DIP NETTING - COPPER RIVER 2002
On July 19th of 2002 myself and 3 others from work decided to go to Chitina Alaska to do a bit of subsistence fishing on the Copper River. the way this works is simple, once you become a resident of Alaska you are eligible for a subsistence dip netting permit which allows you to take 15 (or 30 for a family) sockeye (red) salmon from the copper river with a net. If the fish run is real good, dwr will allow you take an extra 10 fish on certain days. Sounds simple right? Well, let me tell you, it’s not all that easy! The Copper River is very dangerous, fast moving heavy silt filled water and it’s about a 300 mile drive from Fairbanks. There is not a lot of anything in Chitina and you have to time things out so that you go when the fish are running. When all the planets line up-it’s a great way to get 30-40 red salmon! We got lucky this day and scored the mother load. With an emergency-opening-order for an extra 10 fish, the 4 of us netted 120 sockeye in about 4 hours! The pictures tell the rest of the story. What is hard to describe is the mixture of personalities among the 4 of us. However, in true "ammo" tradition we pulled together to form a salmon killing team! Just for the record, the team members were: Charles "CJ" Jones, Kerry Knorr (and no, the "K" is not silent) Mike "the CHO" Olexa (aka God's own drunk) and myself Darin "DC45" Cloud. More info about dip netting can be found here www.chitinadipnetters.org