Red River

Two really big things happened at Mile 14 this week. The reds (sockeyes) arrived in force and I turned 57, but my right knee tells me its 77. We held our own on the King salmon front and I made new friends with Bill and Linda Worsham who are from Texas and personal friends of my musical hero Kevin Fowler. They tell me that Kevin is as nice and approachable as I could tell from his music that he would be. Pretty cool, I'm feeling connected. We had a great day, they fished with the Kruncos's and Mike caught this nice King. But the narliest and most exciting fish of the week was this beauty caught by our friend Elaine Woodburn. She stuck this guy like a seasoned pro back bouncing the tide and it jumped and ran and well....it was just one difficult fish and took 20 minutes to land. Elaine was born and raised here in Soldotna, her family (the Davis's) were some of the people that made me feel welcome when I arrived in the 70's. So it was pretty cool to be able to help her to catch her first King ever but also go sportfishing on the Kenai river for her FIRST time ever. As you can see Elaine was awful darn happy with that King Salmon...a new Kenai convert. Elaine works out in the gym with MP and I so I know she's looking forward to that wonderful salmon protein.

When my friend Tony Knowles was Governor he had the philosophy that the most important salmon was the one that Alaskans eat. So the Kenai River Personal Use Dipnet fishery was started and oh baby is it popular. This Pic was taken from the bluff in old town just today. Kind of reminds me of the pictures I've seen of the Woodstock Rock Festival....kind of the same look, rainy and tents but with a whole lot more dead salmon. In the background you can see the old Columbia Ward Cannery where I had my first regular pay check job. On this same day in 1972 I was loading carts full of cans of these same salmon into the retorts to cook at high pressure for 45 minutes. Then we rolled the loaded carts into a lye wash to clean and cool . I remember the 'popping' sound that was a bit like reggae music as the cans cooled and began seal. Oh, I made $2.65 an hour.And red fever is alive and well here at Mile 14 as well. Why not, what a deal to have this wonderful source of number 1 grade Red Salmon so plentiful. Our parking lot is crammed with cars and the fisherman are easily catching their limit of 3. To put in perspective, the fish enter the river at a rate of 50,000 a day. Its dangerous being a salmon, I think I'd take the road. The next pic is our local Red guru here at Mile 14. Mark Johnson lines these fish better than anybody I've ever seen. He's a natural born killer and because I don't have time to either dipnet or sportfish for them Mark helps collect some for us. the next series of pics is the scene at our gutting table. Alaskan's love their fish and this shows in how its taken care of, winters coming as we say.... I'd like to be able to tell you all about it but the best I can do is describe it from the rivers view. The old rivers full, done up, full of people, full of fish. Full of fun, full of greed. Full of wonder, full of rumors, full of profit, lots of laughing...its one unique place, that's all I know.

So what a wonderful week it was but you have to take the bad with the good. My friend Gene Chambers aorta exploded and he left the planet. I called him the Genius...because he was. You hear love stories of how people met on the Internet and well I guess that was us. I found Genes wife Helen on the net to do my web page and years later we're simpatico. Gene was about as direct and honest as anybody I've ever known. He loved his wife. He was a mechanical guy and viewed a computer just like a 57 chevy, man he was good at it. He was my friend, when things weren't so good he'd call, tell me .... "hey King , ain't no deal".......