During our recent trip we arranged to fish for King Salmon in the legendary Russian River / Kenai River, trouble is we arrived a day late and the King Salmon season had closed and, as an alternative, we went fishing** for perhaps the best eating salmon of the lot Sockeye or Red Salmon.

Our guide got us up early – 4am – on a miserably wet day and we put the boat in at Soldotna and motored up the Kenai to fish a gravel bar (you are not permitted to target Sockeye from a boat) arriving at first light.  As we pulled up a majestic bald eagle flew from the bar and we were quickly rigged up with fly rods and shown how to “fish”.

Well in truth it wasn’t actually fishing at all – it was more like flailing the water to a froth with a set distance of line out .........the lure wasn’t a lure or fly for that matter, it was a 4/0 chemically sharpened mustad snapper hook with the smallest bit of wool tied into the eye.  You were not allowed to fish a bare hook and hence the attachment of a tiny piece of wool, colour didn’t matter.

Well how does this catch fish you might ask – I did – well it seems all sea run sockeyes when they enter the river system simply swim upstream with their mouth open ........the object of the game is to get any part of you line caught in the gape of their mouth and as they current sweeps your line down and the fish travels upstream the hook is naturally pulled through the gape of the mouth and as the hook passes through you hook them.

Those who cast more often catch more fish – no skill involved just bloody perseverance, and in freezing wet weather you need plenty, but it is hardly what I call fishing it is snagging.

Yes I caught some great fish, standing in the water (and convention calls for ALL fishermen to position themselves the same distance from the bank so you don’t spook the salmon out too far out into the river) either way the water is clear enough for you to watch literally hundreds of salmon to swim past you every hour – hooking or rather snagging  them is a mere formality, if you hook one in the tail and boy do they fight when you do you must release them as that is considered illegal and unsporting but, seriously is snagging them in the mouth any different.

Yes the fight they put up was great, bruised knuckles from wildly spinning fly reel handles attests to that but, in reality I walked away somewhat disappointed – this wasn’t the fishing I expected – oh yes and on the small gravel bar it was combat fishing to the extreme, two other boats and another 10 anglers turned up and we finished up fishing (snagging) shoulder to shoulder it one of the most remote areas in the world ..........thank goodness I had a fishing trip booked to Wildman Lake Lodge later during holiday – that report and photos follow shortly.

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