After a great week at Brooks, it was time to say goodbye to Jim, the bears and the 'bows. It was a great week of exploring just a hint of what the entire Katmai region has to offer, and why the area deserves our protection. For information on how to help do just that, check out the Trout Unlimited Save Bristol Bay campaign, and let your representatives know how you feel. Humans have no place interfering is so many things in this world, Bristol Bay is one of them.
I couldn't leave without getting the waders wet just one more time, so I headed out for a solitary sunrise on the marsh to reflect a little on my time there. Of course having a pull on the line would be welcome as well, and I thank those that were kind enough to wave goodbye with their tails.
After transferring at Kulik Lodge from floats to wheels, we were back on our way to Anchorage. The weather decided to cooperate again, yielding incredible views of glaciated Mt. Iliamna on the way.
This brought up a bit of a dilemma -- how to fill a few days before my brother would be flying in for his first trip to AK. Not a bad problem to have though, and after a day of scouting to see what had changed on the mainland since we'd been gone, eventually we just settled on hanging around the Kenai for a couple days of easy camping, great fishing, and lining up plans for the following week.
The Kenai is probably the most heavily fished area in Alaska -- it's largely accessible by road, only a couple hours from Anchorage, has beautiful rivers, and has incredible runs of fish of various species.
With that comes some of the negatives however -- people, crowds, trash, streamside erosion, unethical fishing practices, bear habituation, etc. You can escape a lot of that by putting in effort on foot or by floating, but it can't be ignored. Luckily the Park Service has put in a number of measures, in the Russian on particular, to help combat these trends, and it's making a difference.
In the high traffic areas, walkways have been put in to reduce streamside erosion. Signs have been put up to educate the public. Bear cabinets are standard in each campsite if you're camping in the NPS campground, and there's a 3 foot rule between you and your pack since the bears have learned to become bag snatchers when left unattended.
Let's face it, not everybody is going to really get out into the 'Alaskan wild', nor should they. Even on a road fishery, being able to have as 'wild' an Alaskan experience as possible, in a nice, clean setting, without hurting the ecosystem, is important. One thing that stood out for me this year was the monofilament line recycling stations in the high use areas. Mono is specifically designed to be durable, strong, and withstand harsh environments, yet fisherman still manage to throw it on the bank and forget about it. Hopefully seeing these boxes will help people recognize their actions and maybe even take a second to pick it up when they see it. It's also great to see products like Fishpond's PIOPOD (Pack It Out) microtrash container entering the market.
Over the course of a few days we spent a lot of time on the Russian as it was fishing incredibly well. Sockeye were at the peak of their spawning, filling the river with eggs, and bringing in the large rainbows and Dolly Varden char to fatten up for the winter.
I got out in the Watermaster again to scout some areas and see how they'd changed, and finally found a solution to the self-fighting big fish while self -rowing problem I'd faced all season with my knee-mending, open drag technique I discussed earlier. Sometimes satisfaction only comes with challenge.
It would prove to be a great few days of relaxed camping and stellar fishing. Just what we needed to get ready for the last hoorah and making a plan come together......
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