Epic Sockeye Run
Tuesday, July 30 - This has been a banner year for sockeye salmon. We've seen daily numbers in the 70,000s and 80,000s, and even a couple of days around 99,000 fish in the river. It's way higher than it has been in the last few years. But, we've been told by the locals that this is what the run used to be like every year before things got overfished. Hopefully, this will be an upward trend, and things will get back to normal.
In the meantime, we have had a blast catching as much sockeye as we're allowed to. The limit changed from 3 per person to 6 per person on Sunday, with the commercial season opening early due to the high numbers. So, we all went out to a local park on the river and caught 28 in about three hours on Sunday. Here's what that looks like before filleting:
The next day, we hopped a float plane on Mackey Lake in Soldotna and flew over to Lake Clark National Park to do some fishing on Crescent Lake. Everything about the day was outstanding! The flight, the scenery, the weather, the fishing, the guide...everything! (If you ever come up to the peninsula, I'll give you the info on this particular excursion - it is a must do!)
So, here's some pictures of our trip over the lake. Barron and I went along with my brother-in-law Dean (who is staying with us while his house is being built), our nephew Jake, and his best friend, Wesley, who are visiting us from Texas.
As we landed, we saw a young bear cruising the shore line for food, so our guide took us closer to him on the boat to check it out. We got some good shots of him.
Then, we got to fishing for sockeye. It went really quickly as the lake was full of salmon. It was a ton of fun reeling them in. We all got our three keepers, but there were also several caught that were already changing and not good to keep. At the end of their life, salmon bodies turn a bright red, their heads become green, and their shape really gets deformed. We all wanted to catch one of these "cool" fish. :)
The final haul:
Our guide let us do some fishing for lake trout and Dolly Varden (a type of trout) for a little while, but those are catch and release.
At that point, our guide, Matt, went through the process of filleting all of our catch and then cooking up one fish and some asparagus for a super yummy lakeside dinner. As you can see, the scenery was just awesome!
Nikolae Glacier that helps feed Crescent Lake:
Chigmit Mountains in the background:
Mt. Redoubt (volcano):
As we were waiting on the float plane to arrive and packing up to head out, the young bear from earlier suddenly wandered out on the beach where we were and got as close as about thirty feet to us. The guide eventually had to throw some beach rocks at it to get it to head back into the brush. But we were definitely all ready to get into the boat and shove off! :)
About five minutes later, he came back out down the beach but was scared away by the sound of the float plane. He was a bit closer this time but didn't stick around long.
Then, it was time to go. Here's some of the scenery on the way back from the plane:
Getting super close to the top of Mt. Redoubt:
The dark gray rock in the middle of the picture is the active vent in the volcano:
This excursion was absolutely worth every penny spent, and we would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a truly memorable Alaskan experience! We ended up with about 50 pounds of fish out of the trip, too! We will have a freezer full of salmon this winter. Y'all let us know when you want to come up and get some for yourself.
In the meantime, we have had a blast catching as much sockeye as we're allowed to. The limit changed from 3 per person to 6 per person on Sunday, with the commercial season opening early due to the high numbers. So, we all went out to a local park on the river and caught 28 in about three hours on Sunday. Here's what that looks like before filleting:
The next day, we hopped a float plane on Mackey Lake in Soldotna and flew over to Lake Clark National Park to do some fishing on Crescent Lake. Everything about the day was outstanding! The flight, the scenery, the weather, the fishing, the guide...everything! (If you ever come up to the peninsula, I'll give you the info on this particular excursion - it is a must do!)
So, here's some pictures of our trip over the lake. Barron and I went along with my brother-in-law Dean (who is staying with us while his house is being built), our nephew Jake, and his best friend, Wesley, who are visiting us from Texas.
As we landed, we saw a young bear cruising the shore line for food, so our guide took us closer to him on the boat to check it out. We got some good shots of him.
Then, we got to fishing for sockeye. It went really quickly as the lake was full of salmon. It was a ton of fun reeling them in. We all got our three keepers, but there were also several caught that were already changing and not good to keep. At the end of their life, salmon bodies turn a bright red, their heads become green, and their shape really gets deformed. We all wanted to catch one of these "cool" fish. :)
The final haul:
Our guide let us do some fishing for lake trout and Dolly Varden (a type of trout) for a little while, but those are catch and release.
At that point, our guide, Matt, went through the process of filleting all of our catch and then cooking up one fish and some asparagus for a super yummy lakeside dinner. As you can see, the scenery was just awesome!
Nikolae Glacier that helps feed Crescent Lake:
Chigmit Mountains in the background:
Mt. Redoubt (volcano):
As we were waiting on the float plane to arrive and packing up to head out, the young bear from earlier suddenly wandered out on the beach where we were and got as close as about thirty feet to us. The guide eventually had to throw some beach rocks at it to get it to head back into the brush. But we were definitely all ready to get into the boat and shove off! :)
About five minutes later, he came back out down the beach but was scared away by the sound of the float plane. He was a bit closer this time but didn't stick around long.
Then, it was time to go. Here's some of the scenery on the way back from the plane:
Getting super close to the top of Mt. Redoubt:
The dark gray rock in the middle of the picture is the active vent in the volcano:
This excursion was absolutely worth every penny spent, and we would do it again in a heartbeat. It was a truly memorable Alaskan experience! We ended up with about 50 pounds of fish out of the trip, too! We will have a freezer full of salmon this winter. Y'all let us know when you want to come up and get some for yourself.
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