After leaving Hope, we worked our way back to the Seward Highway and drove south toward the lower Kenai Peninsula.  Due to road construction, the drive took over 2 hours until we found a place to rest off the main highway near the Kenai River.  We stopped at a cafe in Cooper's Landing near the Russian River called Gwen's.  They had excellent food and ample quantities.  Jennifer liked the hamburger and dessert.  Crystal liked the tomato basil soup, and Greg had to try the Macho Caliente Beefy Nacho treats.

After dinner, we drove down the road along the Kenai River.  The River was awesome!  It had water that was a milky blue.  The photographs in the following pages do good justice to the actual color.  We drove down the river until we found a suitable place to rest for the evening.  I can't say it was night because it really never got very dark unless there was a cloud cover.  At 11 p.m., it seemed like 3 p.m. in California.  The sky became a bit dim around midnight, and then around 2 a.m. it started getting lighter again.  By 3 to 4 a.m., it was daylight again.

I had booked a reservation at the Russian River campground for the night of June 29.  So we did a little sightseeing on Skilak Lake Road before going to the campground.  It was here that we found Engineer Lake.

After fishing here for an hour or so, we moved on down the road.  Greg seemed aggrivated by the mosquitos, but the rest of us weren't bothered much.  At several places along this road we saw fresh bear scat, but saw no bears during the entire trip.

Finally, we reached the Russian River Campground, Site 14.  We checked in at 11 a.m. and I figured that we would have plenty of time to catch a fish for dinner since the sockeye salmon were starting to show in the river.  After settling in camp, we all went fishing.  Jennifer was not keen on this idea.  However, after she cast into the river and saw a dolly varden jump near her line, her attitude changed a bit.  So, I figured she and I should fish upstream while Crystal and Greg went downstream.  After hiking about a mile, Jennifer refused to go any further and started to cry.  So, we sat and rested for a while when Greg happened by.  We decided that he would take Jennifer back to the RV and that I would continue upstream in pursuit of a salmon for dinner.  I hiked up the river for another mile or more before I came upon a family of 3 with 7 salmon on the bank.  I decided this might be a good place to fish.

The water in the Russian River is very clear, however the salmon were hard to spot until I put on my polaroid sunglasses which cuts the glare and allowed me to see into the water.  The sockeye salmon were stacked up on the opposite bank, perhaps several hundred of them.  So, I cast into the pod and immediately hooked a sockeye in the mouth using a white and orange coho fly.  I thought I should take the fish downstream to allow the family their space, but that turned out to be a mistake.  Once the fish got into the current, I had a major struggle on my hands!  It took about 30 minutes to land the fish, but I finally landed it.

I weighed the fish in at 8-1/2 lbs.  About average for this river.  I then proceeded to put the fish into a plastic bag and stuff it into my fishing vest.  Since I did not yet have an account with a fish processor, I decided that I would only take this one fish to eat on and pursue the sockeye on another day.  It would have been easy to catch a limit of 3, but we didn't need that much fish early in the trip.

I had noticed many carcasses in the water as I hiked back to camp.  By the last half mile of my return hike to camp, I knew why everyone else filleted their fish on the river and only carried back the meat!  Nevertheless, I managed to get back to camp with the fish in tact so we could take this picture:

We ate this fish for 2 days in a row and it was excellent!  The Alaskans claim the sockeye is the best eating of the 5 types of Pacific Salmon.  I'm not sure if I agree, but it sure was good eating and the kids certainly ate their share.