My brother, Cody, arrived Wednesday night and we were all set to go fishing down on the Kenai river the next morning. Our landlord, Chuck, had just bought a new drift boat and offered to take us down the river. We eagerly said we would love to float the river instead of fighting for a spot on the bank.
It was good to see my brother and also to have a visitor. He was pretty excited about floating the mighty Kenai and the prospect of catching his first Salmon on a fly rod. We hit the river and set out in search of some Kenai Reds. We were fishing the upper river which was a bit early for the second run of fish that was coming up. We saw some fish as we were floating over some shallow gravel bars where they were scooting up river.
We saw a bunch of reds pushing up river and pulled off and Rose, Cody, and I waded out and began fishing. I hadn't seen any shadows sneaking up under the water and thought it may be time to move on when I had a hit at the tail end of my flies drift. I set the hook and shortly later landed a small sockeye; our first one of the day. We fished a while longer and pushed on.
As we were floating we saw an unlikely fishing spot that the fish were jumping and splashing all over. It was a deep slack water pool that was difficult to fish but they were there. On the other side of the boat there was a fast current sweeping by. I hooked into a really nice fish soon after we began fishing. I fought him for a couple minutes and was being as gentle as I could but he came loose. We kept at it and Cody hooked into one, this one was big. His rod was doubled over and the fish kept running and taking line. 15 minutes later we finally landed him, a huge Red! It was really cool to see him get his first Salmon up here. He went on to catch another one a little while later and it was big as well but we turned it back because it was a spawned fish and the meat wouldn't have been any good.
LOOK AT THE BEND IN THAT ROD!!!
I wanted so badly for Rose to get her first Salmon too and she hooked into two or three fish at that hole but just couldn't keep them on. She's learning incredibly fast and really getting the technique of fishing for Reds down.
We continued down river to a spot that we really wanted to fish, that had a lot of fish several weeks ago. As we approached we could see them and there were a ton of fish laying in there. We just couldn't get the drift boat across and hold in the slower water. The water was just too fast and Chuck couldn't get us there. We pulled over and walked the boat back up river and tried again but it just wasn't meant to be. We had one more spot to hit and we pulled in and didn't see anything and fished a while and Chuck had to show us how it's done! He nailed one in no time. It was really difficult but you could barely see them pushing up river in 2's, 3's, & 4's. They were just shadows, slightly darker patches in the water. You could get a couple casts on them before they would spook down river. We'd give the fish a few minutes and then some more would push up. I nailed one and Rose did too but Rose's fish came off right after the hook up. Her's was just text book! I was spotting fish for her and I'd tell her where it was and guide her cast in front of the fish. She set the hook perfectly but the fish just didn't stay on for her.
We caught a total of 6 fish and had many more hook ups. What a great day we had and it blew by way too quick. We left the house at 5am and got home and processed fish and finally got to bed after 11pm! Today we're recuperating and will hike into Crescent Lake for some Grayling tomorrow.
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