Kenai: Still the River of Dreams
The tackle blew me away. The reels these guys were using looked like they were designed for bluefin, not salmon. The hooks were big enough to hang a deer off of and the line was stout enough to pull a truck out of the mud. The rods were so thick and heavy they looked better suited to a billiards hall than a fishing boat. And then there were those gloriously massive Spin-N-Glos that were the size of dog toys and the equally impressive balls of eggs.
Coming from the Lower 48 and seeing these tools for catching Kenai River chinook for the first time was an awesome moment for me. At 22, I’d caught plenty of kings in the Sacramento River and tributaries, but I was clearly in a different world now. All I knew was that I was extremely excited—and just a tad nervous—to see what sort of beasts required such heavy artillery to subdue.
My guide for the day was Joe Aley of Alaska Midnight Sun Adventures. I’m not sure whatever happened to Joe, but I’ll always be grateful for the day he took me on my first Kenai adventure.
It was just the two of us and Joe explained that the fishing had been tough. The crew he’d just fished had caught something like 2 fish in 5 days. He also told me that the tide was still several hours away from being prime, so we’d probably have to just grind it out until the turn.
I didn’t care. I was so stoked to be on the mythical river and see all of her sights and sounds. It was like walking out onto the mound at Yankee Stadium and I could feel the electricity. Joe headed downstream to the first spot and rigged me up with a fist-sized glob of red roe, the biggest Spin-N-Glo on Planet Earth and a Jet Diver large enough to drag a human to the bottom.
My guide instructed to me to test the drag before I dropped the rig into the water. The big Calcutta was buttoned down so tight that I couldn’t pull line off with my hand.
“Perfect!” he said. “Now, set the rig into the drink, let it back 45 feet and put the rod in the holder.”
At that point, I asked Joe if I could hold the rod. Before he could give me the “you’ll set the hook too quickly” speech, I told him I fished a ton of divers back home and was well-versed in the wait-to-set game.