Day 63 of Our RV Journey to Canada and Alaska 7/14/14 - Guys Catch Keeper Sockeye Salmon

Today the guys got up early and were off to Soldotna at 4:50 this morning.  Soldotna is about 45 minutes away.  They already had bought their license for today so they went straight to their fishing spot.

On the way  to Soldotna they saw 11 moose.  One was close to our campground, they saw a group of five, and the rest were by themselves.  Glad they didn't have one mounted on the front of Jesse's truck.

I saw on Facebook where Jesse posted their catch for the day around 5 minutes earlier. So they finished up around 12:30 this afternoon.  Jesse caught 3 and Bob caught 2.  They both had some more fish that 

they were able to reel in and keep; (they got away). One of Jesse's fish had another hook in it so it got away for awhile fore Jesse caught it.  Bob could have caught another keeper but he was ready to go when Jesse

got his limit.

Salmon swim in schools. Bob said that if salmon was being caught today there would be several fisherman catching fish close to or at the same time. 

We didn't think to weigh the fish, or the fillets when we bagged them so we're not sure how many pounds of salmon we got; or I guess I should say Bob & Jesse got.  I counted the packages and we put 16 packages in the freezer; enough for 2 good size servings per package.  Plus the 2 fillets that we ate tonight.  Not too bad for a morning of salmon fishing.

Bob didn't know if the commercial fisherman were netting today or not.

The 'local' people fishing are allowed to use nets so the fisherman using rods & reels don't have as good of chance to get fish.  

The guys had on hip boots but the waves would hit them and Bob ended up having a lot of water in his boots.  His jeans were completely wet as well as his billfold. Fishing got a little uncomfortable, they said. Water was cold!   Also, casting and reeling it back in for over 6 1/2 hours gets tiring.

When they got back to the campground we went down to the campground's fish cleaning station and Bob cleaned the fish.  A experienced salmon fisherman stopped by and showed Bob his technique of skinning the fish and getting the salmon off the spine.  It seemed to work well.  The fisherman had a $125 fillet knife and it seemed to work quite a bit better (sharper) than Bob's $38 cheapo fillet knife.

There are little pin bones in salmon that the fisherman suggested we try to pull out.  Ginger and I worked hard trying to pull those little bones out but most were almost impossible to pull out.  We finally gave up on that idea and just bagged them.  We just were careful eating it tonight, and since salmon is flakey when grilled it was not hard to see and remove the pin bones.

After cleaning, skinning and filleting the salmon, we vacuum bagged them in the camper and put all of it in the deep freezer except for a couple of large fillets that we marinated for tonight's dinner.

Ginger made a green garden salad, cheesy potatoes and had grilled salmon.  It was delicious and we all decided that the salmon was a little overdone; except for Jesse who likes fish & meat well done.

Since the fishing was crowded today and they caught some salmon, the guys decided that we are going to leave Country Boy Campground and head to Seward in the morning.  Wow...I just about thought they were going to be able to count us in the census here in Ninilchik; I was beginning to feel like this was our home.   We  have spent 18 days here in this little fishing village.

Bob filled up the truck with diesel after dinner.  (28.415 gal X $4.399 = $125.00 Cab)

Have a great day!!!

jl