Salmon fishing on the Kenai River

Day 39

7/29/26 Wednesday

Wednesday market. Our arrangement for fishing the Kenai River is set for mid afternoon so we took a trip to the Wednesday market in Soldotna. They have an artisans fair and evening music every Wednesday in the summer. It was a fun “something to do” on a beautiful sunny day. There were plenty of artists tents and food trucks and lots of shoppers.

Fish the Kenai. A few hours of the afternoon were spent fishing on the Kenai River. Jordy, a close family friend to the Swain’s, was our guide. He’s a professional guide and we wanted him to take us and show us how to fish the Kenai River.

We went upriver for a few miles to see the river and the fishing scene that afternoon before he settled in on a location to pull the boat up to the shore.

Once he tied off the boat on the shore we all got our rods. We used a fly rod but it also has a bare hook. The Kenai is abnormally high this year so we had to stand thigh deep in some swifter water. Typically the river is low enough that there is gravel on the bank so wading out is easier and the current is much slower. He told me to wiggle into the gravel to hold myself better against the current.

The way we were situated was perpendicular to the shore and our backs to the current. You would cast out to 12 o’clock and let it flow back in front of you downstream until the line was about 3 o’clock then pull it back to 5-6 and over your head back to 12. The motion was pretty simple and smooth. The hook bounces along the gravel and if you feel a tug you keep sweeping back to set the hook.

The fish travel upstream close to the banks since that is the path of least resistance for the fish. So you don’t cast very far out in the river.

Low fish count today. Bad news for us was the fact that today the fish count dropped drastically. Last Saturday and Sunday it was over 100,000/day and today was only 30,000. Slow day for everyone on the river. We only caught one and it was too old to keep.

Sonar fish counter. Once we gave up on the fishing and we were headed back to the dock, we went past the sonar floats where they have the fish counters. They’re counting fish on both sides of the bank. You can look up the daily fish count by googling Kenai River fish count. They even report numbers for right bank/left bank.

Moose swimming. I can’t take credit for this video but our guide Jordy had this happen in the morning with his clients.

Cruising back to the dock. It was good sightseeing along the river. There were fishermen on both sides of the river wherever there was a place they could safely stand. They line up no more than 6 ft apart and the string of people can be as many as 10 or 20 if there’s room. Being so deep and swift there were people standing on their docks for safety.

I liked seeing all the summer houses along the shore. It was amazing to see how many people come to fish the Kenai this time of year when the salmon are running. Families, groups of men (fishing trip), you name it. They come from all over Alaska, the US and the world to fish for salmon. I had to see it to believe it. So many fish… so many people!

I have a few videos of the homes along the shoreline and the fishing scene

For the evening we decided to go listen to the music at the Wednesday market.. There was a band called “Boot Juice” from Northern California . It was over by 9pm so we called it a day. Good sun shiny summer day… no fish. That didn’t really bother any of us but it would have been fun to catch one!

Tomorrow is our last day with everyone in Kenai. No plans at this point.