Kayaking Cooper's Landing to Jim's Landing.

This was a fun, exciting event. Mostly class III river, I didn't know if I could do it, but once you are on the river there is no turning back! We floated 12 miles in two hours. Sometimes we hit standing waves (continuous waves) about 2 feet tall. The spray skirts kept us mostly dry. I had read about the "danger spot", Preacher's rock in my guidebook about a third of the way through, but that really wasn't a big deal because the river was very wide at all points. After that point I began to relax about the river. The river was moving very swiftly. It was cold, glacial water. The most amazing thing was that is was sea green. It was very different from other river water colors.

There were many, many fisherman on the river in deeper boats with paddles, no motors. Also where the Russian River comes in there were many fisherman standing in the river in waders. Even children had waders and were quite excited about their adventure. I think they were fishing for Kings. I am learning a whole new vocabulary here. Types of salmon are kings, sockeye, chum, and silvers. Each type also has a nickname, Reds, humpys, etc. Also people dip-net. Which is a huge net about five feet across that they try to catch fish by hand and are quite successful. We were talking to a fisherman at the takeout point and he told me he could tell by the color of the fish if they were past their prime flavor and let one of his catch go. Also in the river, near the Russian River spot that was so crowded was a fish cleaning table. Of course it makes sense for people to clean the fish and let the trash float down the river.