Gone Fishing

With a few days available, and campsite reservations for two nights at the Russian River, three generations of guys headed for the Kenai. We knew it would be slow getting there because of the McHugh Creek fire with smoke building over the hills before we got out of town.

I'm not sure which came first, the name or the movie, but Conair was providing the fixed wing aerial support for fire fighting. They had two Convair CV580 hauling 2100 gallons of retardant, and an Aero Commander 690 directing traffic.

Traffic on the highway was restricted to one way at best so we had plenty of time to watch the operations. They had a couple Bell 412 helicopters dipping up to 360 gallons of sea water from Turnagain Arm to drop on hot spots.

The fire was close to the highway in a few spots and burned within about 1.5 miles of a couple neighborhoods, but thanks to some heavy rain a couple days later they got it under control without loss of homes.

While I was wearing hiking boats and long pants, the Alaska contingent seemed to think it was summer. In reality, it was. It got up past 80 that day as we headed south.

We stopped at the cafe at Summit Lake to test out their pizza and ice cream and enjoy the view.

The weather in Seward was spectacular with blue skies and warm temperatures. Spencer and I went around and visited a few places

and watched the boats come and go.

We spent the night at the city park in Seward where nearly every spot was full. Prices have gone up to $20 since BJ and I stayed there three years ago.

We spent the next two nights at the Russian River Campground. This is a very popular campground (no hookups), especially during the salmon season. We would have stayed longer but the campground was fully booked.

The whole reason for staying at the Russian River was for the guys to try to catch some of the late run sockeye salmon. They would ride their bikes from the campsite to the stairs that descended to the boardwalk along the Russian River.

They spent a lot of time hoping to spot fish moving upstream but didn't have any success.

There was a bit of success at times at the mouth of the Russian where it joins the Kenai River, with more people lined up across the mouth of the Russian on our second day, but still very few fish were showing up. The consensus was that we were a bit early.

I did spot one guy hooked up. The fellow upstream pulled his line out of the way but the third line in the picture was attached to his wife's pole. She cast again, and cut his line before he got his fish landed. I'm not sure, but I suspect there may have been more conversation when they got home.

The fishing wasn't successful this trip, but the weather was great and it was really nice to spend some time with a couple more generations.