Late July, 2012 — Kenai River
It was my 27th straight day guiding on the Kenai, and I’d just finished washing down my drift boat, backing it into its spot at the top of the hill. My hands were raw, calloused, and aching, but the fatigue felt lighter knowing tomorrow was my first day off in nearly a month.
On the Kenai, kings were everything. During king season, you fished—no exceptions. Guiding then was grueling, especially in a drift boat. The river itself is a beast: born from glacial melt pouring out of the Kenai Mountains, it swells through summer, peaking in July as rising temps accelerate the melt. It’s a broad, fast-moving torrent of turquoise blue, unlike anything in the Lower 48.
Fly fishing for kings is nearly impossible here, except in a few choice locations, so we run gear rods with line counters. These fish run deep. We back troll plugs or bait—usually cured salmon eggs behind a cheater or a qwik-fish with a sardine wrap—and row against 18,000 cfs of current, using divers to reach the channels and buckets where kings hold. The harder you row, the deeper and slower you fish. The harder you work, the better your odds of hooking one of these giants.
I’d just settled into my cabin, peeled off my waders, and cracked a warm Miller High Life when a quad kicked up dust out front. Jimmy, our mechanic, grinned his usual mischievous grin and asked if I wanted a drink at his place. Never one to turn down a pour, I grabbed my tackle box—because prepping gear was a never-ending chore—and hopped on the back.
We spent the next few hours trading pulls from a bottle of Wild Turkey and watching the river shift. The Kenai had turned from aquamarine to a bluish-tinged coffee beige. No rain all week, but southeast winds had rapidly warmed the glaciers, causing the lower Killey River—a tributary—to dump muddy torrents of glacial silt into the Kenai in just hours.
I felt lucky to have the next day off. Tomorrow was the annual king salmon derby, and over 400 boats would hit the river at dawn. The thought of guiding behind that fleet in chocolate brown water made me shudder. A guide’s worst nightmare.
My mind drifted to my tackle box. What would I even use in those conditions? I picked up an oversized orange cheater and spun it between my fingers. It was an egg-shaped piece of foam with a hole down the center, painted in wild color combos, with two holographic mylar wings. You would rig that above twin stainless steel hooks loaded with cured eggs. Back-trolled behind a diver, they were deadly on kings.
I pulled out a Sharpie and blacked out one wing. In murky water, contrast matters—black creates a silhouette, and paired with flash, it might just trigger a strike. I tucked it back in the box, hoping I would never need it.
The next morning, I slept in until 8 a.m.—pure luxury. After breakfast, I suited up, grabbed my switch rod, and wandered down to the river to swing for sockeye. I’d been stocking my freezer with vacuum-sealed fillets to ship home, and finally had time to fish for myself.
Our camp sat at the confluence of the Kenai and Moose Rivers. The 400 yards of river frontage beyond the lodge was prime water—slower, clearer, and warmer—where salmon paused to rest and clear their gills of glacial silt. Step, swing. Step, swing. The rhythm, the sunshine, the solitude—it was bliss.
Then I saw Andrew, our lodge manager, walking toward me from the office cabin. My stomach dropped. Something about his gait told me my peaceful morning was about to end.
“Hey Jesse,” he said. “I’ve got a huge favor to ask. The clients who were supposed to arrive tonight got rerouted from Russia. They just landed and they want to fish. We need all hands on deck. Jeremy, Mark, and Dave are geared up with the powerboats, but we’ve got three more guests and need you to take them out.”
He paused.
“Oh, and we’re not totally sure what they do. Might be Russian mafia. Most of them are already drunk. You should be fine, but… just FYI.”
Just like that, my day off vanished. I trudged up the hill, rigged my gear, hauled my boat down, and dropped it in. The three powerboats lined up beside my drift boat—me, about to be rowing into a muddy maelstrom with a crew of mystery Russians.
I’m double-checking everything in my boat, contemplating the depths of my misfortune, when I hear loud laughter and guttural cries—expletives, I assume, in a Slavic tongue. I look up.
Stomping down the lodge’s long staircase are fifteen men in their thirties and forties, covered in tattoos and wearing speedos. Each clutches a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Apparently, they’d demanded the shuttle driver stop at the liquor store on the way from the airport and arrived half-blitzed.
My brain can’t immediately register what I am seeing. The only thought I can process is: it’s gonna be a long day.
They swarm the boats, quickly realizing only three of the four have motors. All fifteen bum-rush the powerboats. The powerboat guides point to my drift boat and demand three men offload. Part of me is holding out hope the Russians will stubbornly demand these accommodations and that the three overloaded powerboats will head off downstream leaving me to enjoy the rest of my day off.
A stalemate brews until Kent John, the owner’s son, steps in. A seasoned guide and smooth negotiator, he promises the three who switch to my boat that they’ll never have to ride a drift boat again the rest of the week.
After a begrudging agreement, three men approach my vessel. One circles it, throws his hands in the air, and bellows, “Where is the motor?! It is not possible to catch kings with no motor!”
That comment strikes a chord in me, I’m going to prove these knuckleheads wrong I think to myself.
We launch. I give a quick safety debrief and start handing out rods. I’m running a 20-foot Willie, with my clients seated right, center, and left. Center is Vlad—the drunkest and most vocal about the lack of motor. He’s going to be a problem. Dmitri, on the right, is the most reasonable. He had the foresight to wear a tracksuit over his speedo and listens intently as I explain our techniques. Aleksandr, on the left, interrupts me mid-demo, pulling out a chrome spoon from home.
“This is what we use in Kamchatka!” he exclaims.
I clip it on without protest and return to coaching Dmitri. He’s my only hope. I open my tackle box and see the orange cheater gleaming in the sun—like it was made for this moment. Dmitri gets the lucky cheater.
We pass through the no-fishing zone and let our lines out—55 feet on the side, 70 down the center. Dmitri translates for Vlad. Aleksandr is on his own program, casting his spoon across the river and ripping it back through the murk.
Dig and pull. Dig and pull. I settle into the rhythm, fishing hard. In a drift boat, every run counts—there’s no going back upstream. Powerboats zip past, on their way to cherry pick prime spots and hammer them repeatedly. I can’t think about that. I stay in the zone. I made a choice: fish as hard as I possibly can, for as long as I can.
Jeremy, Mark, and Dave with the rest of the Russian crew plane past us, and Vlad, still bitter, pulls out his phone. No interpreter needed—he’s chewing out his travel agent, animatedly describing the disaster. He hangs up and glares at me.
The cold sets in. Vlad and Aleksandr start shivering. I offer them Grunden coveralls from my seatbox. We settle into an uneasy truce.
Dig and pull. Dig and pull. I am determined to get my divers to the bottom of this raging torrent and scour every run I possibly can.
Dmitri’s locked in and watching every pulse his rod tip makes. By God, I’m going to get him a fish.
We hook the occasional 20+ inch rainbow—wrong species—but the action is enough to entice Aleksandr to run a diver rig too.
And just like that, we’re fishing. All three rods are out and now I’m starting to feel a little better. Watching the lines and how they intersect the swirling currents helps me read the water and I settle into a comfortable rhythm as the river bank moves slowly by.
I work downstream diligently, re-baiting fresh egg clusters every 20 minutes. I’m burning through bait, but I want this to happen. Checking my phone—5:45 p.m. We’ve got 15 minutes left before rods up. ADF&G regulations shut down guide boats at 6 p.m. sharp.
Morgan’s Landing comes into view—a beautiful stretch of fishy water on river right, a series of buckets ending at a big rock that’s produced many kings for me over the years. My plan: run through the buckets, keep lines in, then scoot left and fish the swift hydraulics that wrap around the rock and into the boulder field below. Risky, but no time to reset lines. It’s now or never.
5:57 p.m. We’re rounding the rock. The run above didn’t produce. My hopes are fading.
Suddenly, I can’t see the right-side line. The rod is buried so deep I think we’ve snagged a diver. The boat’s drifting over it, hydraulics raging, and I’m pulling hard on the oars to slow us down before the rod snaps under the hull.
“Dmitri, reel up I think you’re snagged” I shout.
He stands, reels tight, and throws a heavy hook set.
“Is it a fish?” I ask, half in disbelief.
“No—it’s a friggin’ crocodile!” he yells.
And then, ten feet from the boat, a chrome-bright king explodes from the water, head-shaking in the sun and raining droplets of water down on us.
“Everyone, lines in!” I shout, digging into the oars and pushing the boat downstream, trying to keep pace with the fish and steer us clear of the boulder field. A wave of sweet relief washes over me—but there’s no time to celebrate. I HAVE TO LAND THIS FISH.
About fifty yards downstream, the current softens and a gravel shelf stretches off the bank. I slide the boat over, drop anchor, and leap out with my landing net. The king is thrashing at the surface, and I’m sprinting full speed down the shoreline. I reach the spot where it last broke water and plunge the net deep.
It goes tight.
I lift, and the shimmering beast rises into the air to the roar of my Russian crew. They’re high-fiving, passing around slugs of whiskey, shouting in triumph while I stand there catching my breath—net in hand, heart pounding, safe on the gravel shoal.
I can’t describe the flood of emotion—disbelief, relief, shock. What a day.
Across the river, the three powerboats have stopped mid-channel, idling. The guides stare silently, their bundled-up Russian passengers watching from behind fogged sunglasses. I raise a hand in salute. One by one, the boats throttle up, plane out, and head back toward the lodge.
We don’t have that luxury. We’ve got two more river miles to go before we reach our take-out spot north of Soldotna.
We spend the rest of the drift swapping fishing stories and passing around their whiskey bottles. “What do you think that fish weighs?” Vlad asks in broken English, “Twenty kilos?”
I check my phone for the conversion—about 45 pounds. “Yeah, twenty kilos at least,” I nod.
For the first time all day, I feel not just tolerated, but truly accepted. Their beaming approval and newfound respect for my lowly drift boat craft is unmistakable.
Back at the lodge, I drop them off at the top of the hill to rejoin their crew at happy hour. I head down to the fillet tables to clean my rig and process their catch.
All eyes are on me—mine was the only boat that needed the fillet table that day. I can hear their cheers echoing from the deck above and soak in every bit of it as I prep their filets, the king shimmering in the afternoon light.
Rig cleaned and gear stowed, I make my way up to the main lodge. The boisterous group of Russians is holding court on the deck, and when they spot me, they erupt in a raucous cheer. Vlad grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me to their table.
He announces to the group—loud and proud—that I was the only guide to bring in a fish that day, and the only one who did it without a motor. The crew hands me a shot of vodka, and we toast together, one big celebratory clink.
After ten minutes of handshakes, back slaps, and more shots, I leave them to their revelry and walk up the steps to the lodge. At the top stands Lawrence, the lodge owner—a retired NHL player who looks like Santa Claus if he’d spent his youth throwing elbows on the ice.
Normally stoic, today he’s grinning ear to ear. He extends a hand, slaps me on the back, and says, “Atta boy!”
Even 13 years later I think a lot about that day. I would like to think it was my determination, fishing prowess, or my lucky orange cheater, that brought me success. Who knows. All I know is that if you fish long enough, sometimes magic just happens. It’s the moments of sheer ecstasy in between the long days and drudgery that has kept me coming back all these years. Thanks for sharing this moment with me and I hope one day soon we get to share a little magic.
Posted on October 24th, 2025