Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 140

Sam and Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 140

Alaska

6/29/09 - 6/30/09 – Copper Center, Alaska – Klutina River

  

We jump out of bed, hurry through breakfast and rush to get a spot on the river.  No real reason to rush, there was plenty of room.  We are excited! Two Alaskan families that are camping and spending their vacation together, offer to help us learn the fish-catching secrets of the Klutina River sockeye salmon.  We give total attention to them as they redo our lines, give us lessons on how to cast, drift, drag-bob the yarn thing and in general catch a sockeye.  I really liked it, and although I think it may take more then one lesson to learn the system – it helped immensely. 

Sam's First

On Monday, Sam caught two and I finally caught one.  On Tuesday, Sam caught one and I caught two.  I don’t know about Sam, but I caught mine while ‘practicing’ my lesson steps. When my last fish chose my hook to bite, I saw it jump in the center of a depression in the raging water flowing over some pretty big and solid rocks.  Then it took off downstream, with Sam and net trying to keep up and me following slowly just trying to reel in faster than the line was reeling out.  Sam got all sorts of advise – the one that made the most sense to me was – tighten the drag.  Done that. 

My First

We fished for hours. At some point, we drove to every Lodge, Café, Gas station, and even back to Glennallen, searching for more fishing gear – mostly weights.  Very, very fast water.  We had more fun then you would think – just throwing those do-hickies in the water and reeling them back in.  Even when there wasn’t a fish around stupid enough to bite the yarn.  What fun.  Sam BBQ’d up a small one for dinner and it was delicious.  Ready for more. 

As Dark As It Gets