Three young men from the church were gracious enough to take me along on a dipnetting trip to the Copper River. Our goal was Copper River Red Salmon, the tastiest salmon of all according to those who know.
Here is a picture of the river from one of the spots where we fished. The water is milky-gray because of all the glacial silt in it. It is also deep, very cold, and fast-running. And, there is very little shore to stand on. At some places we tied ourselves off to trees to keep from falling in as we fished.
Like all fishing, dipnetting isn't as much fun when you don't catch anything. And that's what happened for the first several hours, at least for me. I finally netted one, though, and had one of my young guides take this picture of me with the fish. It isn't a particularly large red salmon, but it was my very first fish caught in Alaska. So, it was worthy of a snapshot.
All told, I netted twelve fish. One particularly sweet catch was this King. In an earlier post, I wrote of my utter failure in catching a King this summer. I'm no longer wearing the collar!
I've never worked harder in my life to catch fish as I did on this trip. All of the spots we fished were at the bottom of steep embankments, 150 feet or so in height. The trip down was precarious; the climb up exhausting. The three young guys zipped up and down these embankments like they were a flight of stairs in a house. And they kept up the pace after hours of no sleep and eating nothing but pretzels and Runts!
The dipnetting itself was laborious, too. Imagine stirring a large vat of molasses with a broom handle. That is what it feels like sweeping a dipnet through a strong river current. I came home exhausted, dirty, and sore.
But there is something about catching a fish that makes it all worthwhile. I can't wait to try it again next summer.
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