Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Fishing Season in Kenai
Unless you are a fisher person try to avoid Kenai in July. One area of Kenai experiences the phenomenon call “Combat Fishing”. The fisher people are lined up along the bank of a river, shoulder to shoulder and there is another line of fisher people behind them. Apparently this is quite the site. And I thought fishing was suppose to be relaxing.
The description of the town of Kenai sounded very inviting in the milepost guide. You could watch Beluga whales from the bluffs, see volcanoes (they haven’t erupted for awhile) across the bay and visit old Russian churches in town. Sounded good to me go so we headed there this morning. Unfortunately, the guide failed to mention how busy it is in July. We tried a couple of campgrounds and they were all full ... one woman explained to Ed that any place near a river would be full. Looking down the cliffs where the whale watching was suppose to be resulted in seeing not whales but hundreds of fisher people lining the shore. It was an incredible site though I would have preferred to see a whale! Well, we gave up on Kenai and decided to head south towards Homer and stop at Clam Gulch State Recreation Area. Colin has an urge to dig up some clams. We arrived at the campground and only 4 of the 116 sites were occupied. Even though it was parking lot style we decided to stay as the price was only $10. In this area not only do they dig for clams they “net fish” for salmon. When we walked down to the beach we found encampments of people. They had trailers or huts on the beach, trucks with boat trailers, boats and of course nets for catching the salmon. The nets are strung out in the water and held in place with buoys. The boats would go out to the net lines and take the fish out of the nets.
Oh, a lot more people arrived in the campground over the course of the day.
Smells good! Can I roll in it?
Fisherman encampment on the beach.
Now these are big rocks. At high tide the rocks look much smaller.
Taking fish out of the nets at low tide --- you can just walk in.
That's a volcano on the other side of the bay.
The description of the town of Kenai sounded very inviting in the milepost guide. You could watch Beluga whales from the bluffs, see volcanoes (they haven’t erupted for awhile) across the bay and visit old Russian churches in town. Sounded good to me go so we headed there this morning. Unfortunately, the guide failed to mention how busy it is in July. We tried a couple of campgrounds and they were all full ... one woman explained to Ed that any place near a river would be full. Looking down the cliffs where the whale watching was suppose to be resulted in seeing not whales but hundreds of fisher people lining the shore. It was an incredible site though I would have preferred to see a whale! Well, we gave up on Kenai and decided to head south towards Homer and stop at Clam Gulch State Recreation Area. Colin has an urge to dig up some clams. We arrived at the campground and only 4 of the 116 sites were occupied. Even though it was parking lot style we decided to stay as the price was only $10. In this area not only do they dig for clams they “net fish” for salmon. When we walked down to the beach we found encampments of people. They had trailers or huts on the beach, trucks with boat trailers, boats and of course nets for catching the salmon. The nets are strung out in the water and held in place with buoys. The boats would go out to the net lines and take the fish out of the nets.
Oh, a lot more people arrived in the campground over the course of the day.
Smells good! Can I roll in it?
Fisherman encampment on the beach.
Now these are big rocks. At high tide the rocks look much smaller.
Taking fish out of the nets at low tide --- you can just walk in.
That's a volcano on the other side of the bay.
If you wish you can sign our guest book
We have added a web page with a map of our current location and route to date