session as I was breaking down my rod to carry it out, I stupidly busted the tip off of my fly rod. Duh! Unbelievably stupid. And my other fly rod is in Anchorage getting repaired still. I suck. When I got back I rigged up my Browning 8ft 6 wt rod. Hope it holds up. I’ve always believed that my 7 wt was the lightest I’d ever want to fish. Also got glory’s rod and reel hooked up. I’ll take both of them down tomorrow just in case the Browning won’t do. Depending on the results I may have to shop for another fly rod. Ouch.

The fish were really doing some self-hooking this evening. That is a good sign of a big pulse of fish coming through. I really enjoy slow drift fishing when the fish are thick. It’s just so nice and easy to let them twirl their way onto my hook. It always results in an automatic mouth-hook. I hope this signifies that the run is going to turn on finally. With things starting slow in July there is an outside chance that Mom and Dad may still have some fish to target here in Soldotna when they arrive in early August. If not, the RR should still be going strong.

I have really enjoyed my time here in Alaska. It really does feel like home when I’m here down on the peninsula. The summer beauty of this place is unbeatable. Although, much of it is a false allure due to the bug factor. Luckily the Kenai doesn’t have the bug problem like up north. I really enjoy washing the city boy off of me. My sleeping patterns have changed.  I think the body naturally changes its patterns to be more like the sunlight cycle up here.

My back seems to feel all right most of the time. Maybe the shorter sleep cycles have helped to improve the pain issue. Injured my left heel on the MH heater vent. Gouged a chunk of skin out of the heel. Ouch. My right hand is sore at times, but is giving me no major problems. Slow drifting has helped. Left hand is better today after getting the day off yesterday. We got 25000 fish today. Not bad. Keep it up Kenai.

Mileage 70079

Sunday July 13^th – Monday July 14th

Early up at 3:20am. It is noticeably cold inside the MH. A nice yet shocking contrast to yesterday afternoon. I got on the water at about 3:45am. I am using my 6wt rod this morning. Very interested in whether or not it is going to hold up. On my second cast of the morning I hooked and landed a medium sized hen. The rod did all-right. Good. It has a little less power but is still strong enough. Marvin arrived soon after and hooked up and landed one right away. Then I got another. Then he got another. There are only 5 or 6 other people on the river - its nice having lots of room to fish. Too easy. Vacu-packed and cleaned up by 5:30am. Back to bed time now. Yay.

Got up early in the afternoon. Decided to drive up Funny River road and see Brown’s Lake. It is way hot again this afternoon. The last 2 miles of Rabbit Run road are a brutal gravel washboard. Slow going for the MH. There are lots of people at the Lake swimming and sunbathing. I was hoping to hear the cry of the loons today, but that’s not going to happen. So hot today, no amount of shade or breeze can alter that fact. Still Brown’s Lake has a nice view. A shallow bank line, lined by trees, with a mountain view background. Pretty awesome.

Got back from Brown’s Lake and went and dumped the RV. Joe and Glen were in the gravel pit with pitched tent. Joe and I geared up and went fishing. Marvin and his crew were in the fishing hole but were finishing up. In about 30 minutes I had caught 2 (released them) and thought things were going to be easy. But then things hit dead stop. Sporadic stragglers only. I really hate that. Then the blame comes out from everyone – damn netters. Later, Wayne showed up on a suicide bomber run. He fished hard and deep and hooked up 7 times. Every hookup was in classic Wayne “fish-on-fish-off” style. As soon as I’d grab the net to get his fish it would come off. It was still pretty impressive because during that time I didn’t see more than one or two other fish being hooked on the whole river. Wayne really likes to fish deep. I just can’t do it. Joe did squat. Didn’t even hookup I think. Glen hooked a rock, complained that he was snagged on the bottom, and as he tried to free himself, his rock turned into a fish a splashed away and broke him off. We quit at about “dark” and took a break. Wayne only had 2 more hours before he had to head back so after our short break he returned to do some night fishing in the Kenai twinkle. I put on my sweatpants and went with him to root for him and make smartass comments from the stairs. Had to give him some moral support. He got a couple of fish on right away and then finally hooked a keeper. Night fishing is difficult and any keeper is a well earned bonus. I gave Wayne the pep talk about “walking the beach”. I explained to him my theory of how the fish “hunker down” in the evening and the need to take the fight to the fish. So he walked up and down the beach with an occasional fish-on-fish-off. Then I told him to make sure that he had a fresh sharp hook on. Thinking that my suggestion was valid he checked his hook and sure enough it was dull. He changed it out and immediately hooked into another fish which stayed on. Score. He got his second night fish. Not bad. I am very happy for Wayne to have gotten some results from his heroic journey. I really enjoyed the evening out, too. Unlike last week’s perpetual night-light, this week there is a short period of Kenai twinkle. I really enjoyed watching the pale/peach sunset/sunrise silhouette cross the top of the tree spiked horizon. It is a very unique sky to watch. Coupled with the cool glacier breeze and the twilight visual effects it is really a “magical time”. There were also a couple of long thin stringy clouds that enhanced the sky effect as well. Walking back we watched the orange harvest moon dance over the heads of the motorhome masses in the gravel pit. A uniquely cool night, that’s for sure. As Wayne got ready to leave it became close to my normal wake up time. So I had no sleep at all. But I geared up and set out for my fishing hole as usual. Got into the spot that Wayne had been in just an hour earlier when things were dead. I was quite cynical about my chances given how hard Wayne had to work for his fish. My 0 for 3 effort before getting skunked by 9am only confirmed my dread. So, I tramped back to the MH and hit the bed for a nap (after I cooked up an omelet of course). I woke up at 12:30 as the bed was getting too darn hot to remain asleep. It is Africa hot today. Guess it is time to go down and recon the current fishing situation.

Memories:

Wayne's nighttime Kenai Line Dance in the river

Wayne’s “oh no he’s twisting”  truly a classic

The twilight sky and harvest moon

People who stand out too far in the river

People who won’t move out of the way when you get a fish on

"Fish biologists" from Washington who keep live fish on their stringers – a no no

Went fishing at about 5pm. No friends with spots. The policeman and lady in red who had my log hole snubbed me from squeezing in. It kind of chapped me as they were fishing with way too much space given the crowding on the river. Not finding a spot I went and sat down on the metal stairs to watch. Then the Japanese guy (who I remember from previous years) with the 3 Japanese ladies took pity on me and squeezed me in with the ladies. I was such a pathetic sight that the Japanese guy couldn’t resist helping me out. Since we had seen each other over the last couple of years I think he did it out of professional respect. After I got into the river I started playing the hole moving game. It took me an hour to get into my spot. Once in my spot I probably hooked over 20 fish – 50% of them were foul. It was very frustrating, but every year I go through periods like that. When it happens I have to consciously go back to slower drift fishing. Also, I was having some problems with the 6wt rod having the backbone to set a hook into the tough salmon mouths. I may have to try Wayne’s 8wt rod tomorrow to see if it is tougher. Finally I had one and an old man wanted to net it so I let him – finally got one to the bank. Got rid of my stinky skunk. A few more pulses of fish came by and I got a second one.  Lost lots of flies. Probably lost 20 fish – and drew lots of attention as not many other people were even hooking fish. A big bulky guy (one of my gravel pit neighbors) came over to me and said “Man, you’ve got the hottest spot in town!”. With that I never got another hookup. Dead. Zip. The end. Twenty minutes later I packed it in, cleaned my fish, and called it a night. Fished a lot of that day next to Millie and Roland. They are both currently widowers, and found that they both enjoy traveling and hanging out together so they are going to get married. Roland is one of the nicest, sweetest guys I’ve ever met. I really enjoyed spending time with him. The one thing about Roland is that he is always funny and very positive. Not one ounce of negativity out of him. Called my bunny this evening when I got back to camp. She was gone but she called me back later. I wuv my bunny. She’s coming back pretty soon. She told me we still have mushrooms growing in the corner of the bedroom. Time to go for an evening walk and then check out the river, then off to bed.

Tuesday July 15^th

Got up and dressed and made it down to my spot. My spot was open. Soon I hooked and lost a good fish.  Then some people moved in next to me. My next mouth hook one guy came over and netted for me. I let him as he was so eager, but I just about had it on the bank by the time he got the net around it. Hooked tons more after that…all got off or were foul. I sure miss my rod. Then Roland showed up and jinxed me. He said something like – “you sure are hooking a lot!”. Never say that to me, it always dries up my hole instantly. I really struggled after Roland’s jinx. Things slowed down at about 8am giving me a good excuse to cut and run. After cleaning the fish and returning to the MH, I set off to degrease my hair. I have really worked up a good stink since my last shower. Will do some laundry as well.

Fished an evening shift. Squeezed in with Marvin’s gang. Fishing was pretty good. It took me until 11pm but I got my 3rd fish. Really wore out my right arm, too. Caught 3 or 4 dollies and 2 beautiful rainbows (released them - I never harvest the incidentals). The rainbows were both pretty big and plump, about 16 and 22 inches. I really love looking at the big Kenai 'Bows...back home anything over 12-inches is considered a monster.

Wednesday July 16^th

Alarm went off this morning but there was no way I could get up and go fishing this morning. So I slept in until about 9am – my longest sleep of the vacation – 9hours. Walked down to see how Marvin was doing. He only had 1 fish on at the time, although, he claimed to have hooked and lost 30 already. Told him that I’d be down in about an hour and join them. Marvin finished up soon after and came back. I went back and cooked eggs, sausage, and oj. I was trying to delay the start of my shift awhile and ended up waiting until about 10:45am. It was way too crowded. Only Roland was left down in the log hole, surrounded by Germans. By himself Roland just couldn’t hold off all of those Germans. Roland had the spot at Marvin’s rock but was getting crowded out of any good angles by the krauts. Roland gave me the spot and I started doing battle with the Germans. My main adversary looked like a German Jack Nicholson. When I first got in the hole Jack had a couple of fish-ons but didn’t land anything. I started to crowd him, cast over him, cut him off, and occasionally hook his boots until I got a few extra inches of room to make a decent drift. Then when I got the few inches I needed I started hitting fish after fish. I was standing pretty shallow while everyone else was out about 3 steps too far and getting nothing. But me, I had 20+ fish on within the hour. A guy with a beard who was standing next to me was willing to net my fish so I let him. He was a smooth netter. He had a small net and went 3 of 4 on net attempts. I hooked and hooked and Jack Nicholson finally gave up in disgust. I t was kind of funny, because when I first got into the hole and hooked up, Jack would look back at me and smile and nod in agreement. But as I kept hooking and crowding him out his nods of agreement turned into glares of anger and disgust. Oh well, that’s what you get for trying to invade my hole. I continued to hook and hook until I got my third fish. The fish were really surging good so nearly all of my hookups were slow-drifting self hookers. Went back to the MH and vacu-sealed. Then made peanut butter sandwich and chips for lunch.

Miscellaneous observations:

No matter what, I tend to stand shallower than almost every person I fish next to. I have tried to explain this to others as I out hook them 10 to 1. It is the spot. It is where you stand that matters. I hook up and others in line have to look backwards to see who hooked the fish. Many times they make notice of the difference and take a few steps back. But then after a few casts they step back out into the middle of the hole.

Marvin and I like to joke around with each other talking like we are rookies and don’t know what we are doing. People sometimes get a wrong impression from us when they don’t understand the inside joke.

The best way to shutdown my hot fishing:

1)      hey, you’ve got the hottest spot in town here dude

2)      Roland steps in and says – my you’re catching a lot

3)      Catch a lot and then drop your pole into the river

Watched this guy catch and net his own fish. He was pretty food at it.

Watched a German guy never hook one today while standing next to the stairs, while I hooked about 20+ fish. He was 4 steps deeper than me, would look backwards at me when I hooked one, but would never change his standing location.

Sometimes the spot matters. The spot can make champions. Always play to win. Move. Get the spot. Fish with confidence. When amongst the enemy use battle tactics:

            Cast over their line

            Snag them in the boot

            Whack a boot

            Splash em with your fish

            Intentional line tangles

            Catch a fish

            Put on a show

            Forward step / back step

            Quick cast

            Out talk them

            Go shallow

            Be in control

            Never leave the spot to change flies, line, or adjust gear       

I've been thinking about codifying what I believe the rules should be for sockeye fishing. Here's some of the thoughts I have on this matter--

A fisherman retains his spot when:

1)      he obtained his spot legally, received it from another, stays in the spot and continues to fish

2)      leaves his spot to fight a fish. Upon termination of the fight he gets his spot back. If he lands the fish he gets the spot back after standard time to kill and stringer the fish. Taking time to clean the fish, eat food, drink, smoke a cigarette, pee, etc is not protected. Additionally, during fish-on spot abdications any neighboring fisherman must give back any territory taken

3)      gives up the spot to net another’s fish.

4)      Anything other than the above 3 results in forfeiture of the spot

Release snagged fish quickly. Don’t take them out of the water to unhook them. Don’t play them out until they are dead. Try to snap them off quickly. Make sure they swim away properly – revive them. Don’t just kick them back into the water to float away sideways. Give them a chance to spawn.

Clean your fish at the river. Don’t throw away fish along the bushes in the trailhead next to the camping area.

Give a guy some clearance when he’s cleaning his fish behind you. Don’t just move in and take his spot without respecting the fact that he’s now in cleaning mode. Ultimately the reason we’re all fishing is so that we can move to the cleaning stage.

Stand at the same depth or shallower than your neighbors. Don’t stand out in the middle of the damn river.

Let the fish come in shallow. They will come in as close as you allow them. They are much easier to catch in the slower and fringe current than in the swift water.

No galoshes. Chest or hip waders only.

Wear eye protection

No kids unattended running behind the fishermen

Be friendly or silent. Keep the f-bombs to a minimum.

No deep water king casting

Never open your bale

Your line should never exceed downriver more than 1 spot

Don’t jig your line at the downstream end of your cast. Cast, drift, and retrieve

No peeing in the immediate area of the riverbank. Yuck.

An angler can only catch 1 limit per shift. If you’re going to cheat, take a few hours off and let some other people catch theirs before you overlimit (sarcasm) - German guy with the green jacket - you can't hide forever.

Don’t keep snagged fish unless it’s at night and no one else can see you (sarcasm)

Keep the 10 ft sturgeon rods at home

Ist choice – fly rod, then baitcasters, then spinning reels

Throw dolly’s and rainbows back. Especially trout. It’s better karma

Never net unless asked

Get out of the way for other’s fish-ons

Don’t clear the bank for a snagged fish more than 1 time per hour.

Never tell anyone where in town to go fish. The holes must remain a secret.

Keeping a snagged fish in not legal just because

A)    you’re from Germany, France, or Switzerland

B)     you ask permission from your neighbor, and when you tell him its illegal you pretend not to understand

      Keeping a snagged fish is only legal:

A)    at night when no one can see what is happening (sarcasm)

B)     When you’re on your own private property and no one can see (sarcasm)

No live fish on stringers 

Going back to your rig, eating, getting out for a smoke, does not entitle you to get your spot back

Being from Anchorage does not give you a priority over a tourist or any other angler

If possible rotate spots with a group. Three spots for four anglers is ideal.

Only keep 1 limit per session. Further sessions should be Catch and release only.

A husband can catch some fish for his wife, as long as he doesn’t attract attention. Also, it is necessary to train the wife to say that she caught some of them (this is for that one guy this year who threw his rod into the water after his wife innocently stated she had only caught one of the five fish on the stringer)

Stealing my spot is illegal and I will hold it against you

Never say out loud – "hey do you want this fish – I’ve already got mine"

Yesterday I happened upon a conversation at Hamilton’s Place. Amanda a beatnik blonde was telling how she and her boyfriend were involved in a bear attack at the RR. Apparently another guy had his face mauled off. Then they were chased by the sow but just managed to get cover by diving inside a rolled down window in some guy’s SUV. Then they were pinned down for 20 minutes by the angry sow, until it gave up on eating them. All the time they could hear the poor guy moaning for help. Then the boyfriend went to help the mauled guy who was bleeding profusely and in critical condition. Amanda went to find a place to call 911 while the boyfriend stayed behind and held the guys face together. The bear had swiped the guys face and knocked out an eyeball and peeled off his scalp. I just heard on the radio a night later the guy had just moved to Alaska from Arizona and is still in critical condition.

Thursday July 17^th

It is harder each morning to wake up early, especially as it gets darker and cooler. However, it really is a necessity. The early am is one of the best times for fishing. It allows me to get my spot, have room to cast, and catch fish before anyone else gets on the river.

The big pulse of fish that was passing through last night was still there this morning. It was a total turkey shoot. Landed one very early in the morning. Then Marvin came down and started to slay as well. He caught a couple very quickly. Then I mouth hooked another that Marvin netted. Marvin got his third quickly and cleaned and left. I wanted to fish longer so I delayed my third fish for awhile. Plus no one else was crowding into my spot – so these are the times that I live for. I started by catching the first two fish on Glory’s rod. Then I switched over to Wayne’s fly rod and kept catching them. Finally I decided to bank a third fish and get to cleaning.

After processing I fixed French toast for breakfast. Then I took a good nap. Around 2pm I started off for Anchorage – Glory is coming in tonight / tomorrow am. Made a stop at Hamilton’s place, Quartz Creek, and Summit Lakes. Got to Wayne’s and had a much needed shower. Will go up and park at the house overnight and then go pick up my bunny.

Friday July 18^th

Slept in until 9am. As usual my back hurt when I got up. Seems to hurt anytime I sleep over 4-5hours at a stretch. Didn’t do much today. Did laundry and went to Carr's. Got gas. Dumped and filled water. Got my fly rod back from the repair shop. Got bunny’s rod and fishing gear laid out and readied. Took a shower. Headed up to Sand Lake and hung out and watched some young kids fishing from their canoe. Ate salmon dinner. Read my book. There have been some monster sonar counts over the last 2 days – 80k and 103k. We will headout immediately for the airport once Glory gets in. Have to make early am fishing and make sure I get some of those fish that has swarmed in. Seems like the bulk of the second run has finally come in over the last couple days. Bunny arrives in 30 minutes. Yay. Gonna pick her up then head to Carr’s to get her license and a couple of munchies for her.

Mileage 70394

Saturday July 19^th 

Picked Glory up last night at the airport and we headed off. Stopped to get her license and then headed off to Soldotna. We got there at midnight. If it was possible, the gravel pit was even more crowded than when I left. Got up at 3:30am to go fishing. Was fishing part of a 90k day. Thursday was 80k, Friday 103k, and today 93k. Very easy pickens. Hooked about 50 fish by 5am. Had 2 on the bank very early and then waited on my 3^rd until bunny came down at 5am….except she didn’t come down. How unfortunate. This was a most excellent time for filming. Eventually about 7am she made it down. I hooked up bunny’s rod wrong (mismatched parts of 2 rods) so she had to use my fly rod. After a few casts she did pretty well with it. She lost her first 3 or 4 before landing one. Kevin made it down last night with some of his friends. Fished next to him for the rest of the morning. Things stayed consistent all morning long. I ended up with 3 and bunny had 1. Also fished next to the mint lady. Marvin will be sad that he missed today. He headed home to empty the freezer and do some canning. We went back and processed. Then had French toast for breakfast. Took a nap. Walked down and checked out the river - the afternoon crowd on the river is elbow to elbow. Unbelievable. Lots of fish, though, for the weekend. I am concerned with how well the run will hold up given the large number of fish that have come through the last 3 days. Three huge days in a row – sometimes good, sometimes bad. After this weekend everything else is going to be anti-climatic. Tonight we will tidy up and then head down to Homer for my KPMG halibut trip.

Sunday July 20th

Woke up for halibut trip. Got to slip K-23 and there was no boat – no Winter King. Just like last night when I went down to check on the boat – nothing there. I was a little early so I waited around for awhile. Finally Rob and his group showed up: Rob, Todd, Stacey, and Skylar. But still no boat. Rob calls WinterKing – apparently the guy booked another group even though Rob had left a credit card deposit. Real nice. So we’re standing on the dock at 7am with no charter to go on. A couple other boat captains hear our plight – take pity on us- and call up a guy they know and tell him he’s got customers if he wants to go fishing today. His company is called – Sockeye Charters. He can arrive in awhile and take us out at 8am. Sounds good to us. So we head off to have breakfast and wait for the Sockeye to show up.

Finally we get on board and head out. We only head out about 1.5 hours to a medium chicken hole. I have the 1^st fish on but lose it. Skylar lands one and captures the 1^st fish prize of $5 from each person. The halibut action is non-stop all day long. I boat the biggest fish which goes 35-40 pounds. That fish wins me the biggest fish of the day prize of $5 from each person, but I decide not to collect as I was given this charter for free. Everyone hooks up time after time until arms start to give out. Each of us probably had hooked and reeled up 12-15 fish each. Hard work but a blast. We each take turns using the jig rod for awhile. Got a new halibut phrase – it’s a puker. When the halibut come up to the surface often they puke in order to distract predators from eating them. Jonathon Seagull knows this well as he sits behind our boat and waits for us to bring up puking fish so he can have some lunch scraps.

Saw some humpback whales – mom and calf – circling the boat. Could hear them sounding and blowing as they moved around us. Also saw them breach and tail slap. Saw otters and puffins, too. After we limit out and tire, literally, of halibut, the captain rigs up the downriggers so we could troll for silvers on the way back to port. Captain Tom sets us up with downriggers, flashers, and herring plugs. We didn’t catch any silvers but we did hook into a bunch of pinks. I landed 3 pinks on the way back in. Rob caught some pinks and black rockfish. For the day I ended up with 28 1-pound bags to take home.

Monday July 21st

It was dark, chilly, and I was tired, oh well, gotta go fishin that’s why I’m here. There were quite a few folks down on the river already when I got there. It was slow in the twilight morning. I hooked a couple and lost them. It took me until 4:30am for me to get one on the bank. The mint lady and Japanese showed up and took spots all around me. They started catching and so did I. Marvin finally came down and so did Glory. Glory finally got to use her own rod and reel. Fishing picked up pretty well for the rest of the morning. I got 4, Glory 3, Marvin had 5, and the Japanese had about 15 between them (limit had finally been raised to 6 per day). Then when the Japanese started cleaning they kept walking back and forth and back and forth behind us. Marvin was beside himself and getting pretty chapped at them. We just kept shaking our head and making comments back and forth to each other. I told them that they should have installed a sidewalk instead of so many metal stairs. The limit is now 6 – so now the spots will take longer to turn over and open up. Might have to resort to netting for people to get them out of the way.

Went up to Hamilton’s to drop-off fish. We had 78 pounds this trip, which included a freezer full of halibut. Wayne and Marie and Joe and Glen are planning on being down this evening at about 5pm. They are headed to Homer for a Tuesday halibut trip. We are cooking salmon for dinner to go with Safeway rice.

Evening:

Wayne and Marie showed up at about 6pm. Glory and I were tired, but I went fishing anyways. Glory took the video camera and sat on the stairs visiting with Charmaigne and occasionally she filmed my snags and misses. I got into my log hole spot and quickly hooked up and landed one – after that I struggled. I did land a tiny which I released and a non-fighting cousin of dead head fred. Wayne caught 3 good fish and Marie caught a tiny buck. It was really tiny. We told her it was so small that technically she was still skunked. We fished until about 10:30pm. I was totally pooped out. Wayne and Marie went off to dinner and then came back. Wayne wanted to fish some more. I couldn’t get out of bed, though.

Glory:

So, bunny picked me up at the airport on Friday night and we went straight to Soldotna. I slept on the way. We got to Soldotna airport around midnight and bunny got up at 3am the following morning to go fishing. I followed around 7am. I only got 1 fish that first day. I think I only fished for about 2-3hours. We went back to the MH and slept the rest of the day. Around 8pm we left to go to Homer. As always the drive and view was awesome!

Sunday was halibut day. I stayed while Bunny fished. It was gray and rainy. Spent most of the time within the motorhome. I finished Harry Potter Book 5. Drove to Soldotna that night and bunny fished again. I slept.

Monday I got down to the river around 5am. Got three that day. Sun was up and its not as cold like it used to be. Not a lot of bugs either.

Tuesday July 22nd

Glory:

I’m a winner. Got up around 8:45 this morning. Bunny went for a walk and I thought I’d just bum around today. But bunny got back from his walk and said that Kevin’s group is almost done and we should go fishing. So I went with him. I got my 6-limit in about 2 hours. I had a good hole. Plus the fact that there’s probably 100,000 fish in the river today. I got my limit before bunny did. I even landed a couple by myself. Oh yeah. Bunny broke my rod tip, too. He was trying to help but oh well. He had to leave and go get my other rod. When he was off getting it, I landed my 2^nd one. Oh yeah. The guy that gave me his spot called me sweetheart, too. Quite a few people back from last year.

Finally got back to the MH. I was so hungry. I was going to pass out. Had some food and we prepared for processing. Sun is out today. I have to make sure my boots are getting dried out. Bunny went out for a walk down to the river again. He’s always by the river.

MC:

The alarm went off at 3am but I was still exhausted and my hands and fingers hurt. My mind said go fish, my body said go to sleep. So I went back to bed. Got some more sleep and got up at 8:45am. As usual with a long sleep, my back hurt like heck. So I went for a walk in order to loosen up. Saw Kevin on the stairs. He said they were just killing them this morning so he’d save me a spot until I got back. Bunny and I went down awhile later and got Kevin’s spot up river near the magic rock. On my second cast I got a self-hooker and put one on the bank. I got a second one soon after. Then bunny started fishing 2 spots up on the other side of the tree branch. She hooked fish after fish after fish. Soon she also had 2 on the bank. Then she snagged one that I tried to help her with – as a result I ended up breaking the tip off of her rod. So I gave her my fly rod and high tailed it back to the MH to get her other rod. When I got back 10 minutes later she had another fish on the stringer already. She had caught it and landed it herself as there were no nets about. Then I started video-taping her. She caught fish after fish and in about another 30 minutes she had got her 6-limit. All pretty much big ones too. As usual, Bunny was the champion today. Then she video taped me while I caught the rest of my fish. So there we were with a ridiculous stringer of 12 sockeye to clean. A 12 stringer is a pretty darn awesome sight to look at and darn heavy to even try to lift. It took me over an hour to clean those fish.

Observations:

On Monday bunny, Marvin, myself, and some other guy were all fishing the log hole. We all 4 hooked up at exactly the same time. Our fish crashed and jumped over each other and we had to scramble around to keep our lines untangled. Somehow we all stay untangled…it was crazy.

Lots of people clean their fish at the stairs but they don’t wash the stairs off when they’re done …. Doh-doh heads.

On the way back on the trailhead  I had to listen to Wayne yell at Marie about the car keys. By the time they got back to the truck I think she was crying. Glad I could be part of that.

Honestly, this year I would have to say that Marvin was the best fisherman on the beach again. I’d like to get him a trophy that says “Best on the Beach” Kenai River. The trophy needs to have a fisherman or sockeye on top.

It’s pretty awesome when that guy’s airplane revs up and takes off right over the head of the motorhome. The Doppler effect and buzz of the engine is very popular. For a moment you think it’s going to run right through the motorhome and crash.

Bunny was really good today. I’m happy that she has a good time while sockeye fishing. I’m blessed. I can’t believe I broke her rod tip. Strangely I’m very hard on rod tips as a general rule. Good a some things clumsy and cursed at others. Anyways, It’s cool having a cool good fishing bunny-du. Makes all of these memories more special than during my previous week of bachelor fishing.

Sometimes when I go to the river and watch people catch fish I get “fish fever” or “sockeye fever”. First, I want to instantly go and catch fish, too, regardless of how many I’ve already caught during the day. I’ve got to show everyone that I ‘m the best. Then I get torqued (jealous I guess) at the people that are fishing and catching easily during these 100k days. I feel they don’t deserve to just pop-in on Tuesday and stumble into a 100k fish day. They haven’t paid their dues. They haven’t been here the whole run, they don’t deserve these fish. They should be my fish to hook. Then I realize how silly all of that is and I go and enjoy vacation.

Bunny forgot to pay the rent.

Wednesday July 23rd

Time seems to eventually slip by. It is already the 23^rd of July. July is almost over. The days are shortening, too. There is a bit of cold and darkness, more and more each day.

The fish are running crazy this year. At times the action has been insane. Also, I’ve improved my fly rod technique this year. I’ve discovered the “dipping” technique with the “lift-up” maneuver. Last night when I fished next to Mr. Annoying (aka the same butthead from 4 years ago who stood behind bunny’s shoulder and tried to cast over her all morning) and just slammed him. We were in the log hole and I saw him do the lift up. I grabbed that technique and started hooking up quite a bit. I got a lot of hookups with that method. It also helped me feel the trough out in our log hole. Anyways, I did catch and release and slammed lots and lots of fish.

When you do Catch and Release by people who are trying to keep fish you get some really weird looks.

Went to look at the river for a few minutes at 11:15pm today. We had just finished catching and processing. It was super crowded then. People were coming down in droves while I was cleaning and no one was leaving. Anyhow, when I went back this evening to watch there was only 2 people between the platform and stairs #5. 2 people. Amazing. I really love the feel of the Kenai in the evening. The river takes on that surreal magical quality as the daylight dims into the Kenai twinkle.

Kinda hope the sockeye fishing holds up for mom and dad at the Russian River. It will be  a challenge but I think I can get them a couple of fish this year at the Ferry Crossing. Really need to get some of the spots near the Sanctuary hole so they don’t have to walk so far.

I am looking forward to fishing the RR this year. Though the logistics aren’t as friendly, the scenery is better. There are some great mountain scenes at different fishing holes. We’ll have to take our backpacks with us.

Today I caught a fish without even trying. We were up above stairs #5 again in the quick shallow water. I got a good spot next to Army kid and his grandpa and right below Ozzy. We jockeyed around for position awhile until I got established in my spot. Then I was able to have enough room to do the dip and pull up routine. I hooked up nearly every single cast. Serious. It was insane. A lot of mouth hooks. A lot of snags, too. That was a problem. But the sheer number of hookups to me was at an unbelievable rate which I’ve never experienced in my previous year’s best nights. If I went 10 casts without a fish the “2^nd run was over”. I had multiple times where I fish-on’d 2 or 3 casts in a row. Norm K. kept asking “again?” and “another?”. After awhile of hooking so many people quit giving me any room to play my fish. They didn’t take time to get out of the way, because otherwise they would never have gotten to fish. Anyway I told Mr. K that I was sorry I wasn’t really trying that hard. And he said “that’s what’s pissing me off so much, I can tell you really aren’t trying that hard.”. But he agreed with me regarding the dip and pull up method. He tried it and had some success too. I also fished next to his son-in-law Troy. Troy didn’t get a thing. I tried to get him to try my fly rod, but he just didn’t get it. Oh well, I tried to share the wealth.

Bunny killed them again today. She had 4 fish. Bunny always gets crowded on the river by inconsiderate people. And she always gives up her spot. So she gets good karma and catches fish no matter where she is forced to stand. Bunny also has really “dry” spells and then periods where she really hammers them for an hour or so.

More fishing etiquettes:

Ask before you crowd in. Don’t just sneak behind and cast over someone suddenly.

When you have a fish on it can go downriver a maximum of 2 spots before you have to declare it out of control and snap it off. Crossing into the 3^rd spot down is out of control and a foul

When fishing you can fish into the hole only 1 person down. If you fish two people down you are out of bounds and that is a foul

You must ask people if they want you to net their fish. Or, better, wait until they ask you to net it. If you ask to net the first time and they say no, then do not try on subsequent fish. Get a clue.

If you give someone advice because they obviously need it, and they ignore it, then do not offer it again, unless the people are ignorant rookies who need a second chance. If the people are rude then don’t help anymore. Just catch a fish next to them all night long.

This year we’ve had counts of 2 x 100k, 1-90k, 1-80k, 1-70k, 1-60k days. That is outrageous.

A true sockeyer doesn’t use purple or pink flies

Wayne and Marie came down last night after the halibut trip. Wayne told the story of his landing and shotgunning some guys 200lb halibut that got caught in the anchor line. They went out three and a half hours to KH (killer hole) past the barren islands.

Wayne and Marie fished while bunny and I made comments from the stairs – peanut gallery. Wayne got 1 and Marie got 3.

Everyday there is a new cast of characters that you meet, as well as, a group of regulars who you always see. Then there’s the people who are around for 2-3days and then vanish.

Thursday July 24^th

Slept in again until 9:30am. Then we made a small snack and went for showers and laundry. Went to Fred Meyers. Found that they carried a lot of Pflueger 7wt fly rods. Bought another one. Went to Kenai and watched the dip-netters. It was slow while we watched them. Went down to Cohoe Loop and looked at the small cabin for sale. It is up for 29K, one 1.5 acres. Not bad, kinda cute. Cabin is 16x20, with loft, but is unfinished inside. It sits on a small gravel pad. I would give it a better gravel pad and a nicer foundation and then some finishing work. Had pork and mashed potatoes for dinner. Walked down to the river and saw Arizona Walt. I’ve seen him in prior years with “Arkansas Phil”. Talked to Walt for awhile. We didn’t fish at all today. Actually, the day off is probably good for the war wounds. Going to bed kind of early tonight. I will get up early for am fishing tomorrow morning.

-If you’re going to crowd out someone, don’t pick on the ladies or children. Have some balls and confront the men on the river.

-If you are so anal about your spot that you are prepared to attack someone with your rod, be prepared for a knuckle sandwich in return.

-There is a difference between the “Kenai Jerk” and being a “Kenai Jerk”. See comment above. 

There are a wide variety of characters and groups at the river. Bucket people, backpackers, full waders, hip boots, guys in shorts and shirts. Families of four, junior and grampa, New Yorkers, Texans, Ozzy, Samoans, Filipinos, Frenchies, Japanese, Swiss, Germans, bass fishermen, kids, hayseeds, cowboys, clueless idiots, people who tug the wrong way, guys smoking pipes, friendly people, guys who are anal about how to net a fish, know-it-alls, rookies, regulars, experts, wives, spot stealers, bank casters, fish draggers, people who clean their fish in their motorhomes, butchers and hamburger makers, filletors, steakors, clean and split whole makers, guys who coach too much, mean people, cheaters, yankers, snaggers, dip and pulls, yarn flies, coho flies, yarn gobbers, no glasses, locals, 1-day and out people, later arrivers, deep standers, shallow hookers, walk behinders, f-bombers, line tanglers, etc etc.

-In general about 75% of the people on the river at anytime are stupid people. They have no clue, no respect, and no fish. No long term vision of how their actions are going to impact the future of this fishery.

-Locally there have been two big stories about groups of people getting busted for poaching / overlimits. A group of 4 Chinese from NY had like 250 fish, no licenses, and a lot of kings. Apparently they were catching and stashing fish all over the place. An elder couple across the river at Swiftwater got busted for too many fish and too many kings.

Friday July 25^th

Got up for fishing at 3:20am. It was dark, cold, and rainy. However, I got the rain jacket out and got motivated and went. Got my log hole spot. Started with deep trough casting using my dip and pull-up method. Hooked and lost one on my third cast. About 10 casts later I hooked one in the mouth and landed it. Although there was an on/off drizzle I found that I really enjoyed the Kenai Twinkle fishing. I love that time of morning and evening: when I have the whole river all to myself, I’m hooking fish, and doing “ghost fishing”. About 20 minutes later I landed another. I hooked into about a dozen fish during that solo hour of ghost fishing. Eventually there were maybe another 10 people fishing and none of them can even get a fish on. Soon people began appearing and crowding in. The mint lady and Japanese showed up. Some weird dude came and stood next to me. I continued my fishing deep and hooked up on a regular basis. Eventually I had 5 on the bank. That includes 1 I lost at the bank and 3 others I pliered off that were in the mouth. When I quit with 5 fish hardly anyone else even had any fish on the bank yet. I kicked butt. Also, early in the morning, when no one else was there, I got to see some kings roll right on the other side of the ripple.

Packed up and headed to Anchorage. Kuya comes in tonight, then we head back to the airport for an early AM fishing session. Then Sunday morning we do some halibut at Homer. Busy busy.

Saturday July 26^th

Picked up Eli at 11:50pm Friday. Hit Carrs for a license and then made the suicide run to Soldotna. It was dark, windy, cold, and rainy. Had some problems seeing at times, but kept pressing on. Got to the airport at 3:30am. Tried to talk everyone into getting dressed for fishing, but surprise, everyone else wanted to stay in bed and sleep. I got dressed and went fishing. Definitely slower today than before. I had 2 on the bank when Glory and Eli made it down at 6:30am. I hooked 3 more really quickly and ended up with 5 for the morning. I did combat against Goldfinger’s Henchman, the Korean. We matched each other fish for fish, hookup for hookup, fish-off for fish-off. We had nearly identical success. After a half hour or so Eli got his method down and hooked into 7 or 8 fish for the morning. He got 2-3 hooked in the mouth and landed 1 small one. Not bad for a first outing. Glory tried hard and got skunked. Can’t believe I finally out-fished her. She almost landed one mouth hooked fish but it got off between my feet and the metal stairs. Took a nap, went to Sal’s, visited Marvin and Charmaigne at Anchor Point, and finally got to Homer to camp out at about 11pm.

Sunday July 27^th

Took Silver Fox 6 with Capt Keith, Ray, and old guy in matching camouflage outfits, Brian, Eli, and myself. Captain is a rookie from Wisconsin. He compares everything to fishing coho in Lake Michigan. Ray and old guy are also from Wisconsin so they had a mutual admiration thing going. Anyways, we head out deep to the Barren Islands secret pinnacle hole. So secret the Captain won’t record the GPS spot because he’s afraid someone is going to steal the numbers off of his machine. As a result, it takes him about 20 minutes to drive around and find the mystery pinnacle. The lost time isn’t so bad since the current is so poor the spot is unfishable anyways. Anyways, we finally find the secret pinnacle and start fishing: 3 pound weights, 70degree line angle, ripping current, windy whitecaps, about 140 feet down. No fish. Nothing at all. After a few bait checks I hear the groan of halibut pain from Eli. I wondered when that was going to start. A good 45 minutes of no activity, no fish, just having our bait ripped off by the current starts to lower our morale. Captain repositions on a different pinnacle but it is more of the same.

 Finally we move a few miles to the “Eleven’s hole” , which I assume is named after a duo of pinnacles that forms an eleven…but what do I know. Captain claims he marked some fish here on his scanner so we start fishing again. But as usual, no halibut.  Well a few minutes later I have a fish-on. Halibut? Nope. It’s a yellow-eye and a 25-incher at that. So I think that gives us some good karma. But no, still no halibut bites.

Time starts to get away from us so the Captain starts heading to the parking lot hole –so named because there is about 50 boats anchored up in that stretch. Anyways, we set up and I get one on. A halibut – yay – finally. It’s about 20-25lbs. There’s a little over an hour left, we have no fish in the box, and we’ve paid lots of money for this trip, so I keep it. That is the start of the chicken bite. Everyone starts hooking up and we start boating chickens. Eli gets a nice 35pound fish, yay. He reels up a nice 30 pound fish but loses it at the boat while waiting for the captain to come over and help. I reel in a 25pounder and keep my second fish. Eli gets another. At least we each get our 2 fish. They continue to fish and cycle through the chickens looking for a nice big keeper. Then, Brian hooks a monster that takes line for about 30 yards…and then…its gone. Noooo. Oh well. Over all we all reel up about 6 to 8 fish a piece at the parking lot hole for a nice hour and a half of furious action.

As we finish up Captain invokes Murphy’s Law. He says we need to hurry up so we won’t be the last boat here, because he doesn’t want to be last in case something goes wrong with the boat. Of course we are the last boat there. As we finish up the wind kicks up, the surf starts coming up to about 5-6foot swells. Captain fires up the engines to pull anchor. Ooops. Only one of the two engines start. Then he goes to pull the anchor and he busts the rope off. Luckily the anchor sets in his buoy and he doesn’t lose the anchor. As he goes but to pick up the anchor I have to hold the captain by his boots so he won’t fall overboard. So we start in on one engine. With 2 engines we make 23 knots. With one engine we make 7 knots, but the tide is going out at about 6 knots. He puts Brian at the helm while he opens the engine compartments and tries to jump start the other engine. Brian is from Fairbanks, and as I remember, Fairbanks is a landlocked town. As the swells increase we start getting tossed around. I have Eli issue lifejackets to the rest of the crew; after all, Captain’s not at the helm, we’re underpowered, and the tide is kicking our butt. After getting tossed around and limping towards port for 45 minutes Captain finally gets the other engine started. As it was, we didn’t get back to port until about 7:15pm. After that we got our fish packed a Coal Point. Stopped at Safeway for some ice and headed back to Soldotna. No evening fishing tonight, too darn pooped. Enough adventure for 1 day.

Monday July 28^th

I woke up for 3:!5am Airport fishing. It was dark, rainy, and cold – perfect sockeye conditions. I garbed up and headed down. Eli and Glory stayed in bed and continued to cut ZZZ’s. Only a few people came down by 4:30am. There was a very brief spurt of fish. I got a couple on the bank. One was a nice hen, the other a big buck. Glory and Eli came down and then the spurt ended. Although Glory did manage to catch 1 big buck. Her fish was the biggest fish I’d seen all year long. It was the size of my 2 fish combined. Too bad I don’t have a portable scale.

Also, in the morning when I had 1 fish on the bank and only Marvin fish next to me – a couple came down – man and wife. The guy was dressed in camouflage. They went down to the hole below me between stairs 2 and 3. They were the only people fishing between me and the fence hole. So, I hook a couple more fish and before I know it the guy is migrating his way closer and closer to where I’m standing. Soon the guy is standing out in front of the stairs, about 5 feet into the water – basically the middle of my hooking hole. He starts casting over the top of the end of my drift. He hooks my line once or twice. I look at Marvin and shake my head. He shakes his head in agreement. I make a few more casts, but now my angle is cut-off and the fish can’t make it into my hole anymore. I’ve had enough and I just can’t take it anymore. Finally, I say to the guy, “Excuse me sir. Could I get you to move back a few steps? You’re standing right in the middle of my hole.” He says sarcastically to me- “Your hole?” – as though I thought I owned the river. I snapped back at him “Yeah my hole. I’ve been hooking fish here all morning right where you are standing and I’d like to get my drift back.” The guy doesn’t say a damn thing but grudgingly steps back a few steps towards the bank and out of my hole. That reopens my drift and within 3 casts I hookup with a fish right underneath his boots that splashes both him and his wife before coming off. Of course, neither one of them made any effort to get out of the way of my fish-on. No problem. About 10 casts later I mouth-hook another nice fish under his rod. This one splashes around him and his wife a few times. Again, neither of them makes an effort to back out of the way of my fish so I can land it. Finally, I hold my fish in front of them, intentionally not reeling in, until they move out of the way. Then I land the fish, bonk it once, throw it on the stringer, and go back to fishing – giving Marvin a little head nod of approval. By this time the guy has stepped back out into the middle of my spot again. Unbelievable. So my next drift slaps along his boots. I look up at Marvin and give him the shoulder shrug and we start shaking our heads. I mutter “dumbass” just loud enough to be heard by the guy and his wife, and continue to drift my fly right along his boots on every cast. The wife gets a bit nervous and they call a small huddle and start talking for a few moments. I figure they are going to decide to slide back down into their original hole or move elsewhere down river, since the whole river is still open. Instead, they reel in their lines and walk up the stairs out of the river. They stop at the middle platform of the stairs and start talking while glaring at me. While they are talking and glaring, I walk over to Marvin and we have a chuckle about what just happened. We both agree they’ve got the whole river to fish besides our hole, why don’t they just move down a few steps and quit crowding. I go back to my spot and start casting again. A few moments later I look back over my shoulder at them, but they are gone. They just quit fishing. They didn’t have to leave, but I’m glad they did.  I just don’t understand some people. Anyways, this guy wins my nomination for bluecap/bass fisherman of the year 2003. (see last years champ)

Monday night we drove up to the RR Ferry campground to camp. We checked out the scenery and watched the Dahl sheep on the hillside with binoculars. Cooked salmon and mashed potatoes for dinner.

Tuesday July 29^th

Got up at 5:!5am to get ready for fishing. Wayne was supposed to meet us at 6am for the opening run of the Ferry. Wayne was a little late but made it at about 7am. So we all crossed the Ferry and waded into the first few spots below the handicap zone at the sanctuary. We fished there for about an hour or so in the drizzling rain. We each hooked up a few times. Only Wayne landed anything in the mouth, and it was still a good silver color, too. It was kind of funny, when he first hooked it, he shouted out that he had a big rainbow on. He wanted me to get the camera to film his big trout. I didn’t. A few moments later when he landed it his rainbow magically turned into a medium sockeye. I foul hooked a few. Eli foul hooked a few. Bunny hook mostly rocks on the bottom. I’ve always struggled fishing in the sanctuary area. The water current is deep and slow moving, it is a real contrast to fishing in Soldotna. My rig just doesn’t work as well at the Russian. After an hour or so we decide to relocate down around the bowl at the second gravel bar – the same gravel bar we fished 2 years ago with Rodney, where he broke his rod on his last fish of the day. We get to the gravel bar and crowd in with a couple of guys. Almost instantly Wayne hooks into another fish and lands it. Eli gets a good hookup, it was kinda red, but he loses it. Glory hooks one and loses it. I got squat. Wayne says he’s going down around the corner to scout out the big gravel bar. He comes back in about 5 minutes and calls us down. He tells us he can “see” hundreds of fish laying in the hole, and that he’s already hooked up half a dozen times. We picked up and relocated again. When we got to the hole I could make out faint purple shadows – aha – sight fishing reds. Instantly we all started hooking into fish. Wayne got a couple, I got some, Glory got some, Eli hooked up and either fouled or lost his. At first fishing was pretty good. Then we started breaking apart the pack and the fish thinned out. Wayne limited out pretty quickly and changed into his street clothes in preparation for heading down to Kenai. The rest of us continued to fish. Glory and I each ended up with 4 fish – all long skinny silver bullets. Eli got one big purplish pig. Later he switched over to Glory’s rod and began hooking up quite frequently. He caught a couple red and dark red fish in the mouth that we released. Got some good video of the action, too.

We finished up at about 3pm with 9 fish between the three of us (the limit was 6 now below the Ferry). Wayne returned for a visit a 6pm on his way back from Kenai. He beat me at cribbage. After debating the merits of the various options, we decided to leave the RR and go back to Soldotna for fishing tomorrow. First however, we headed out to Hamilton's to drop off the fish in the freezer. Then we decided to eat at Hamilton’s restaurant. Eli and Glory had bad dinners while I had a decent cheeseburger. The gravy on Glory’s mashed potatoes looked like it was a good 2 months old. We looked at “bears” on the hillside with our binoculars. Even with the glasses they were no bigger than black specks. Eli paid for dinner…way to go!

Wednesday July 30^th

We headed south again to Soldotna airport last night. Thought that we would try for bigger, fresher fish than yesterday’s offering. I wanted to try for the early am spurt with Glory and Eli. I got Eli to go down with me at 3:30am. He was practically asleep the whole walk down the trail. I’m not sure if he is enjoying this or not, but I am. I hooked a couple early, but it was slow going and I thought we might be wasting our time. But between 5-6am a good spurt of fish came through. We began hooking up quite a bit. Still in the twilight, Eli hooked one and we landed it. It was a nice big buck. I then hooked one and landed it. Eli kept hooking and catching, eventually ending up with 3 big silver (sockeyes not "silvers/coho") bucks. I ended up with a medium hen and a nice buck. I got some good pictures of Eli with his fish. Finished up cleaning and made it back to the MH for processing around 8am. Made French toast and sausage for breakfast. Took naps. Went for showers. Got brake fluid, power steering fluid, and oil for the MH. Drove up to Kenai to show Eli the dip-netting. The wind was blowing and howling and very cold up on the bluff, making it very hard to watch. On the incoming tide we only saw a couple of fish being netted….not a good sign. After eating a meal we went back to the airport and dilly-dallied around for awhile.

Eli did good fishing this morning, and definitely enjoyed himself. He’s passed a few fishing milestones now:

1)      first fish 2) multiple fish day 3) 3-limit 4) netted a fish 5) landed his own fish solo 6) cleaned his own fish 7) multiple multiple fish days

He still has a few more milestones before he is a Jedi master:

1)      6-limit 2) catch a fish on his own without anyone seeing it 3) be the first to 6-limit 4) show someone else how to fish

Thursday July 31^st

Eli and I did the 3:30am session again. Very fruitless. We were the only 2 guys fishing through 6am when we quit. I guess everyone else knows it sucks already or they’re gone for the year. It was extremely slow. We managed a few foul hooks and foul landings/releases each. Eli mouth hooked and landed a 16-inch dolly while it was still dark out. We released it. He also hooked and landed/released a foul buck down at hole #1. In all, although it was slow, we had a great time. We had the entire river to ourselves. We were able to walk up and down to all the different spots. Eli was proud to have landed that buck all by himself even though he had to release it.

Went to the RR Campground and made the 2 mile hike into the RR Falls. It was a 2-mile hike, which was difficult in the hot sun, but the scenery and falls and jumping salmon made it worthwhile. The trek took us from 12:15 to 3:30pm to complete. Afterwards, we headed to the Ferry to camp overnight. Right now we are cooking salmon and mashed potatoes. Afterwards an evening fishing session? Tomorrow we will pick up our fish, head to Byron Glacier for another hike, and then into town for showers. Then they go to the airport at about 11pm for their 1am flights.

Evening fishing session went pretty well. We headed down to the corner hole at about 6pm. For the first few minutes I had a fish every couple of casts as there was a school lying in the hole. Glory snagged rocks on every cast and got frustrated. I looked up at Eli and he had a fish on every time I looked at him. Quickly he landed a slim silver hen. Then sun was extremely hot and scorching. After the fish moved back in I hooked up again. Instantly my hook popped out and my weights came screaming back at me at popped me in the right cheekbone. All I remember was hooking the fish and then the feeling of being punched in the face. Then things went black. The weights made a mighty smacking sound when they hit me. I got knocked silly. My legs buckled. I dropped my rod into the water. A second later I came to and made a stab at my rod before it got away. I stood up and tried to regain my composure. Feeling my face I could feel the blood, the swelling, and the myriad of cuts on my face. Glory came over to check on me. Looking into her mirrored glasses I could see 4 cuts on my face that looked exactly like split shot. Bunny wanted to know if I was okay. I said I was. There wasn’t much else I could do other than wipe off the blood and go fishing.

Since it was so darn hot I suggested we head back upriver around the corner where there might be some shade. We hit the 2^nd gravel bar. Within 5 minutes Glory had a fish on-off and then Eli landed a big plump buck.

Then we moved up to the first gravel bar below the bowl and fished for 15 minutes while Eli cleaned his two fish. I hooked a couple of big red pigs and Glory tail-hooked one.

After that we moved up and fished a spot on the bowl. I’ve never fished the bowl much because I can never get a good drift angle. Armed with our fly rods Eli and I couldn’t get decent drifts. Glory, however, hooked up right away. In the 10 minutes we fished there she hooked 3 and landed one. Then we worked our way back towards the ferry. It was about 10:!5pm when we finished up. Soon it was bedtime.  

Eli got his 7^th fish. He averaged more than 1 fish per day so I can’t call him “multi-vitamin” anymore. His nickname was multi-vitamin because he was “one a day”. His fillets are pretty unique looking though. We bagged them all up and labeled them “smoker chunks” and “Eli’s hamburger” and “Eli’s other burger”.

Friday August 1^st

We all slept in until 8am. Had eggs, sausage, and pancakes. Sat around and talked and took naps. Eli and Glory pre-packed. Now we are just waiting for the opportune time to pick up our fish and head out. No fishing today, but it’s okay, we all need a break.

The weather was getting extremely hot so I decided to delay our departure for a bit. We left at 3:00pm to go get our fish. Prior to getting our fish we stopped at Gwen's to do some shopping and have some lunch. Headed to Portage. Pointed out the sites to Eli that he missed on the dark drive down earlier in the week. Got to Byron Glacier and did the hike. The glacier has receded quite a bit in the few weeks since we were here last. There were many sink holes a