Fishing the Kenai

The weather this summer has been pretty crappy. In late May, when my friends Augie & Betsy were here, we had sunny, warm days -- which many locals said was a good indicator that the season was off to a great start. But when the Westerfields headed back south, they must've taken that nice weather with 'em because it has been cloudy and cold practically ever since. There's the occasional sunny day from time to time, but not enough to really keep up with. People even joke, saying, This is the second day of summer! Thankfully that's the type of day we were having in Anchorage Saturday morning... which is why Bob and I packed our bags, jumped in the truck, and headed south to the Kenai River. Unfortunately, the further south we drove, the clouds became thicker and the raindrops began to fall. We could see blue skies ahead, but it was too far south from where we were going to end up.

With the camper in tow, we drove to Cooper Landing to meet up with Bob’s best friend Vince and his wife Marija for a weekend of fishing on the breathtakingly beautiful Kenai River. With our rain gear on, we drove to the boat launch but noticed while we were pulling in a huge rainbow in the sky. It was quite possibly one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I was completely memorized.






Our first float down the river, it was sprinkling, but I caught my first rainbow trout! Unfortunately I didn’t take my camera along because my battery was low, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. Haha. The weather was quite chilly because of the cloudy skies and rain -- my hands felt like ice cubes, but I didn't really notice because I was so taken aback by the scenery.

Floating on the Kenai gives you a chance to experience true Alaska – untouched and untamed, just like it was 100 years ago. Bald eagles fly above… Salmon are jumping out of the water… And bears lurk nearby.

Unfortunately, we didn't have much luck on Saturday... so we called it a day and went to bed early so we could head even further south on Sunday to Soldotna. We got there & the weather was perfect – sunny and warm, but a light breeze. We spent a few hours trying to catch salmon, but again, no luck. It has been a really slow year for salmon, according to Fish & Game. We had lunch in Soldotna and then drove back north to Cooper Landing to do another float down the upper Kenai in Vince’s boat. This time, I grabbed Vince’s camera and was able to get photos of Marija, Vince & Bob catching red salmon.