Try catch that salmon with your hands!

We started our day by kayaking to a small stream located in the end of Cedar Bay where we landed the kayaks. The area consisted of a large tidal flat with a small stream full if salmon working their way up the stream to spawn. It was raining cats and dogs and we couldn’t get more soaked if we wanted so why not do with some river wading. It wasn’t any risky business as the water was not more than a foot deep, but the rocks where slippery and a couple of us almost got a little swim. The river was packed with salmon and that made it fun!

Salmon watching

Check out the 30 sec video above to get a laugh of my failed attempt to catch salmon with my hands.

In Europe there is only the atlantic salmon, so I had no idea there was so many different species of salmon in the Pacific. There are actually 5 different species. I struggled learning their names as all the species had at least two names typically used by the locals. The Silver for example was often called Coho. I found this overview from Visit Soldotna to be a good one.

Source: http://visitsoldotna.com/visitors/fishing/fish-species/ 

After giving up the salmon hunt we headed back to the kayaks to continue exploring Cedar Bay. A part of the group had had it with rain for one day and headed back the to enjoying some relaxation in the boat. We, however, were ready to join in on the second wet adventure for the day and kayaked on to our next destination – a hike up to the lake that fed the stream we had just waded in. This is not an area that is frequently visited by other than bears and eagles, so we were in for another bushwhacking hike.

The rain really accentuate the green in the lush forest.

The ‘view’ from the lake. At this time our camera started to struggle.

Returning to the boat. Yes – it is raining! 

The luxuriant foliage in Prince William Sound kept impressing me and this hike was no exception. We didn’t see any wildlife in the hike, but we knew it around there as we followed a bear trail parts of the hike. Confirmation was found at the lake where there was a huge bear dung on the trail.

Map showing our movements in Cedar Bay

When we got back to the boat we were happy to see that, despite my failure to catch salmon earlier in the day, there would be salmon for dinner as our chef was about to prepare another delicious meal. Time to pop an Alaskan Summer.

Chef Matt is preparing dinner onboard