Kenai River, AK

Outing Information

Fish Caught

Sockeye Salmon

Weather

Other Patterns Tried

No other pattern information for this outing.

Fishing Partners

No fishing partners were saved with this outing.

Waypoints

No waypoints were saved with this outing.

Tides

No tide information was saved with this outing.

Notes

Day three save info.

Log all items kept in truck and expenses and fish totals, etc.

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Day 3

Promotion day. Got Dennis and rob hooked on fly fishing for sockeye. We got 19 fish today. Had the promotion at the end of the day on the river banks. Invited new owners of Lazy Salmon who also attended. Then we wished for 1/2 hour catching 3 more fish. I caught another big buck in the same bottom drift. This time I win and was redeemed. I caught it with a olive zonker I tied. Had Dennis try to net it for me and it was a cluster. Ultimately he did net it after 3-4 tries with more misses and acrobatic moves than the fish. After landing is fish I decided I was done fishing. This was redemption. Although I did not examine .or ...introspective......?? As much on this trip, I was content with me time on the water and did not feel the need to fill a box with more meat or fight for submission on the line. I can say that I was pleased to have caught all of my fish on the fly rods this year.

Dennis liked the feel of the fly rod so much that he bought one the final afternoon during our trip to town. He also purchased a reel and we got it spooled up in a local fly shop. After the promotion Dennis also did a bit of fishing with his new rod also hooking and landing a small sockeye, after which he also declared he was done.

Rob also landed his final sockeye of the trip shortly after with the lodge's loaner sage 8# fly rod I had him try. He blamed me for causing him to have to now buy a fly rod. Who knows....perhaps years from now I will be exclusively fly fishing many destinations with these guys.

Trip home: lessons learned. Went to the airport on a day where loads were indicating overfill and oversold. This caused a large delay in Dennis making a decision as he was going off of changing numbers too heavily. Dropped off john rob and jack at the airport while Dennis and I retrieved some stuff from the base. John and josh checked in space a and reported that they were able to get 2 seats to Seattle. Additionally he mentioned that our names were called for e flight - if we would have checked in we would have had seats to Seattle on this supposed busy day. We decided to goldstreak 263 lbs of fish to Seattle which Dennis and I quickly did and then remarked the truck into employee parking at e airport. Is caused a delay again in at least getting to the gates. We kiosk checked in to the next Seattle flight only to have a ticket agent deny checking us in due to cutoff time for accepting bags. Dennis began discussing the Fairbanks option. I asked if we could just refill to the next Seattle flight and keep trying until we actually had to go to Fairbanks. We then re-rolled to the next Seattle flight. Lesson proven again, don't give up until last minute. We all got seats on this flight along with a few other lower priorities.

Don't need as much food as we again threw quite a bit away. Lazy salmon provides continental snacks.

Again, use mainline of no less than 20, preferably 25. Use 25 leaders as they will withstand a bit of scraping over rocks and current.

Consider a sink tip line and create a Kenai flip terminal end design and practice in a river before getting to Alaska.

Not sure I will be taking rob on an Alaska trip or other major trips again. He tendency to quick verbal frustration began to make me a bit frustrated and embarrassed. Jack was very excited to go along and kept a positive attitude the entire time.

72 fish total for this 2014 trip. I just realized my statistics are about numbers, success, speed and efficiency. perhaps I am keeping he wrong statistics. When will it not matter how many fish were in the box, but he quality and enjoyment of the event, the camaraderie, and the time alone.?

Future trips for me should involve a space a hop to Elmendorf AFB to get my truck and then fish on my own timeline while truck or tent camping. Scaling down our trips again is something we should look at doing, especially with Dennis getting stationed in anchorage for Alaska airlines. Stock the truck with additional boxes of camping gear. Tent, lantern propane stove, tarp ropes, towels, utensils, cooking gear, etc. maybe take a grey tail up from McChord wi Andrew or hunter and maybe use Dennis's ID-90 for the one way return or a reasonable one way return trip.