As planned, we were on the river this morning around 5:00 a.m. Two weeks ago there would have been about 40 people already there, but this morning there were only four. We had our choice of spots.
But this morning, for some reason, the fishing was slow. Everyone said so, but they were still getting limits, eventually.
Steve brought both his fly rod and his spinning rod today. Both of us were struggling to get a fish on. But then he found a spot and hit a groove with his spinning rod. It took a while, but he got all six of his fish by around 9:30 or 10:00. And, in a turnaround from our first day back here, I had zero.
Since he was finished, I moved into his spot and started using his spinning rod. I caught two pretty quickly, but using the heavier spinning rod was killing my elbow. The repetitive motion of flipping and "flossing" got my elbow hurting at the end of June at Copper Center when I was using my spinning rod. Since I got the fly rod, it's been sore but much better.
But today, I was back to full-blown "Sockeye elbow". I had to go back to my fly rod. Fortunately, I caught a couple more and then got my fifth. Those five came in about an hour after getting shut out for the first five hours. Then, I knew I was going to stay until I got the sixth. It took 30 or 40 minutes, but I finally got number six, my biggest fish of the day. Whew, glad I pulled that off. It was more about the challenge and the goal than the fish. We have enough fish.
And today, we took pictures.
That was a satisfying four days of Sockeye fishing. I got 24 fish which averaged around six pounds each, and today's catch was closer to seven pounds each.
After dropping our fish off at Custom Seafoods and telling them we'd pick all of them up on August 11 as we pass back through, we went back to the RV park.
We're moving on tomorrow to Captain Cook State Recreation about 35 miles north, and we promised our wives that we wouldn't go back to the river for more fish before we traveled. We're not sure whether the fish we get back from the processor is going to fit in our freezers as it is.
In the afternoon, we got our Jeeps washed, and then we cooked - what else? - salmon for dinner. I cooked Sockeye on the Blackstone, and got some King salmon started for Steve who finished it up.
Now, our friends Kory & Sara had invited us to go to the park for a little festival and live music this evening, but we passed. So, they dropped by and we chatted until we called it a night ..... a bit earlier than the the other night. We parted with hugs and handshakes and again thanked them for storing our fish for us. We invited them to join us up at Captain Cook since it's not too far for them.
And that pretty much ends our time here in Soldotna. One of my big hopes on this trip was to catch a bunch of Sockeye salmon .... on my own, without a guide - mission accomplished.
We're planning three nights of camping at Captain Cook State Park to do nothing but relax and give Linda and Esther a few days to beachcomb on the rocky beach there. We're all looking forward to getting away from the crowds and back to nature.
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