Dip netting fun for the whole family

Unlike me, the majority of my immediate family had never lived in Alaska before 2007. They’re still working their way through “experiencing” Alaska. But one thing even I had never done before was dip netting. So this summer we gave it a try.

With high grocery costs, I look to fill the freezer how and whenever I possibly can. The high limits afforded to dip netting seemed right up my alley. So, after studying the regulations, purchasing dip nets (ouch!) and talking to friends about it, we loaded up the van and headed down to Kenai during opening weekend along with half the residents in the state of Alaska.

Seven of us (one son was still in Washington), two large dogs and all our gear jammed into a GMC Safari van. As I’ve mentioned, I’m pretty sure I would win any Tetris packing challenge. Nevertheless, we arrived late and found the only campground that seemed to have space. We stayed at a $30 per-night private “campground” not too far from the river where the experience was akin to setting up camp in somebody’s backyard refuse bin.

Between the people on one side behaving as though they were in Miami for Spring Break and the people on the other side running a weed-whacker and a chainsaw at 11 p.m., we didn’t get much sleep.

Before trying to settle in for the night, one of my boys and I walked down to the river to see what we could see. When I saw how wide the Kenai is, I thought, “And you can just wade in there with a net and catch fish? Really?” I lived in Washington for the previous decade and the notion of walking into the Puget Sound with a net and hoping to catch a fish was just goofy.

We woke up the next morning and headed to the William Ames Bridge to begin our first day of dip netting. I felt a little reassured when I saw other people lined up with their nets in the water. We had arrived a few hours before the tide was due to change, so not much was really happening. We strapped on our boots (hip waders for most of us, but my 17-year-old, AJ, had chest waders) and walked onto a beach made of the stickiest, wettest goo that God has ever seen fit to place on this planet.

At times I had to grab both sides of my boot and pull with all my might to get a foot out of the mud. But I made it down to the river, walked in as far as I dared, and ran out my net.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Finally, the tide began to change and the water began running up the river instead of down. It was coming in so fast I had to walk backward every 15 minutes or risk having it run over the tops of my boots. Yes AJ, look at you now in your fancy-lad chest waders!

Every boat that went by at top speed would create a wave that would dump a little water over the top of my boots (I have since purchased chest waders). But just when I started to wonder what the magic of dip netting was, something slammed into my net and I yanked out a huge red salmon. And in that instant I netted a new hobby!

As I walked back to the grass to untangle my fish, my kids starting hollering out whoops of excitement as they also dragged their nets back to the beach with a fish or two tangled in the net. Glenny and our two youngest — Portia, 8, and Benjy, 6 — were on shore duty to help untangle and gut the fish. But we had forgotten a fish bonker, so AJ proceeded to knuckle-punch his fish to keep it from flapping around while Benjy had the bright idea to get the jack handle out of the van.

As the reds continued their run up the river, we kept pulling them out two or three at a time. My No. 2 son, Justin, had yet to catch one as he was using a slightly smaller net. So I was thrilled when he suddenly sprang back out of the water proclaiming he had one in the net — and boy did he ever. It was the biggest salmon I’d seen so far. But just as he swung his net out of the water and toward the beach, the big fish popped out of the net and onto its belly on that muck and started flapping for the water. The look on Justin’s face said “are you kidding me?” Well, Dad couldn’t bear the thought of his luck going south, so I did what any Dad would do, I Superman-leaped off the grass, onto the fish and tried to bear hug it.

Of course, it just slipped through my arms and into the water. So I jumped again and grabbed it enough to fling it back out and onto the mud, where I began jumping all over in the effort to finally get enough purchase to fling it high up onto the grass where my wife and small children could take over. My boots were now loaded with water and I had mud covering every square inch of my body.

So I had a 6-year-old smacking fish with a jack handle and a teenager going Bruce Lee on his while my 8-year-old daughter did an excellent job gutting fish while wearing her princess shirt. And then there’s me, jumping all over the mud and water trying to out-wrestle a fish. Add in a copious amount of blood on my arms and flecks on my face and I looked like a crazy man.

In fact, I asked Glenny if she thought this was a good look for making a quick run into the local branch of our bank to get some more cash. She said she didn’t think so.

The people around us enjoyed the show. We got comments like “Now that’s hard core!” along with cheers and one lady was even clapping. “The Butte hillbillies arrive in Kenai,” was what went through my mind.

Driving home later with a few hundred pounds of salmon fillets while the rest of my family slept — undisturbed by the putrid odor from our clothes, gear and bodies — I realized I had found a new favorite hobby.

We’ve been dip netting once more since then, found a far better campground, and look forward to making it an annual family tradition.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column under the tagline “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.