First 2009 Salmon Fishing Trip

The Russian River.

Brother Glen and I played hooky from work on Thursday and drove to the Russian River to join the stampede for our part of the record setting Red Salmon run. It being Thursday morning when we arrived the fishermen lining the bank were 10 to 15 feet apart. For Russian River combat fishing that not too crowded. The wait in line to get into the parking lot at the ferry was only 40 minutes. Considering that the Alaska Fish and Feathers Department had doubled the daily bag limit to 6 fish, we actually stayed and joined our fellow fisher folk. This is unusual because as a general rule we hate combat fishing. We fished the Russian in our youth when the population of Southcentral Alaska was a quarter of what it is today. On more than one occasion in the last decade and as recently as 2 years ago we have made the drive, taken a look at the crowds and driven home without wetting a line. After our ride across the river on the ferry we found room and began trashing the water. All around us people were constantly hooking fish. Maybe 1 in 12 of the hook ups were legal, that is hooked in the mouth not snagged in the tail, back, or belly and could be harvested instead of being released. We each landed a legal fish in the first hour. For the next 5 hours or so the ferry brought another 25 people to join us about every 10 minutes. As the new people arrived the space between fishermen slowly shrank from 12 feet to 3. I gave up when the space between people got to 6 feet. I had at least 10 tangles with someone else's line. People were starting to get hooked by flying hooks and whacked with flying sinkers. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching. My brother lasted several hours longer than I but landed no more legally hooked fish. In the early afternoon an adult Brown Bear came out of the woods across the river and walked to the rivers edge creating an otherwise empty river bank as people pulled back giving him all the room he wanted. He seem unconcerned by the hundreds of people sharing the river bank with him. After a few moment he trotted back into the woods. At which time I remembered I had packed my camera in the back pack.

P.S. I forgot to take pictures not only of the Brown Bear but of combat fishing itself . If you've never seen it check out these links for pictures...

http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Combat_Fishing_Photos.htm

http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/ro/sd_notes/winter_07/russian_rv/bears_russian.shtml

http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/Management/areas.cfm/FA/kenai.russian