Dipnetting in Chitina - 36 hours, 10 Salmon

We left Fairbanks at 7:30pm on Friday night and drove down to Chitina arriving at approximately 2:30am. An almost non-stop 7 hour drive. We stopped to get gas, use the potty, stretch and buy twizzlers in Delta. Once we arrived we drove across the huge bridge that went across the copper river, set up our tent, rolled out our sleeping bags, and got less than 4 hours of sleep. It was windy and around 50F so it was pretty nice sleeping weather. I'd like to get a better bag before next year. My feet were pretty cold in the morning.

Once we woke up, we drove down to O'Brien creek, where we hopped on the 4-wheeler and started looking for a spot to fish. 

The view of the road we drove down to get to O'Brien Creek

The trail used to be an old railroad bed that brought copper from the Kennicott mine, to Cordova for shipping. The last train went through sometime in the late 20's or early 30's I think. But remnants of the rail are all around.

The trail to the fishing spots followed the old railroad bed that took copper from Kennicott  to Cordova

It was unbelievably and breathtakingly gorgeous all around. It was nice to see everything that we missed when driving in the night before in pitch black.

The view everywhere you looked was stunning.

The trail although pretty treacherous in spots (I got off and walked while Bill maneuvered around rocks when there were cliffs involved). It was about 3.5 miles on the trail before we found "Chris' secret spot" which I won't even mention on my blog. Although it's probably the "secret spot" to about 10,000 other Alaskans. 

Not a great first impression of Chitina as we were heading toward Chris's favorite fishing spot.

Through the tunnel and at the end of the canyon is a great little camp ground, with a nice beach to dock your boat off at and even a little fishing spot there too. We hung out there and mostly sun bathed for the first hour or so, met a nice couple of guys and their boys, and soaked in the scenery.

The old rail road tunnel we drove through to get to the end of the canyon and sight see

Bill and I caught 10 salmon total, which is pretty good for 5 hours and a weekend that everyone else said was "shit." We were happy with the 7 salmon that we caught and then in the last half-hour we were there, every time Bill went the "clean the net" he scooped up another salmon! Bravo to a guy that was apparently using the completely wrong net (a Kenaii net) that was 1,000lbs because it was metal unlike the super light, ultra long ones that everyone else was using.

Bill was the "puller-upper" as well as the "clubber" and the "bleeder-outer."

We left Chitna after gutting, cleaning and beheading all the fish, which ended up being around almost 9pm. It was a ROUGH drive back. We were both exhausted, having fished all day, slept less than 4 hours the night before, and then driving the almost 9 hour drive back (with construction stops and a couple of nap breaks).

But let me tell you, getting to sleep in your own bed, after a HOT shower, and knowing you'll have about 27lbs. of Salmon fillets in your freezer... PRICELESS.

Me showing off the 2nd to last fish. This one was actually the smallest one.

Although we didn't "bag our limit" of 40 salmon (dear god, I couldn't imagine hauling them up and down the cliff one by one to the cooler like I did the 10 ones we caught... can you say SORE CALVES! and the one in the picture was... no joke... the SMALLEST salmon we caught), we did learn A TON in the process, which was our main goal of the trip. It's fear of the unknown that kept us away every other year, and now that we know where to go, know what to bring, know how to do it, and know what to expect, I imagine next year will be even better!