Gone Fishin'

I headed down to the mouth of the Kenai river for a little dipnetting action this weekend. Not a bad view, eh? Dipnetting, for those of you Outsiders (the name we call you guys outside of Alaska, and yes, we capitalize it), is an absolutely ridiculous, but totally awesome, mode of catching fish. Not exactly given a clever name, you literally take a net and dip it in the water to catch fish. There are limits, of course. Like, your net can't be bigger than 5' in diameter. You can only catch 25 fish per year as the head of the household (plus 10 more per dependant). You get the idea. Since I generally get skunked while using the good ol' rod and reel/fly rod, I became a huge fan of dipnetting last year. You see, despite having waders where the crotch is at my knees, being 6' tall does actually have some advantages. I can wade out past most people and catch the fish that think they're smart enough to swim beyond the nets. But the bad news is that may have been beginner's luck. This year was a little more pathetic than last year, my first year with the dipnet. I only scored 4 fish. Boo. Good thing I have plenty left from last summer and another fishing trip planned next month!
All those things that look like ants in the water are dipnetters. It was quite a scene down there! 68,000 fish moved from the inlet into the river in ONE day last week, and those kinds of numbers attract the masses!