Back Drifting Alaska’s Kenai RiverRead Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: http://jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/sports02/fish/alaska/drift/kenai.html
If you should find yourself in Alaska chances are that you've come to enjoy
scenery or perhaps do some camping and sightseeing. It is also a likely bet that you've come to do some fishing as well.
The Kenai Peninsula is definitely a good place for that. The Kenai and Russian Rivers confluence, in heart of Kenai Peninsula (some 80 miles south of Anchorage), is one of most popular places in world to catch King and Red Salmon and though availability of those species is very high during peaks of their respective runs, so is competition. Known as "Combat Fishing", to uninitiated this can be quite a spectacle. Usually fishermen are arrayed less than 3 feet apart from each other, are standing out in river in two to three feet of water, and are fishing that little stretch of glacial green directly in front of them. At times in my travels across peninsula I have seen them lined up like this, along emerald shore of Kenai River where it meanders next to highway, for over a mile. There is very little casting, line set at a certain length and angler simply pulling his line out at base of his rod to keep it taught as he constantly dips his lure upstream a few feet then taking up slack as current drifts it past him. If he (or she) is lucky enough to elicit an aggressive strike from salmon, there is no question as to nature of his screaming reel. "Fish On!" is howl this elicits, and hopefully all surrounding fishermen are neighborly enough to bring in their lines and stay out fighting angler's way as he commits to his own personal combat with what can turn out to be a 70 pound King Salmon. Not clearing an area and retaining fish that are other than mouth hooked is strictly frowned upon and likely to get you chastised by locals and those in know, even possibly turned into Fish and Game in case of keeping snagged fish. This is serious business to most of those involved, and I highly suggest you play by rules.
Although I have participated in this fishery it is not really my cup of tea. I prefer a smaller rod than this would normally require, enjoying my aquatic hunts with ultra light gear, and most especially avoiding crowds. An excellent way to do that is to come to this area in late summer and early fall; I suggest from late August to early October. I had opportunity to take trip of a lifetime just this last fall (2002) with my girlfriend's brother, Jay, who was visiting from Mille Lacs region of Minnesota, and a good friend of his from St. Louis, Missouri: C.J.
