"Splendor in the grass !"

Bear grass that is !

Heaven only knows how I love to fish, and my favorite type of fishing is salmon fishing. Of course the best salmon fishing in the world is in Alaska and some of the most accessible fishing is on the Kenai Peninsula.

The Kenai River is one of the best of the accessible fisheries there and it is heavily fished wherever you can get to it. Many local folks tend to gravitate to the smaller feeder streams to avoid the crowds. One of the best of these feeder streams is the Russian River and the mouth is usually quite crowded. Just up-steam from the mouth of the Russian is a small waterfall, and fish (mostly lake spawning Reds, but a few Silvers) stack up in the pool below.

And there-in lies another story .

There is a trail that parallels the Russian River from a campground near its mouth many miles to Upper Russian Lake. A spur off of this trail leads to "the waterfall". About a mile and a half hike as I recall. Late in the summer when the Silvers run the trail is framed by head high "bear grass".

On this particular occasion the parking lot at the trail head held only a few cars so there was a good chance the waterfall would not be crowded. I strapped on my Redhawk, donned hip waders , shoulder fishing pack, and set off for what I knew would be a great morning at the falls.

About half way up the trail I met a fellow fisherman coming down the trail. We paused to exchange pleasantries and information. I learned that he had been alone at the falls, indicating that the other cars were from people hiking or fishing the upper river or lakes. I also learned that he had not had a single hookup. It was discouraging, but not a show stopper.

Shortly up the spur trail I entered the brush and bear grass. The lower trail had burned the past year, and was quite open, but this was a jungle on either side of the narrow trail.

I proceeded cautiously and slowly, bear bells jingling. I rounded a curve in the trail came upon one of the rare 50 yard straight portions. Up ahead in the trail, about 30 yards, I noticed something shiny and silvery. It was out of character for the area, which most folks who would hike a mile and a half to fish, tend to keep pretty clean. Must be a chunk of foil some camper had dropped or discarded. What a slob I thought.

And then the silver object moved, wind blowing the foil? Nope, there was no wind in that jungle.

And then it moved again straight up in the air. Actually it "flopped". It was a large fish, apparently fresh, laying in the middle of the trail an eighth of a mile from the water.

How in the world did it get there? I thought for a second that the other fisherman had dropped it but then I remembered that he had not caught a thing.

Just about that time a small breeze came down the trail carrying the unmistakable smell. BEAR !

Now I am not overly bright, or a super woodsman, but I knew enough not to get between a bear and his dinner.

Apparently the bear had been coming down the trail, heard or smelled me, dropped his dinner and stepped off into the brush. In retrospect I guess that he heard rather than smelled me and was curious about what was coming up the trail.

I un-holstered the Redhawk .44 and backed off down the trail, talking loudly and jingling my bear bell. I talked to him as I backed off, "easy bear, it’s just your old buddy Bear Bob. Eat you lunch, I'll wait for you. You don't try to eat me, I won't try to eat you."

I backed off well into the clearing, found a nice high stump to sit on and waited him out.
After about 20 minutes I headed back up the trail, slowly and loudly pistol in hand. When I got to the straight stretch I waited, made plenty of noise, sniffed real hard, and looked real hard. The fish was gone ! !

I hoped that the bear was gone too.

I eased through the jungle and when I got to the spot where the fish was I noticed that the bear had left his calling card. He was a big bear !

Either that or he was scared sh-tless too.

I proceeded to the falls without further incident. I had a great morning and took two nice Silvers.