8 July I drove 8 straight hours after work to make it down to Kenai for a weekend of rugby of dipnet fishing. As a non resident I unfortunately cannot dipnet yet. I was interested in seeing the process. Alaskans can scoop up 40 salmon as they are running for their freezers and many do. My coworker Richard lives on the stuff and probably actually saves some money for his household in the process.
I got in a bit after midnight Friday and hung out on the beach for a bit before crashing out in the 4runner. Saturday, Schu joined me for some breakfast at Louies after buying a new air mattress at Walmart. After breakfast we headed back to the beach rounded everyone up and headed to the pitch which was incidently directly behind Louies. Since Kenai is so remote, most of the rugby teams traveled lightly and needed players to make full sides. After a few matches of 10s and a few womens matches, we decided to split up and form 15s teams for a 60 minute match. Back in SC the majority of the matches throughout hte year are 15s so I was excited to get to play where my strengthes lie. The team I was on was a combination of Samoans from the Anchorage T-Birds, Fairbanks and the Mat-Su Maulers. We hung fairly evenly through the first half, making quite a few mistakes that let the Kenai guys stay in the match. However, the second half, we stayed strong, stopped dropping the ball and ran try after try in to win by a healthy margin. It was a lot of fun. The next rugby is in two weeks in Fairbanks and is 15s again, I'm itching to play again.
Saturday night found us at the bar behind Louies, the Backdoor. The Kenai ruggers must not get there too often because when the songs started up iphones came out from the crowd and youtube got a few more videos for the archives. No song went unsung from the usual repertoire, Yogi Bear, I used to work in Chicago, days of the week, S&M man made an appearance and even the dreaded rugby queen but the guy singing it must have been sweet on the lassie he was serenading because he did a 180 with it. Sunday was gray and rainy and the opening of dipnetting on the Kenai. The crowds were out in force. Dipnetting basically consists of waders and a giant net on a handle. You wade out, stick the net in the water and wait for a salmon to swim in. Unfortunately the fish were not running too much yet and the morning looked like it was just standing waist deep in cold water for most. Only a few had beers, I assume the rest were on some sort of hallucinogenic or downer to keep from being bored to death. I shot some pics and a few fish were scooped up but I decided it was time to hit the road since I had the long drive back to Delta from Kenai.
Beach info
drop off road to bottle neck at mouth of the river.
Look at all those folks looking to fill the freezer.
Our enclave of tents
waders and dipnet
square nets
harbor at mouth of Kenai River
Charity cooking over an open fire.
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