Sonar @ Mile 13.7

It's that season. I have a friend who is leaving for Hawaii tomorrow so that they miss break-up, good plan. On Saturday it rained on top of our snow all day making for about the iciest condition's on the planet earth. Our gym owners are 7th Day Adventists so no gym on Saturday and then Easter is closed as well and we just gotta have some exercise. Two days without it is way to much for a health nut and a guy who's got ants in his pants....So it was either ski and hope to avoid breaking you leg or go for a walk and hope to avoid breaking your leg.

That was the scene in town yesterday morning at 10 am. Its an Alaska deal, cold at night making for a fog  from the freezing rain. We put our carbide ice cleats on and clickity clicked our way around town for a few miles.   The town was really quiet and we both liked it real well, just another way of nature telling us that this place is different. So as I was thinking just how different this place is as I opened the paper and this ad jumped out at me....

The other day I went and paid my lettuce and got my permit to guide yet another season. This year I also got the permit for upriver to give us more options as the season progresses. The have an April 1st deadline and just like my income taxes I waited until the very last minute....no sense giving Uncle Sam your money  early, he's just going to spend it  frivolously anyway. When I left State Parks I was given this notice of the new sonar going in at Mile 13.7 of the Kenai River, my back yard.

One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is to seek and accept the counsel of people who know more about certain things than I do...I knew all about this project and we do need better King Salmon sonar info but I was surprised to see the 'fixed partial weir' to be built in the 'slough' where I've spent half of my adult life. From what I know about weirs the purpose is to stop or direct salmon passage...and I think that's exactly the problem, our poor salmon are being stopped and directed enough. If anybody had asked me I'd tell them what I know for certain....King Salmon don't swim there like the sonar techs must think they do. Ol slimey  takes the path of least resistance and he likes deep slow water. You can see in this picture that the water upstream from the red circle is dark...that's the bottom eh...shallow water...and the current accelerates up against that bank tremendously. The King Salmon that move up the river do so in the main channel, many of them spawn in the slow water at the downriver tip of this island. This I know for sure. My concern of course is for the fish that do like this type of water, our silver and reds that are going to be stopped or directed. I don't get it, why didn't somebody ask ? And never mind the fact that us river people are going to have to put up with a bunch of ADF+G junior achievers running around the woods, stomping down trails and putting man made things into the river...it ain't right is all I can say. Done.

So there's a pic of the 3 us last night. After our traditional Ham feast we walked down to the river, it was still frozen. So come back to Mile 14. I have a cool idea. On every entry from here on out I'll post a pic of the river taken from the same place every time so you can see the season develop. So this is the first one, I elected to do it at the boat launch itself so as we go on with the season you'll see the river and the most important part...the people, our fishing friends at Mile 14.