Our drive to Seward included a stop at Russian River Falls. There is a nice campground on the side of the road near where the Russian River ties into the Kenai. If you hike "up" the Russian River for about a mile and a half, there is a section of falls that is particularly hard for the sockeye (reds) to pass. So...... lots of fish stack up at this location, which draws both bears and tourists. Fishing and bear wrestling are not allowed in that section of river. Both families hiked into the area. We saw lots of salmon, more tourists, and reportedly missed a momma black bear and her three cubs by just a few hours.
Then, we finished road tripping down to Seward and pitched camp at Millers Landing. Erik and Lilly had a nice shady spot near the bathrooms. Shane and Deanna were bayside in the motorhome. We talked to some locals on setup and it sounded like the reds were "in" in Resurrection Bay. Locals had been snagging them and doing pretty well. In fact, they were reportedly so "in" that the governor had issued an "emergency order" doubling the daily limit per fisherman from 6 fish to 12 fish. Cool.
The next morning found us on the east side of the bay near a shipping channel flinging large weighted treble hooks, learning to "snag" for reds. There were a couple other fishermen in the area, but not too many. In fairly short order, our group had caught 9 fish - a mix of pinks and reds (also called humpies and sockeye).
Of course, we ate salmon again that night.
Just for the record, I think it's really cool when a couple eagles watch me fish. They are an incredible encouragement...... see..... eagles are professional fishermen. Erik and I are just hobby fishermen. If eagles are there, fish probably are too.
We fished the same areas the next two days and continued to catch fish, but never did as well as that first morning. We moved around a couple times to try different areas, but didn't turn up very different results. One spot seemed really encouraging because right before we got to the waters edge, we encountered a big pile of fresh bear poop, but we didn't do well there. Maybe the bear didn't either, cause we didn't meet him.
Our last night in Seward was our last night together as a group. We had a big salmon dinner, enjoyed the last of the wine, hugged and parted ways. About 10 minutes later, we all got a text alert advising that an earthquake had happenned offshore somewhere and there was a TSUNAMI WARNING. This caused quite a stir in camp, among Texans in particular. We know how to deal with hail (move car) and tornadoes (drink beer in front yard), but not tsunamis. Locals told us it wasn't a big deal, but Shane loaded up the motorhome and headed inland. Thank goodness, the locals were right and no damage occurred. We boondocked that night along the road, and that was the one time it actually "looked" dark-ish - about 12:30am. It wasn't really dark, but getting on it.
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