Fishing, fishing….

So first stop in the morning was at Kenai Fjords National Park office. We saw a short film about the fjords and the history and people of the area. We heard about the glaciers and how much they have been retreating over the past 20-30 years. They have pictures from 100 years ago that the National Park took and they have been re-creating them from the same location (or as close as possible). In some cases, the pictures then were taken from on top of the glacier and now the glacier has retreated 10-15 miles so they are trying to take the pictures from the water instead to get similar landmarks.

After that, we decided to head over to the fishing beach so Joyce could try her luck. The salmon run tends to coincide with high tide – an hour or two before and after seems to be the best chance.

Despite putting heavier line on her reel, Joyce had a lot of trouble with the line tangling during casting and winding it in. The line is too heavy for her reel and so we headed back to the hardware store and found a heavier duty pole and reel.

After supper she headed back out to try her luck – the first one she lost before she could land it but she did get a small 2 pound red salmon before we packed it in for the night. The fishing here is much different than anything we do at home. It is done by way of snagging the fish. What you have is a triple hook with a large weight in the middle of it. You cast out your line, and then with jerking movements, you reel your line in. The weight drags the hook lower in the water, close to the bottom of the water. The idea is you snag the fish somewhere as he swims along. It is the legal way to catch them in the sea and you simply stand on the beach where they tend to be swimming. There were probably 50 + people fishing from the beach when we were out.

Tomorrow we plan to head for a hike to a glacier and then Joyce will try her hand at fishing again in the afternoon. High tide is 4 pm so we’ll head there around 2 pm for another try.