The River Ran Red

I had a great week. For the first time in July I actually fished / worked every single day, doing what I do, what I'm about. Early in the week I finally got to meet two couples who travel together in a motor home and they're just the kind of young people I needed to meet. I had told Ben Jennings of course about the King closure but I also assured him that there were other opportunities and fish to catch....he says " we're in Jeff, we trust ya"..... Well we looked for a silver and couldn't find him but I knew with the 6 fish sockeye limit we could pretty easily find a quiet place surrounded with salmon. Done Deal. Here's a pic of Sean Ringer with a fish, that day and everyday this week was sunny and in the 70's, this was a real fisherman's trip and these guys are real fishermen, stand up guys.

They stayed a couple days with us in the campground and we've become friends. They had all the right stuff and it was fun to watch there wives Tiffany and Sara land their own fish and compete heads up with the boys who are expert fishermen.

What impressed me the most was that as the afternoon wore on and we were 15 or so reds into the 24 fish limit there wives wanted to get going, they had been promised a 'date night' and a cabin with a shower, a night out of the motor home together, so naturally they were a bit anxious to pull off the bite. So with no grumbling the guys left a few reds in the river...I was impressed, these guys are on their way to a long happy and fun future...a creedo I live by also, 'happy wife, happy life'.

The next day my friend Tom Riette also came by motor home. He fishes with his girlfriend Niki and granddaughter Shalyn. I've watched Shaylyn grow up through the years and that's a cool part of the job. As we fished a gravel bar with only one other boat a hundred yards up she recognised somebody and low and behold she got to fish for a couple hours with her best friend from Anchorage. Its one of the things we love about this State, its small enough that we run into each other in the weirdest places..

Here's a pic of Tom fishing. Even though we can't get the kings who wouldn't enjoy fishing a stretch of Kenai by yourself like this. A lot of the guides pull up in the same places, I think they like to visit. Well I do to but I like to visit with my fishing friends and that black boat always has a full tank so we go find it quiet...with people, not fish.

Meet Tom 'twitchin Tom' Duncan....Viet Nam combat vet , cancer survivor and life expert. He and his running buddy Doc Robinson heard I'd been canceled and they raced over from Seward to meet me for two days instead of the one they had scheduled. Like Ben Jennings and his crew I can't say enough about Tom and Doc....wow...you'd be lucky to meet these guys anywhere or anytime, but to meet them on the Kenai river and to get paid to guide them...well....I'm a lucky guy. Ole Tom there was hard on those red salmon , he must of caught 50 of them, and a few in the wrong place as he seemed to have a unique action to his retrieve. I'm not saying that he was snagging, he wasn't...but he assured me that if any enforcement people accused him of that he'd explain to them that he has Parkinsons disease. We all know nicknames are a sign of endearment so now he's 'Twichin Tom', my buddy. At the end of the day as he put his rod away he showed me a trick I'd never seen, instead of hooking the lure on an eye or the keeper and then reeling it tight he just simply hooked it to a loop of line and it was instant tight, man that's a real fisherman and it goes to show that even a guy like me who has made fishing his life still has things to learn, you just have to have faith, trust... Here's a pic of us fishing another spot, not another boat in sight. My old friends Ed and Carolyn Bovee are in guideboat #003 and Twitchin and Doc are in the water. Doc brought his fly rods and I learned alot from him, its a beautiful thing to watch a guy who knows what he's doing run that fly rod....Thanks guys.

This last pic I just had to post. I think I have a few readers that have some influence here on the Kenai River and I want them to see this. We have a lot of rules here and even though a few I find silly or a pain I keep them all, its how you have pride in what you do and it shows your commitment to right and to the future. With rules I don't interpret, bend or massage them.....I wish I could say the same for the people making the rules, the government.  That right there is an ADF+G work boat tied up to shore right in front of a sign that says to not tie your boat up there, in fact they might even be tied to the sign. The natural vegetation along the shoreline is critical for the migration of small salmon, so their own Dept. does not want people walking on the pristine bank, boats have to be anchored 10 feet out, nothing should be put on the land. That will get most of us a ticket...but not these guys.

I personally think its a disgrace. Government should lead by example. We wonder why  and how we ended up with a failing King run. We wonder for our future, the fish, the habitat, the wilderness, its ours, its the publics, that all of us, we want it for our kids.....but these guys  don't seem to care, they think its theirs.