Headed up in the morning...

[Scoot]

I'm headed to Alaska tomorrow morning. Our plane leaves Fargo at 5:00 AM and we get into Anchorage sometime after noon. I can't wait! We've got a lot of fun stuff planned for the trip. I'll take lots of pics and I'll post about the trip when I get back. Don't hold your breath waiting though... two days after I get home I'm headed to LOW for a family fishing trip. I'm sure it'll be early Aug. before I get any pics up.

[Down Deep]

I'm counting the days and head up there on July 31 for my annual trip. Have a great trip although it would be impossible not to.

[Sherpa]

I'm up in AK right now. We are packing up to leave for the Kenai right now. Looks like the reds are coming in pretty strong. I think they will peak sometime in the next 10 days. I might try my hand at fishing for kings this time as well. Good luck guys let us know how you do. I will post when we get back.

[traveler]

I hate you all:)

[jwmiller33]

I'm up in AK right now. We are packing up to leave for the Kenai right now. Looks like the reds are coming in pretty strong. I think they will peak sometime in the next 10 days. I might try my hand at fishing for kings this time as well. Good luck guys let us know how you do. I will post when we get back.

have you done any fishing since you have gotten up there sherpa? thats great news that the reds are running strong.. i hope you get into a bunch of them. any word on how the king runs are doing by now? you gotta be close to being able to use bait in the majority of the rivers?

[Sherpa]

Just got back this morning at 1am from the Kenai. Lots of reds in the river. I only fished one of the two days that I was out there. It was awesome to be out there but turned out to be a bit frustrating for me. I had probably 6 or 7 fish on and lost them all. I'm not complaining though because I will probably be back out there during the week when it is not such a zoo. There were so many people out there I just could not believe it. The trip was definitely not a bust though. I saw a few moose and four bears. One grizzly cub, didn't see mama but she was not far away. And two black bear cubs with their mother. My dad went dipnetting and brought back 30 fish. I could not help him dipnet though because I am not a resident of Alaska. The weather was amazing. I actually fished with no shirt on because I was so hot with my neoprene waders on. The kings wer not really running strong enough for me to try for them but hopefully soon. I think we are going to try some halibut fishing out of Homer this week as well.

Got to go prep some fish for smoking canning and freezing now so I will post some pics later when I get the chance.

[jwmiller33]

thanks for the update sherpa! what does your dad catch in the dipnet? ive heard of people talk about disnetting while we were up there, but not really sure how you do it or what you catch. i heard some people talking about catching hoolihans or something like that? i guess they are kind of like smelt?

that is VERY cool you saw a bunch of bears! im jealous. did you get any cool pics? thats great the weather is very nice, nothing better than great weather to fish in the best place in the world! good luck with your halibut! let us know how the rest of your trip goes

so did you and your pops end up getting any of the reds? i know you said you lost em all but you also sad your prepping some fish for canning and smoking. hopefully you will have a nice big fish fry soon!

[Sherpa]

People dipnet for salmon. The fish my dad got were all red salmon. Basically what you do is get a very large net with a long pole 15 or 20 feet at times and just bring it downstream with the current and scoop them up. Another way to do it is from a boat and drift with the net which is what my dad did. The poor guy was out there by himself in a zoo of people and boats driving and netting with no help. He can be kind of hardcore with fishing sometimes. It's not really as much sport as it is a way to put meat in the freezer. It is fun though. I was able to do it when I was younger once.

Anyways here are some pics. The first one is some people dipnetting.

[Scoot]

Hi Guys,

We had a wonderful trip! As Sherpa said, the reds are running strong right now. We fished Reds on Tues evening, Wed morning and evening, and in the afternoon on Thurs- we did well all times, except on Wed morning (long story...) King fishing had been the best it's been all year during this past week and looked to be on the upswing when we left Soldotna on Thurs. We didn't fish kings, but that's the report I heard from several reliable sources.

I don't have my pics together yet, but I'll put them together in the next couple weeks or so and let people know what we did and saw. It was a WONDERFUL trip! Alaska is absolutely breath taking and hopefully I captured a hint of that with some of my pics. I'll get them together in the next couple weeks and post them.

[jwmiller33]

glad to hear the trip was a success. cant wait to see the pics. how big was the biggest red you caught? really good news to hear about the kings

[Scoot]

We caught a few reds around six pounds, but most were between eight and ten pounds (give or take). My sister caught one that must have tipped the scale at close to 14 pounds (no scale and I'm definitely not an experienced red guy, so take that guess with a grain of salt-- it is, an honest guess though).