Alaska - Anchorage, Quake, Sockeye Susan

Hello Everyone,

We arrived in Anchorage yesterday afternoon. We had barely picked up our rental car when Chris called to tell us about the 5.1 earthquake in the Anchorage area. Although we both thought it would be exciting to feel it, neither of us did.
It took us about three hours to drive to Soldotna. We did some grocery shopping in Soldotna before we drove out to the fishing lodge which is about 5 miles west of town.

This morning we were up and down to the dock at 5:30 a.m. We were joined with a nice man and his son who are from California. The primary focus of the day was to catch King Salmon although we were somewhat forewarned that there hadn't been many caught recently.

Here are some pictures of today's fishing:


The boat and the skipper, Mark Glassmaker

This is a 21 foot aluminum boat powered by a 50 horse Yamaha outboard. Most of the Kenai river is about 4 feet deep and moving at 10-12 mph and you have to dodge a lot of boulders. The fishing process uses small dipsy divers and either "j" type plugs or small poppers. Mark called the process "back trolling" where the motor is always in forward gear and although it's pushing upstream, you are slowly moving backwards. BTW - Mark has 2000 hours on this motor and expects to get 10,000 hours before he has to replace it.


Sockeye Susan

We didn't catch any King Salmon but the biggest fish of the day was caught by Mom. This is a 8-9 lb fish that we are about to have on the grill as soon as I finish this blog. This fish is about the best of the salmon family to eat; very deep red meat. Mom did a great job pulling this fish in and you can see she is pretty happy. Next to her is the skipper, Mark. Mark worked hard all day to try find Kings. Of all the boats we saw (over 50) and all the calls Mark made to other skippers, we only heard of two Kings being caught today. We did see a boat with a King on but they later lost it.




Rainbow Trout
Although you can't keep them, it was fun to catch this fish that was maybe 6 lbs. Tomorrow we are going trout fishing with the same skipper we had today. He expects us to catch lots of trout so stay tuned to tomorrow's blog.



Drift Boat

This boat is called a Drift Boat because except for the oarsman, this boat drifts down the river. This oarsman worked hard to keep boat situated correctly and away from rocks. He looks a little like Floyd and could be something he would do. Today, by the way, is Floyd's 85th birthday. Happy Birthday Floyd.

Young Bald Eagle

We saw many Bald Eagles today including this young one. It takes eagles 5 years to finally have a white head and tail. This was fun to see.


So, it was a great day on the Kenai river. Tomorrow we will also be on this river but about 24 miles upstream when we fish for trout. Thursday we will be back at the lodge to spend our second day fishing for Kings.

Hope you are all well,

The Travelers