Alaska News

Fish cooperate at cold Jewel Lake jamboree

Aquarian Charter School third-grader Richard Gordon-Rein reeled in seven salmon in just an hour.

Chinook Elementary third-grader Chance Levi did too. His older brother Gaje Doty pulled in 10.

So it went Saturday as hundreds of kids and their parents who braved a bone-chilling breeze and occasional snow flurries at the 21st Annual Jewel Lake Ice Fishing Jamboree proved the experts wrong.

Fish aren't supposed to bite that much in the fierce cold of January and February, said Jay Baumer, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist who assisted at the jamboree.

Favoring the young ice fishermen, however, was the fact that some 12,000 adolescent chinook salmon had been stocked in Jewel Lake just a month ago.

"They're catchable ... 6 to 8 inches," Baumer said. "The limit is 10 chinook salmon, five rainbow trout. But only one over 20 inches."

Early that morning, Baumer and other volunteers for the two-day event -- sponsored by the Swim Like a Fish Foundation -- drilled some 200 holes through ice 20 inches deep.

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Each hole was narrower than a large coffee can.

"We do that so people don't fall in," Baumer said.

Warming tents were provided with hot chocolate, and Swim Like a Fish manager Jeannette Menchinsky stayed busy handing out scores of stubby little ice fishing poles and shrimp bait for newcomers.

By three in the afternoon, as the first day drew to a chilly close -- the event continues today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. -- many of the hundreds of kids who participated had caught their limit in salmon.

"Altogether I'd say they caught close to a thousand fish," said volunteer Mike Wann.

Granted, nearly all of those kings were a mere 7 to 8 inches long -- and many got released back to the lake to grow a little larger.

But others were destined for dinner.

Sandra Bernhardt, Chance and Gaje's mom, said she was going to fry up their catch.

"We go salmon fishing every summer -- and we just couldn't wait," Bernhardt said. "This was a lot of fun."

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

By GEORGE BRYSON

gbryson@adn.com

George Bryson

George Bryson was a longtime writer and editor at the Anchorage Daily News.

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