Trying to reason with hurricane season

In Kenai River language that's what we call a 'load'. This year that scene has been difficult to come by but with work, luck and perseverance it can be done, oh, and it helps to have expert fishermen like my friend Jacque Lizin around. This morning we once again checked on the slough below my house. Silvers love the slow water but for some reason this year they haven't gone to their usual places. When they're in the slough good you can usually see them, no mystery, if they're there you see them and catch them. But this morning it seemed dead as we floated the bobbers in 2 1/2 feet of water. I think its the funnest fishing we do....you put a a big ol glob of eggs on and watch the float, keeping slack to it. Pretty soon the float kind of wobbles then disappears for just a sec....wait....wait....wait....now its moving sideways as you hustle in the slack and set the hook. The water explodes and the 12 pound silver crosses all the other lines and another rodeo is on.

As the week went on and the water level fell and fell like it does this time of year our pattern slowly but surely quit working. We got 11 one day, 6 one day, then 3 and finally by the end of the week we only managed a single fish from my back yard at Mile 14, then it was down river to fish the tide with the rest of the fleet. This picture I took of Sandy in the twilight of morning, it was so dark that with this fish we heard it as much as we saw, it splashed , ran and carried on pretty darn good.

The pic below is at my cleaning station overlooking the river. My surf fishing friend Ernie, Jacque, Eddie and Fred who is a great fisherman. These guys come from Belgium every few years, I've known Jacque since the mids 1980's...He's a guy who fishes all over the world and this is his favorite place of all. They love to fly fish so the Anchor River is their Cathedral but its all catch and release so I was happy to help out with their consumables.

We've tolerated some torrential rain lately. Some kind of 'super cell' settled in over south central Alaska and between the wind and the rain its been....well...a challenge around here. So after sitting in the rain with Tom, Niki and Shaylynn on Saturday we were all tickled when Shaylynn hit several silvers right in a row, well earned salmon for sure.Is that a great picture or what ?

Ernies got to go back to Canada so MP figured we'd smoke a load of salmon for the friends back home. She and Ern are driving to Anchorage tomorrow and she's off to Montana to be with her mom while she has surgery... I'll be in charge here at Mile 14, gypsies in the castle. One more week of fishing and our season is officially wound down, come back to the blog and see whats up next...