day 45 - Kenai - a day a sockeye would die.....

Monday July 17^th – day 45 – Kenai

I woke up at 3:45am thinking about trucks, transmissions, work, salmon, an urge to pee, and sunlight, not necessarily in that order.  After testing the plumbing, I walked outside to confirm that at 3:45am, the sky is just “dim”. Not dark, just “dim”.  Last time I recall seeing genuine darkness, I was on the ferry from Prince Rupert coming into Ketchikan. That was on June 24^th, nearly a month ago. On a related note, I was told that all locations on earth get about the same amount of sunlight per year. Northern locations (ie AK) just get “most” of it in the summertime, southern locations (ie Austrailia) get it in our wintertime, while the equator gets an equal dose year round.

I started our “lessons learned” document this morning too.  It has started well, but has a long ways to go.  The list is long.  Many things could be improved, but all in all, a stellar trip.  I’d love to run it again someday.  J

We headed to the famous Russian River Falls after breakfast.  It’s about an hour east of Kenai/Soldotna, and well worth the drive. Once you park (mile marker 52) at the campground area, it’s a 2.3 mile hike into the falls.  It’s very well laid out and marked.  Upon arrival, we found lots of sockeye salmon stacked up under the falls, just like in the youtube videos. J 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTg584D707o

On the way there, we had to stop briefly to let a caribou cross the road, and also stopped to watch a momma moose and a calf.  Just another day on the Kenai Peninsula….

We hiked down to the water level to get a bit closer to the fish. It seriously looked like a “National Geographic” video, with bunches of sockeye all in a wad, most with bright red bodies and green heads. No bears, however.  I guess they must have been taking a break, rubbing their full bellies.

Then we hiked over to the Lower Russian Lake, the salmons ultimate destination. On the way back to the car, I spotted a group of Dall Sheep on a distant hill. Close investigation counted about 35-45 total sheep.  Closest we ever got was about 2 miles away, but still cool to see them.

On our way back to Kenai, the ladies dropped off the boys so we could try to catch dinner.  Travis hooked one in short order but lost it shortly thereafter.  And then…… after 4 days of trying, I finally hooked a really nice sockeye. I only had about 8-10 feet of line out when he got hooked, so the fight was pretty western.  Travis served as net man, and the fish made 3 laps around him and one around me before bitterly finding his head in the net.  It was a fantastic fish, and one I genuinely feel like I “earned” after ~3000 casts. A great fight and everyone nearby (with whom I was “combat fishing”) cheered to see the hillbilly from TX finally catch a sockeye. 

Once back in the RV park, I filleted the fish, and cooked ¾ of it (one and one half fillets), saving the other ¼ for tomorrow. The meat was just beautiful.  There’s hardly anything better than fresh caught fish, and this one came out of the water at 6:20pm and was in my belly before 8:20pm. Fantastic. The meat stayed the same deep red color and just needed a little salmon shake and lemon pepper to spice it up. Deanna made a salad to go along with it.