Salmon Fishing for Dummies

 The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad.  ~A.K. Best

“Who wants to go fishing?” I asked and four hands immediately went up.

 ”Yeah! You are outvoted! Four to one!”

“Sarah, we don’t know how to fish”, my husband reminded me “and we don’t even have a fishing pole.”

“I will not leave Alaska before catching a fish, or at least trying to, everybody is fishing. What if we are missing the main point of being here? We’ll rent a fishing rod”

I am embarrassed to say that I don’t know how to fish and never even thought of trying. Even after reading The Old Man and Sea, Hemingway’s classic, I always considered fishing as a lazy sport which consisted mainly of waiting around for the fish to hook the line while guzzling a beer. Climbing a mountain was undoubtedly a more constructive pastime and this was exactly what my husband wanted to do that day.

 But then I went to Alaska and everybody seemed to be fishing. It has more coastline than all the states combined and supplies Americans with half of all fish they eat. The unofficial state uniform is the wader which makes even grown men look like goofy oversized babies, but here in the Kenai Peninsula this is the trendiest get up. Only Alaskans can get away with it because they are truly macho outdoors people and they have to be because there is more of it than any other state.

The same day of our life changing vote we walked to the Russian River to see the salmon runs. Salmon are born in a fresh water river where live for one to several years, depending on the species, before swimming to the Pacific Ocean.  When the digestive system of the salmon begins to shut down, after several years of feeding it is a sign for the salmon to return to the river of its birth, hundreds of miles away through some crazy rapids to get to the spawning site. Salmon die after spawning, their disintegrating bodies enriching the river for the next generation as well as a main source of food for a variety of wildlife, such as bears, seagulls and rainbow trout. Their journey is amazing not only because they have to acclimatize their body to changing levels of fresh or salt water but they also return to the exact creek they swam out of when they were itty bitty fish.

When we visited the Russian River we were seeing the sockeye salmon, otherwise known as red salmon returning to its river of birth to begin a new cycle. Downstream from the spawning site there were several fishermen in waders, fishing vests and unusually cool sunglasses. We approached one fellow who caught two sockeye salmon and was busy cutting the gills, gutting, filleting and chucking the carcass in the water. In a splashy twirl, the rainbow trout came out of their hiding places to feed upon the salmon remains before disappearing behind rocks. The fisherman was very congenial, answering all our stupid questions and presenting us with an entire fillet which we cooked an hour later for the best gourmet salmon dinner I ever had.

After learning as much as we thought was possible about salmon fishing, we bought a permit, rented a fishing pole and huge plastic boots and went to test our luck in the Russian river. Feeling like impostors, we threw the weighted line in, imitating the local fisherman, casting it up stream, letting drift down and repeating, and repeating and repeating. Hours passed with nothing to show for it. How difficult could it be to catch a fish in Alaska, the most prolific fishing venue in the world?  The kids were getting impatient and didn’t understand why we were not catching dozens of king salmon. At this point my husband was more than happy to make the trip to the RV to retrieve the camera’s battery we had forgotten in the dimming chance we caught a fish.

When he was nowhere in sight my youngest made the dreaded announcement,

“Nature calls!” Ok, my 3 1/2 year old didn’t actually say that but my original statement was vetoed by my family under the condition that it’s a food blog how can you write that? It’s disgusting!

“Oh, great” I muttered. I told my two other boys to watch the bags and went to a secluded spot. About five minutes later a fellow walked over to me to calmly tell me a bear was coming, like he was talking about the weather.

 ”Coming?” I gulped. Only in Alaska can fishing be considered an extreme sport.

“See those people upstream? They are taking pictures of it” he went on cheerfully.

I rushed back to the boys to gather the equipment and get them out of the way because at any moment…

“The bear is here”, warned the man from behind me.

 I turned around and saw the black bear walk in the middle of the river a few meters from me.

My boys had broken the law and spread our equipment around instead of keeping it three feet from them, compact and ready for surprise bear visits. I frantically gathered boots, fishing rods, shoes, backpacks, shoving everything under my arms and moved out of the way while trying to act as cool and collected as a professional Alaskan without freaking out.

“I want to go back to see the bear” my son said

“Are you out of your beeping mind? Are you completely kidding me?  He can eat you! You are staying with me, you are not going anywhere!” Yes, it is true I had been reading too many bear stories and had a slight case of phobia.

 My naked three your old managed to miss the bear completely and was wailing to go back to see it. We walked back up the steep upper bank of the river and in a few minutes my husband arrived with the battery.

 ”What are you doing here?”

“BEAR!” my boys answered gleefully

“I am going back to the RV” I said

“Where are his pants?” my husband asked looking at the youngest

“Don’t ask”

We walk back to the RV and after deventilating for a few minutes my husband said.

“Sarah, give me three hours and I will catch you a fish.”

“Aha!” I thought he caught the fishing bug, or perhaps he is trying to save his reputation.

At 9:30 pm, a typical bright and sunny evening, I saw them strolling down the campground road, talking to their new friend who my husband introduced as Michael from Anchorage.

Michael has turned out to be my husband’s fishing guru, illuminating the world of fishing like nobody did before him. Most of all he put food on our table, well, actually we all had a hearty meal of spaghetti bolognaise which I prepared beforehand but it was so exciting to actually bring in a fresh fish, the closest thing to hunting we had ever experienced. Fishing is also the most relaxing and pleasant occupation with a beautiful bubbling creek and gentle forest breezes……except in cases where you have to run for your life.

In the evening my husband started to tell me about what he learned with Michael and slowly, after the realization sank in, we both began laughing like lunatics.

Here’s the thing, the first time we tried fishing we cast out line into a completely empty section of stream; nothing was there. It was like fishing in a bucket of water. Everybody who walked by us probably thought we were a bunch of idiots.  With a degenerative digestive system, salmon are on a mission to die and all their energy is towards reaching the spawning site, not eating. Salmon are caught by snagging them with a hook which Michael did in five minutes.  He quickly gave the fishing pole to Alon, my oldest son so he could reel in his first fish but also because it was illegal for him to catch another fish according to state regulation.

That’s another thing about Alaska, they care about the environment even when nobody is looking. They are the only state with conservation laws written into the constitution and that is because most Alaskans can see the direct link between the food the land provides and their responsibility in preserving these resources for future generations. This is especially true in remote villages which can be reached only by plane or boat. Here the price of imported goods are prohibitive and subsistence hunting and fishing is essential for obtaining enough food to sustain them during the long winter nights. It is not about relaxing next to a bubbling creek, it is about surviving. It is amazing that the supposedly more enlighten States have not followed Alaska’s example and put more effort in supporting conservation laws.

And all those cool fishermen with their sunglasses, those were polarized glasses to help reduce surface reflection and better see the fish below.

Salmon with Pasta

This is a simple recipe because it is all we had in the RV at the time and it was still the best salmon I ever had. If I really wanted to go gourmet I could have made wild Alaskan salmon with fennel, tomatoes, avocado and pesto, a recipe my friend ripped out of a woman’s magazine. As it were I was at least one hundred miles away from the nearest ripe avocado.

1 fresh salmon fillet, freshly fished an hour before and nothing less

1 package spaghetti (450-500 grams)

100 grams butter

3 cloves garlic, minced

Salt/pepper

Wrap the salmon in aluminum foil and broil for about 3 minutes on each side until the fish is cooked through and flaky. Prepare spaghetti according to package directions, not forgetting to add salt to the pasta water. Melt butter in a small pot and add the minced garlic. Mix for about 1 minute, watching so the garlic does not burn. Add butter sauce to spaghetti. Flake the salmon and add to spaghetti.  Toss well and serve.