The Kenai Penninsula

After leaving Glennallen and spending a few days in Anchorage, we made our way south to the Kenai Penninsula to fish the Kenai River. We had hoped to get our silver and chum salmon there, but our timing was off just a little bit. So, (oh rats), we had to fish for big rainbows and dolly varden. We wade fished the Russian River right after we got down there and it was full of red salmon and we did catch some small dolly and rainbow there. It was fun to fish it after you read so much about it in the flyfishing mags. Then we chartered a float trip down the Kenai River and had a wonderful time! Our guide was pretty sharp and able to put us on lots of fish. There was another couple fishing with us from CA. Very nice people. That was pretty different for us, as we are used to fishing two to a drift boat in WY, so being in a 20 ft. drift boat with for fishers was different. It was OK, once you got the hang of it. We did in fact catch lots of BIG rainbows and dollys. The 30 inchers that we were hoping for did elude us however. Between the 4 of us, we boated about 100 fish that day, which was really nice. Some of which were in the 25 to 27 inch range. Really nice scrappy fish, and the dollys were just as much fun to catch as the rainbows. We fished with beads, something we had never done before. You put a bead that resembles a fish egg about 2 inches above a bare hook and when the fish takes the bead, as soon as he spits it out, the hook gets him. Guess that was illegal here until a year or so ago, but everyone seems to fish that way now. We fished with a lot of weight and a strike indicator. It was a great day. I have photos of the day I will post to this after we get outside and I get stronger cell signal.

It is really expensive to fish the Kenai with a guide. We were amazed, but decided if we wanted to fish it, we would have to bite the bullet and cough up the almost $600.00 to do it, and, you don't even get lunch, you have to take your own! Wow! There are good things about WY that we didn't even appreciate! I guess if you want to fish a famous river like that, it is expensive.