July 28th we got a late start from Anchorage and headed south to the Kenai Peninsula. The Kenai Peninsula is probably one of the most beautiful spots in America and is renown for its scenery, fjords, wildlife, rivers and fishing! The peninsula is probably larger than the state of New Jersey and contains many mountains, rivers, lakes and two large ice fields as well as numerous glaciers. There are three Alaska style substantive cities on the Kenai; Soldotna, (pop. 3950), Homer, (pop. 4180) and Seward, (pop. 2900).
We were initially headed to Soldotna, located along the Kenai River because it’s perhaps best know for its salmon fishing on the Kenai River. It is located near the middle of the only main road across the peninsula. However, Dick decided to turn on one of the few side roads in the Kenai and to visit Hope, Alaska just to see what this tiny town was all about. Hope is located at an isolated spot on the south side of Turnagain Arm at the very end of a 17.8 mile road. When we got to Hope, having driven over a newly resurfaced road through gorgeous valleys and mountains, we found a tiny hamlet
that consists mostly of two or three small restaurants and campgrounds and one bar and restaurant, a library in a former school, a B&B, a Methodist retreat facility, a post office and a couple of one person stores. We had noted people fishing in Resurrection Creek near a campground. On the spur of the moment we decided to camp there and let Dick try some fishing for the first time this whole trip. Soldotna can wait!
The tiny campground was operated by the bar/restaurant and only offered electric hook-up service. The campsite we chose, the only one long enough to handle our RV and tow, was only about 75 feet from the bar.
This being Thursday night it was the once a week night that all the locals and anyone else in the area get together at the bar and they have live music with local guitarist and other instrument players and party hearty late into the night, as we would learn later when we tried to sleep. Before going fishing we had dinner at the tiny restaurant café associated with the bar and for the first time we both tried the Halibut Fish N Chips! Wow was it great! The halibut was cooked just right and the portions were really generous.
For readers who enjoy fishing the rest of this day’s section is for you. (Non-fishing readers may want to skim over the details of fishing that follow.)
It was then off to learn what this salmon fishing was all about. I watched several folks and spoke with them to see what they were after and how. The salmon that are running here now are known locally as “Humpies” or “Pinks”. They are pink salmon; so named because of their flesh color, about 18 to 24 inches long and weigh about 5 to 9 pounds. The males develop a highly visible hump on their backs just after the gill area as they are ready to spawn, hence the Humpie name. As noted at the river in Anchorage, salmon do not eat once they enter fresh water to spawn and die. The method used to fish for them is to cast with a hook that may be a bucktail type fly or just a piece of colored yarn on a 4/0 or 5/0 hook at the end of leader with a hefty weight tied on about 4 to 6 feet from the end of the leader. The weight must be large enough to bring the hook and line down to about six to ten inches off the bottom of the stream. in hopes of having the salmon catch the line in their open mouth and drag the line across until the hook catches them in the mouth. I would call it snagging them in the mouth! The preferred method is to use this rig on a hefty fly rod and cast it slightly upstream and let it drift down and pull the line sharply to set the hook as it reaches the downstream extended position, over and over again in hopes that the line and hook will snag the Humpie in the mouth. Often you can see the salmon in the stream and are trying to cast in front of a specific fish or group of fish. When hooked they put up a vigorous fight and on a fly rod or light tackle it’s quite a challenge. Since my good fly rod was only a 5 weight and this really demands an 8 or nine weight rod I chose to use the salmon spinning outfit so graciously offered to me in Wisconsin by Dan Small.
The Reseruction Creek empties into the Turnagain Arm about 100 yards below the campground. Since the arm has a very large tidal swing of about 8 to 10 feet the levels in the creek vary substantially with the tide for about ¼ mile upstream. I chose to go upstream and walked back up the road to cross the bridge and take a trail up along the far side of the bank to a location recommended by a successful fisherman in the campsite next to ours.
See photo of stream and of neighbor boys and their Chum or Dog salmon.
When I got onto the bridge I could see dozens of humpies scattered across the stream but concentrated mostly near the far bank. Excitement was growing as I could see several fishermen up where I was headed and one of them had a fish on.
I arrived at the spot, a small spit of small well worn rocks jutting into the turbulent swift flowing stream, and started observing the two fishermen who were both using fly rods. The one man had his two sons with him and the boys were using spinning gear. Each of the men were being very successful in hooking and landing the humpies. The limit is six fish per day and within an hour they had their limits. The boys caught a few also. A few times one of the men snagged a fish by the tail or near the dorsal but if that happened they always quickly released the fish. They also watched me as I tried, seemingly in vain to imitate their method. The man with the two boys, a young black man, was the first to get his limit. He then came to me and offered me the use of his polarized sun glasses to fit over my photogrey trifocals so I could better see the fish in the water. From his courteous demeanor and appearance I would say he was in the military, probably from one of the bases near Anchorage. I took him up on his offer and while it made it clearer and easier to spot fish in the fast water, I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of this drift snagging or whatever you would call this type of fishing.
However, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile, and I finally hooked into my first salmon! It was hooked in the mouth and put up a good fight. Note the hump on the back in the photo. I agonized over keeping and filleting it or releasing it. But I quickly decided to keep it and to take it back to the RV to show to Pat and to get the Filet King board Dan had given me to put it to the test. 
Pat was pleased for me and of course snapped the photo and then began a search for the ultimate salmon recipe. Actually the neighbor had also brought home another salmon and he offered to filet mine as well….but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off and test Dan’s Filet King at the same time so I offered to join him and we’d test out the Filet King while I was learning to filet salmon. It was a double success. I learned a bit while Pat also watched and we both liked the way the Filet King worked to hold the fish and catch the items that fell off. Good product Dan!
The next morning at Pat’s suggestion we decided to stay and spend another day fishing. I still don’t have the hang of how to catch salmon the way most folks do using the method described above but I had a ball trying and did land and release several more and kept two
while having a great time on a fine stream. We got to enjoy Hope and took a walk throughout the area as well. The neighbor boys and their dad had a black bear come up quite close just as they were leaving the stream and all three of them got pictures of it on their cell phone cameras. All in all, Hope was a great success and added memories to this whole Alaska trip that we will cherish.
We were initially headed to Soldotna, located along the Kenai River because it’s perhaps best know for its salmon fishing on the Kenai River. It is located near the middle of the only main road across the peninsula. However, Dick decided to turn on one of the few side roads in the Kenai and to visit Hope, Alaska just to see what this tiny town was all about. Hope is located at an isolated spot on the south side of Turnagain Arm at the very end of a 17.8 mile road. When we got to Hope, having driven over a newly resurfaced road through gorgeous valleys and mountains, we found a tiny hamlet
that consists mostly of two or three small restaurants and campgrounds and one bar and restaurant, a library in a former school, a B&B, a Methodist retreat facility, a post office and a couple of one person stores. We had noted people fishing in Resurrection Creek near a campground. On the spur of the moment we decided to camp there and let Dick try some fishing for the first time this whole trip. Soldotna can wait!The tiny campground was operated by the bar/restaurant and only offered electric hook-up service. The campsite we chose, the only one long enough to handle our RV and tow, was only about 75 feet from the bar.
This being Thursday night it was the once a week night that all the locals and anyone else in the area get together at the bar and they have live music with local guitarist and other instrument players and party hearty late into the night, as we would learn later when we tried to sleep. Before going fishing we had dinner at the tiny restaurant café associated with the bar and for the first time we both tried the Halibut Fish N Chips! Wow was it great! The halibut was cooked just right and the portions were really generous.For readers who enjoy fishing the rest of this day’s section is for you. (Non-fishing readers may want to skim over the details of fishing that follow.)
It was then off to learn what this salmon fishing was all about. I watched several folks and spoke with them to see what they were after and how. The salmon that are running here now are known locally as “Humpies” or “Pinks”. They are pink salmon; so named because of their flesh color, about 18 to 24 inches long and weigh about 5 to 9 pounds. The males develop a highly visible hump on their backs just after the gill area as they are ready to spawn, hence the Humpie name. As noted at the river in Anchorage, salmon do not eat once they enter fresh water to spawn and die. The method used to fish for them is to cast with a hook that may be a bucktail type fly or just a piece of colored yarn on a 4/0 or 5/0 hook at the end of leader with a hefty weight tied on about 4 to 6 feet from the end of the leader. The weight must be large enough to bring the hook and line down to about six to ten inches off the bottom of the stream. in hopes of having the salmon catch the line in their open mouth and drag the line across until the hook catches them in the mouth. I would call it snagging them in the mouth! The preferred method is to use this rig on a hefty fly rod and cast it slightly upstream and let it drift down and pull the line sharply to set the hook as it reaches the downstream extended position, over and over again in hopes that the line and hook will snag the Humpie in the mouth. Often you can see the salmon in the stream and are trying to cast in front of a specific fish or group of fish. When hooked they put up a vigorous fight and on a fly rod or light tackle it’s quite a challenge. Since my good fly rod was only a 5 weight and this really demands an 8 or nine weight rod I chose to use the salmon spinning outfit so graciously offered to me in Wisconsin by Dan Small.
The Reseruction Creek empties into the Turnagain Arm about 100 yards below the campground. Since the arm has a very large tidal swing of about 8 to 10 feet the levels in the creek vary substantially with the tide for about ¼ mile upstream. I chose to go upstream and walked back up the road to cross the bridge and take a trail up along the far side of the bank to a location recommended by a successful fisherman in the campsite next to ours.
See photo of stream and of neighbor boys and their Chum or Dog salmon.
When I got onto the bridge I could see dozens of humpies scattered across the stream but concentrated mostly near the far bank. Excitement was growing as I could see several fishermen up where I was headed and one of them had a fish on.I arrived at the spot, a small spit of small well worn rocks jutting into the turbulent swift flowing stream, and started observing the two fishermen who were both using fly rods. The one man had his two sons with him and the boys were using spinning gear. Each of the men were being very successful in hooking and landing the humpies. The limit is six fish per day and within an hour they had their limits. The boys caught a few also. A few times one of the men snagged a fish by the tail or near the dorsal but if that happened they always quickly released the fish. They also watched me as I tried, seemingly in vain to imitate their method. The man with the two boys, a young black man, was the first to get his limit. He then came to me and offered me the use of his polarized sun glasses to fit over my photogrey trifocals so I could better see the fish in the water. From his courteous demeanor and appearance I would say he was in the military, probably from one of the bases near Anchorage. I took him up on his offer and while it made it clearer and easier to spot fish in the fast water, I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of this drift snagging or whatever you would call this type of fishing.
However, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile, and I finally hooked into my first salmon! It was hooked in the mouth and put up a good fight. Note the hump on the back in the photo. I agonized over keeping and filleting it or releasing it. But I quickly decided to keep it and to take it back to the RV to show to Pat and to get the Filet King board Dan had given me to put it to the test. 
Pat was pleased for me and of course snapped the photo and then began a search for the ultimate salmon recipe. Actually the neighbor had also brought home another salmon and he offered to filet mine as well….but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off and test Dan’s Filet King at the same time so I offered to join him and we’d test out the Filet King while I was learning to filet salmon. It was a double success. I learned a bit while Pat also watched and we both liked the way the Filet King worked to hold the fish and catch the items that fell off. Good product Dan!
The next morning at Pat’s suggestion we decided to stay and spend another day fishing. I still don’t have the hang of how to catch salmon the way most folks do using the method described above but I had a ball trying and did land and release several more and kept two
while having a great time on a fine stream. We got to enjoy Hope and took a walk throughout the area as well. The neighbor boys and their dad had a black bear come up quite close just as they were leaving the stream and all three of them got pictures of it on their cell phone cameras. All in all, Hope was a great success and added memories to this whole Alaska trip that we will cherish.
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