Our streak of good weather had to come to an end. And if you’re going to get wet, do it on a boat fishing.
Day 5, was our lightest day on the trip. There was only one thing planned and that was a 5-hour fishing trip on the Kenai River with King of the River charters. Our scheduled departure was 12:30pm so we had plenty of time to sleep in. We caught brunch at a diner called Ginger’s, which is located in a small mall in Soldotna. A good hearty breakfast would get us set on the day.
I came to a realization that my water resistant cargo pants was not going to be warm or dry enough based on the amount of rain that was falling. An outfitters was conveniently located in the same small mall. I picked up a pair of waterproof over pants that were also going to be a nice warm layer that would come in handy once we got to Lake Clark.
It was about an 8 minute drive toward Kenai to the Eagle Rock Boat Dock. Sherry waited in the car while I paid for parking and found out guide. A steady, but light rain would fill the rest of our afternoon.
Each fisher was allowed to land and keep two silver or coho salmon. With three people fishing on board, it could be a short trip. Sadly the fish were not biting and it was more of a relaxation trip, until it wasn’t.
The first reel started screaming line was Sherry’s pole. Now to be clear! She only agreed to go on this trip under two conditions: 1. She absolutely would not bait a hook (bait is too gross for her) and 2. absolutely under no condition would she ever touch the fish.
Note: Bluegill put up a bigger fight than these salmon did. It’s like they just wanted to jump in the boat. Almost everyone swam toward the boat to get netted out. It’s almost like it’s in their DNA to jump into bear mouths and boats. I was pretty disappointed about the amount of fight.
As Sherry reeled the fish in, it decided to put up a bit of a fight as the guide reached with the net to scoop it out. But the entire time Sherry was apologizing to the fish: “I’m sorry Mr. fish” “I don’t want to hurt you” “Please forgive me”. It was hilarious. By the way, this was Sherry’s first ever fish to catch!
And was it a beast! It was a 14-16 pound silver salmon, large enough to have impressed the guide!
Then out of no where she asked “How do I pick it up?” and she reached down, following the advice of the guide and picked the fish up. I was stunned. BTW: She thinks it is slimy and gross, but she got caught up in the moment and just did it.
Throughout the rest of the trip, we both landed our limit of more normal sized 8-10 pounders. It was still slow enough that we used the full time of the excursion.
We had planned to do a catch and release, but the guide felt it was better to keep them. We would take the meat from her catch to a restaurant later to have it cooked up for me. We gave the rest to the guide and other passenger with is.
Dinner was at a restaurant called “Dinner’s Ready“. It’s primarily a take-home restaurant. After a day of work, you swing by, pick up a home cooked meal, and take it home. Wednesday night was country fried steak night (they call it Chicken Fried) which is what we wanted. But the owner had agreed to prepare any salmon we caught. We dropped the catch off and went back to the hotel to clean up before returning to dinner.
The husband and wife team that owns the restaurant were very conversational as was a couple of other customers that came it. It made for a comfortable, friendly environment.