Catch and Release

It was a painful few days here at Mile 14 as we watched the fish counts go up while wondering what ADF+G was going to do now. Well, yesterday at 4:00 pm they announced the Kenai would reopen for Catch and Release fishing at midnight. Unlike the last announcement they also added that if numbers continue to rise that other restrictions could be lifted, meaning at sometime we'll be back to plain old fishing and keeping one if you want and are lucky enough to get him to the boat.

So in the meantime any fish over 55 inches can be kept and if you catch a Jack, under 20 inches you can take him home to barbecue. And you can always have a wonderful reproduction like the one above done. We're all smiling.

We've had Catch and Release here before. They're actually great trips as alot of the locals stay home and the river is a great experience. Right now the water is perfectly fishy and with the numbers we have I expect that on C+R trips we'll see a few slimeys...up close. A minority of people are negative about Catch and Release, I guess they just know for certain they're going to catch one to start with. Theres alot to debate about the merits of fishing and letting them swim away, but whats not debate able is thats what we've got right now...its the deal. No worries, go fishing, have fun, feel good...