Staging

With the NASCAR racing season in full gear it got me thinking about Kenai's version of it. Every year in July and August the Classic and Jr. Classic tournaments are headquartered out of Harry Gaines' place on the lower Kenai River. The guides participating are required to wait in front of their dock a half hour before the start of the tournament. Initially, we are all spread out at safe distances but as the starting time nears we are literally rubbing the sides of the boats together. Veteran or rookie, the competitive juices are definitely flowing.

It always fun to be part of these events. Unfortunately, for the spectator, it is not as exciting as a NASCAR race. Speeds are no more than 25 mph and to date there have been no firey crashes.

Morning Nightmare

All summer long I wake up at 4:00 a.m. to get ready for my day on the water. I'll eat breakfast, pack a lunch, and then drive to the cabins. Next, I grab my fishing gear from the storage shed and walk a 100 feet down the dock to where my boat is moored. As I'm walking I always worry that one day when I arrive my boat will look like the one pictured above. I wonder what this guy thought when he walked down his dock and found his boat swamped. I bet they weren't happy thoughts.

I'd like to say this is an isolated incident but I see this happen every summer and it scares me. I wonder when it's my turn to have a swamped boat. I always try to control what I can to prevent this but some times things just happen. You never know when a gasket seal will fail, or combination of excessive rain with a large tide will happen.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that 2012 will be a dry one.

Fishing the Kenai 2011 - Mark's Fish Story

So a friend of mine sent me a YouTube link about the Kenai River. As I was watching the video I couldn't help but notice the selection of other video posts about the Kenai. I swear one of them looked like it was the inside of my boat so I decided to click on it. Lo and behold, wouldn't you know it, it was a video from a trip with the Johnson's in June of 2011. After watching their video, it made me happy that I was part of their "once in a lifetime" day on the river.


Bill Medchill has also posted a YouTube video about a silver salmon trip (I'll post this later). If anybody else has let me know and I'll put it on the blog.

2012 Red Salmon Forecast

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Commercial Fisheries, recently released their forecast for the 2012 red salmon season. Here is an excerpt:

A return of 6.2 million sockeye salmon is forecasted to return to

Upper Cook Inlet in 2012 with harvest by all user groups of

4.4 million.

The red salmon forecast for the Kenai River is approximately

4.0 million which is 6% greater than the 20 year average run

of 3.8 million.

Whooohoo! Although last year Fish and Game underestimated the total run of red salmon, it's a pretty good bet that this year will be excellent. If you haven't started to exercise your arms it's not too late to get into "flipping" shape.

St. Cloud Sportsmen Show Recap

The 2012 St. Cloud Sportsmen Show is over and it was a great three days. We were moved into the new civic center this year which greatly improved the flow of the show. In the past the vendors were separated into two halls but now we were all under the same roof. I don't know if it was a combination of being in a new building, the right weather, or a lack of other activities in the area, but this year an attendance record was set. All I know it was a win/win/win for the promoters, vendors, and attendees.


We'd like to thank everyone for stopping by and especially Dan and Mary Meyer for driving all the way from Peoria to hang out with us. Not only did they help us with show, Mary even took a few pictures of the booth for me. Thanks for the photos Mary!

St. Cloud Sportsmen's Show

The St. Cloud Sportsmen's Show will be held February 10th-12th. This is not a big show but that is exactly why we keep going back year after year. We find it's a great little venue for us to visit with people and share the reasons why we love Alaska so much.


The only day that we have extra tickets available for this show is Sunday. If you're interested in them drop us an email, beavercreekcabins@yahoo.com.


See you there!

New for 2012

A new alternative for all our guests.

A service that I provide is cleaning your fish. After that, it's always been the clients decision of what to do next. Long time clients know what to do, but new clients always ask, "what do I do now?" My stock answer is to take the filets to Custom Seafood Processors (10 minutes away) and they'll vac, freeze, package, and ship your fish for you. The biggest reason I refer clients to Custom Seafood Processor is that Jane and I simply do not have the time to help people process their fish.

Enter Dave Anderson.

Dave, a Kenai River regular, has a tremendous mind for business and made the suggestion that we should provide a commercial grade vacuum sealer for our clients to use and we should sell the bags at a nominal fee. As the two gentleman would say in the Guiness commercials.......BRILLIANT!

Are we looking to replace Custom Seafood Processor or anyone else that processes fish? Nope. We're just providing an alternative to people who would like to take care of their fish themselves and do so in a professional manor.

The plan this year is to set up a processing station in the shed that houses our chest freezers. Jane and I are excited to make this available for your use in 2012!