It was another scorcher here at the Salmon Grove Campground on the Klutina River in Copper Center.
I spent the cool morning updating the Journal.
Linda headed out to fish. She foul hooked one that broke her line. Since my rod was ready to go, she used it before getting snagged and breaking off. That was the last of the pre-tied hooks and leaders I bought yesterday, and she really liked those, so I'll have to go get some more.
I don't think I mentioned that while we are "flossing" the red salmon (basically snagging in the mouth), all the folks around here say you can't just use a bare hook. Even the guides say there has to be something else, so people buy commercial flies (which aren't necessary since the fish aren't feeding) or you can just tie yarn to the line right where the hook is tied. The yarn and flies theoretically make the hook a little more bouyant, but so far I haven't seen that make any difference at all. A couple of the most successful fishermen here barely use any yarn, just enough to make them "legal".
Now, with all due respect to these local rules (which we've heard repeated in various locations), I can't find anything anywhere in the massive amount of Alaska fishing regulations that confirms this prohibition against completely bare hooks. In fact, many regulations in particular waters refer to using only an "artificial fly" (no "bait" allowed) and the state's definition of "artificial fly" includes "bare hook".
ARTIFICIAL FLY—a fly which is constructed by common methods known as fly tying, including a dry fly, wet fly, and nymph, or a bare single hook that is free of bait as defined in 5 AAC 75.995.
So there we go. But, just so we don't make any waves, we use a little bit of yarn on our hooks or use the pre-tied hooks that have yarn. It certainly doesn't hurt.
Sorry about all the fishing talk, but for folks RVing to Alaska for a summer, fishing is often on the agenda, so the information will be helpful to at least a few.
Anyway, before I could get into serious fishing myself today, I had some chores. The main things we needed to get done today were dump our gray tank and take on more fresh water.
We considered packing up the rig to go to the dump station, but it took us a while to get level when we got here, so we decided to stay put rather than having to re-set the blocks under our front wheels. I used the camp's blue boy and made a couple trips to empty our gray tank. The first trip rolling that filled tank around about did me in especially with the temps hovering around 90. I should have filled it half way each time.
After that was done, I hooked up 75 feet of hose to get to the nearest water spigot to fill the fresh tank.
We'll be here until July 3, so we should be good until then.
I finally got out to do some fishing when I saw my favorite spot was open. Sockeye salmon fishing isn't necessarily fun. It's tedious. Someone here said it's like playing a slot machine - you just keep doing the same thing over and over and over until you hit. And in the meantime, you're getting snagged, breaking off line, re-tying, and hoping.
You can have perfect technique, but if the salmon aren't coming through at the time you are fishing, you're wasting your time. Of course you don't know if the salmon are making a run until you catch one or see someone else catch one.
With the repetitive nature of this fishing, my right arm has felt like it's about to fall off since the first night. Instead of "tennis elbow", I have "Sockeye elbow".
So I flipped my "fly" over and over until I finally caught one. Then I caught another right after that, and the spots around me filled up. Then I caught my third. I was so happy to have finally "limited out" for a day. I made Linda come outside and take a picture.
It took me five days of learning, but I got 'em, and I've learned how to avoid getting snagged so much. Catching with reduced snags increases the fun.
Linda took this photo of Kory, right, Kyleigh, center, and Jack, left while I filleted the fish.
Kory and Jack are two of the best here at catching reds, and I haven't seen a day yet when they haven't caught their limit in a short period of time. They've been very helpful, as have Sara, Rob, and Kathy shown below.
We all help each other land fish and bonk them. By salmon standards, these fish aren't all that big, but they fight hard and actually getting them on shore or in a net is an accomplishment.
Linda vacuum sealed the fish, and I added them to our growing bag in the camper freezer. We now have fillets from eight fish.
By the way, though we are fishing the Klutina River, it's a tributary of the Copper River. In fact, were only about a mile from the confluence. So, these are the famous "Copper River Salmon" that are supposed to have a bit more fat and flavor than other Sockeye. They are prized by fish markets, restaurants, and chefs.
For tonight, however, Linda was making pork belly for dinner in her Ninja Foodi. Delicious as always.
After dinner, I looked outside and saw Kyleigh bringing in a fish. Kathy had hooked it and handed the rod to Kyleigh, so I rushed out to get this great shot.
Not only have we enjoyed learning the fishing, but we've been embraced by the regulars making our stay here a lot of fun.
Tomorrow, the king salmon season opens on the Klutina, and I'm taking a charter to hopefully get one of those monsters. My luck with charters hasn't been very good so far, so hopefully that will change. We take off at 3:00 a.m., so it's an early night for me - off to bed at 9:00. Linda sat around the campfire chatting with the others until well after midnight again.
And thus ends the month of June. We've been in Alaska over a month and a half, and we still have two months to go. An epic adventure indeed.
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