A Fish Story and a Bear Story

Well we have finally gotten to the fishing part of our trip. Don and his uncle have been fishing this week on the Kenai Peninsula. They went salmon fishing and Al caught a beautiful salmon that we had for dinner last night, but they really want to fly fish for rainbow trout. Salmon fishing for non-natives is just throwing your line into the water and hoping you will catch one. If you snag it on the back you cannot keep it, but if the hook catches their mouth you can. Alaskan natives are allowed to do dip net fishing. I have some great photos here of the gigantic dip nets, including my favorite, a girl, her net, and her dog. They just walk into the river with these nets and hope the salmon swim into them. They were going away with their winter's food for the family. The bears also know that the fish are coming and are there at the rivers waiting.
The state provides cleaning and scaling tables right in the river, and they are supposed to throw the heads and other parts into the rapids..... nature's recycling. People are often lined up and down the river in what has been called "Combat Fishing." Don and Al also went on a little ferry that is powered by a cable and the current to get to the other side of the Kenai to fish. They really want to fish for rainbow trout with flies, so they were happy when we found the spot on the Russian River where they both caught a rainbow. Don released his and Al brought his back. They have very strict rules about length and how many you can keep. They have hired a guide today to take them rainbow fishing. I made a video and posted it on Youtube. I also added it below. It was made this morning on a walk we took along the river. Rose was leading our group when all of a sudden we looked up the trail and this guy was waiting for us. Pretty scary for a few moments, but he went back into the river and I was able to get this video made....probably one of the highlights of our trip. Check out how he is searching for the salmon...then finally all he can find is grass and the photo at the top shows him with the grass. All in all we have been having a great time in this part of Alaska and will be heading north this week end to Denali.