After several weekends in a row of being completely lame, I decided to shake things up a bit. Early last week I started to get fishing envy. A lot of people I knew to varying degrees had been fishing and dipnetting this summer. I love me some salmon and I love not having to pay for it even more! So I started trolling Facebook and my phone contacts looking for someone to take me with them.
Soon enough I had successfully invited myself on college buddy/former roommate Lorrie's overnight trip to Kenai for some dipnetting fun. I also managed to borrow all the necessary gear from other lawyer's and coworkers. Then I got my fishing license ($24) and found a resident dipnet card (free, after trips to three different outlets!) and packed the Jeep for an overnight camping trip. My excitement was building all week. I even got Friday afternoon off from work. By 1:30 PM I was on the road with Lorrie, chatting away, enjoying a beautiful sunny day.* The drive down was uneventful and pleasant.
We arrived in town not knowing exactly where to go. So after staking out our campsite we drove around a bit looking for a good place to fish. Within about an hour we found ourselves at the mouth of the Kenai River. We parked ($15) and carried our gear to the water. Then we chilled out in the water for about 30 minutes before Lorrie landed her first red. I was so jealous, thinking there's no way a salmon is just going to swim into my stupid net. But soon enough I caught one too.* It was the best feeling! Lorrie coached me through the process of murdering and butchering the poor thing. Over the next 90 minutes we each caught 2 more, cleaned them, and then packed up to make dinner at camp.
The camping was great.* We grilled one of Lorrie's fillets, I made black rice and veggies, and we drank way too much wine. The next morning I woke up with a killer hangover, but we both rallied and tried to catch more fish. The weather wasn't in our favor though (hot and sunny but with too much wind) so we grabbed breakfast and hangover provisions before driving back to Anchorage. I dropped off Lorrie, unloaded the Jeep, and filleted my fish on the back porch (I'm hardly an expert, but I wound up with about 7 lbs of salmon meat!). Then I cooked up the loose meat I scraped off the fish's ribs into a panang curry with black rice for Leigh's and my dinner. Fabulous.
Sunday morning rolled around way too soon. Early last week Leigh and I committed to going packrafting with my work friend and her boyfriend. I was still exhausted from fishing, drinking, and driving a total of 7 hours in less than 24 hours, but not about to waste a chance to try something new (and not willing to flake out on someone who'd put a lot of effort into planning an outing for us). We met up with our friends around 11:30 and hit the water by 1:00 PM. The first half of the trip was technically challenging, just getting used to the boats. Then we ran into a serious construction area and decided to walk around it and put-in down river. While climbing out of the water to walk downstream both of our friends were attacked by hornets! Once that trauma passed, a young moose wandered into our area and we found bear scat all over the trail. So basically it was a stressful 45 minutes or so.
We worked our way past the construction area with our gear and put in about a 1/2 mile down river. After that the paddling was technical (dodging fallen trees and rocks) but much easier and a lot more fun.* After about 3 hours of constant exercise and stress, Leigh started to fade a bit at this point and said she was extremely cold (which was scary considering her pregnancy), but she rallied and we got safely to our car at the take-out. At the time I was pretty stressed out and worried about Leigh, but looking back I'm really glad I paddled Campbell Creek and tried out packrafting. It was great exercise and fun to spend time with our friends and nobody was [permanently] injured. Needless to say, I'm completely exhausted today.
In other news, we're having homemade, fresh caught salmon cakes for dinner!
* Sorry, no pictures. I am the genius who took my cell phone packrafting only to have it swim in a puddle in the floor of my boat all afternoon. Leigh's phone kept mine company, so we're both without phones. I'm so mad at myself!
Soon enough I had successfully invited myself on college buddy/former roommate Lorrie's overnight trip to Kenai for some dipnetting fun. I also managed to borrow all the necessary gear from other lawyer's and coworkers. Then I got my fishing license ($24) and found a resident dipnet card (free, after trips to three different outlets!) and packed the Jeep for an overnight camping trip. My excitement was building all week. I even got Friday afternoon off from work. By 1:30 PM I was on the road with Lorrie, chatting away, enjoying a beautiful sunny day.* The drive down was uneventful and pleasant.
We arrived in town not knowing exactly where to go. So after staking out our campsite we drove around a bit looking for a good place to fish. Within about an hour we found ourselves at the mouth of the Kenai River. We parked ($15) and carried our gear to the water. Then we chilled out in the water for about 30 minutes before Lorrie landed her first red. I was so jealous, thinking there's no way a salmon is just going to swim into my stupid net. But soon enough I caught one too.* It was the best feeling! Lorrie coached me through the process of murdering and butchering the poor thing. Over the next 90 minutes we each caught 2 more, cleaned them, and then packed up to make dinner at camp.
The camping was great.* We grilled one of Lorrie's fillets, I made black rice and veggies, and we drank way too much wine. The next morning I woke up with a killer hangover, but we both rallied and tried to catch more fish. The weather wasn't in our favor though (hot and sunny but with too much wind) so we grabbed breakfast and hangover provisions before driving back to Anchorage. I dropped off Lorrie, unloaded the Jeep, and filleted my fish on the back porch (I'm hardly an expert, but I wound up with about 7 lbs of salmon meat!). Then I cooked up the loose meat I scraped off the fish's ribs into a panang curry with black rice for Leigh's and my dinner. Fabulous.
Sunday morning rolled around way too soon. Early last week Leigh and I committed to going packrafting with my work friend and her boyfriend. I was still exhausted from fishing, drinking, and driving a total of 7 hours in less than 24 hours, but not about to waste a chance to try something new (and not willing to flake out on someone who'd put a lot of effort into planning an outing for us). We met up with our friends around 11:30 and hit the water by 1:00 PM. The first half of the trip was technically challenging, just getting used to the boats. Then we ran into a serious construction area and decided to walk around it and put-in down river. While climbing out of the water to walk downstream both of our friends were attacked by hornets! Once that trauma passed, a young moose wandered into our area and we found bear scat all over the trail. So basically it was a stressful 45 minutes or so.
We worked our way past the construction area with our gear and put in about a 1/2 mile down river. After that the paddling was technical (dodging fallen trees and rocks) but much easier and a lot more fun.* After about 3 hours of constant exercise and stress, Leigh started to fade a bit at this point and said she was extremely cold (which was scary considering her pregnancy), but she rallied and we got safely to our car at the take-out. At the time I was pretty stressed out and worried about Leigh, but looking back I'm really glad I paddled Campbell Creek and tried out packrafting. It was great exercise and fun to spend time with our friends and nobody was [permanently] injured. Needless to say, I'm completely exhausted today.
In other news, we're having homemade, fresh caught salmon cakes for dinner!
* Sorry, no pictures. I am the genius who took my cell phone packrafting only to have it swim in a puddle in the floor of my boat all afternoon. Leigh's phone kept mine company, so we're both without phones. I'm so mad at myself!
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