Thats Ugly Howard

When I was a construction hound we had a young carpenter on the crew named Howard. Howard was a bit of a screw up and after hearing the boss say " thats ugly Howard" many a time it became part of our everyday language. In my world it means messed up, going poorly or oh noooo...

So when it comes to the Kenai River I have only one thing to say right now..."thats ugly Howard". The pic above you've seen many times, it was taken at the overlook below my house. That river you're looking at on this day should be a nice earthy green color, its not. Instead it resembles a 4 dollar latte. The wonderfully warm Memorial weekend was good for us, bad for the river. The warmth accelerates the snow melt in the Killey River Valley and walla, no pescado. The good news is that nothings forever, especially here at mile 14. The water is clearing now having maxed out yesterday and I suspect by Saturday we'll be fishy again, certainly by next week.

The next pic is the science of all this, kind of 'shade tree' science. I figure with 12 inches of visibility we have a swinging chance of getting a slimey to bite. As you can see, as of this morning its somewhere around 6 inches. At its best the river usually has 2 feet or so of visibility. We have a few tricks for the muddy water up our sleeve and this happens from time to time, no biggy really.....But what is big is this next pic.

When I was a kid I was told "cheer up, things could be worse." So I'd cheer up and ....sure enough things got worse. This pic is the number of fish entering our River as recognised by Fish and Games sonar at mile 8. As you can see a dismal count of 24 was yesterdays tally. According to this data alone its the slowest, weakest start to the fishery ever, at least ever sense all our experts started 'managing' the fish. My own observations of catch rates etc were that the fishery was acting pretty typical for this time frame. Its still very early and the ADF+G has a spanking new sonar that must have a bug or two to work out so this might all correct itself. Lets hope so. On top of the economy and everything else a salmon shortage is the last thing we need here at Mile 14.

So, for all of us that love this place and depend on it keep you fingers crossed, sacrifice a goat or something. I'd suggest a prayer but I've learned not to use that for something like fishing, lets save those for the really important stuff, your health, your love.....