After our halibut charter days 3 and 4 were spent at the Kenai and Russian River confluence, same spot as our first day in Alaska. The first day was opening day for the Sockeye Salmon season, days 3 and 4 were the first weekend of the season…….. oh what a difference. It was my first experience at “combat” fishing and I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. The first of the 2 days we spent the first 2 hours in line for parking, ok still plenty of time to fish, but the fishing “grounds” were packed. I had some trouble with “move your feet, lose your seat” and the “ I’ll just squeeze in here” mentality, but that’s combat fishing. There were many that would slip into your spot until you landed the fish and were ready to come back in, more of a tag team approach. We finally landed some spots of our own and developed a tag team approach that kept the spots ours between us.

The fishing started spotty then it was game on with run after run of salmon schools, everyone hooking up, fish screaming up and down the river, netting them was like trying to heard cats! At the days end we all had limits of 3 each after 4 hours of fishing and about 3 hours of waiting (including the 2 to get in). Did I mention the 3/4 or so mile hike in and then back out all geared up then with fish?

Day 4 we decided to get there early, no wait to enter and park, gear up, hike in, and slip into our spot when an opening presented itself. We tagged team in and out of the spots, but less for catching fish then tired of the continuous casting/flipping of our floss flies. We did end up with a total of 7 fish, far short of the new limit of 6 each, what a difference a day made. Was a beautiful day though, 65 degrees and sunshine, with minimal bugs.

Now its off to Petersburg for King Salmon and more/new adventures.