Camping on The Russian

We were able to go camping on the Russian River for the opener this year and had so much fun!  We had to book the campsite 6 months in advance...and Tyler Zollinger made sure we all had our campsites booked!  We shared a campsite with Jared Tuia (Kaye and the kids had traveled down to Utah/Arizona to visit family) and Jeff Dalstrom (Shayne's old roommate), and then across from us were Ty & Liz Zollinger (and their 2 boys) and Haakon & Lyndsey Johnson (and their 4 kids) sharing another campsite.  So, we had 3 families of kids who spent lots of time running around through the woods and riding bikes around the campground.

We got there on Saturday night and set up camp.  I'm so happy to have a pop-up camper to sleep and camp in.  On Sunday most the whole group hiked up to the Russian River Falls and had lunch.  That's what the first few pics are from.  Later that night the whole group of men (which included Greg Sauers and some friends of his) packed themselves into a mini-van for a ride to the trailhead/parking lot to start fishing for Sockeye Salmon on the Russian.  They couldn't legally start fishing until midnight, but had to go early to stake out their fishing holes...b/c there are LOTS of people who come to fish the opener.  They fished until about 5 am and then hiked back to the campsite.  Shayne caught his limit and stayed up and filleted them all out and then stayed up for breakfast with the guys before coming to bed at 6:30 in the morning.

Unfortunately for me and the kids, our battery died and we lost heat around 2 in the morning.  Shordy was fine b/c I made sure he was buried in his sleeping bag with covers on top and a fleece hat on.  But Tiny won't stay under covers so she ended up waking up being cold and sleeping with me.  We actually slept pretty good together b/c we were keeping each other warm.  Thankfully, Jared at 2 batteries with his camper, but his camper wiring wasn't working and not using the batteries, so he had to use a generator to get power to his camper.  So, the next night he let us use one of his batteries so we would have heat.  Thank you Jared!

On Monday, Jared also watched the kids so Shayne & I could go back down to the river and I could catch my limit.  It was awesome of Jared to do that!  I haven't caught any Sockeye in almost 2 years b/c I didn't fish hardly at all last summer with a new baby.  It felt so good to be back in the river catching my own Reds! Shayne & I hiked to my honey hole and I promptly hooked and landed my three Reds in about 45 minutes.  It was AWESOME!!

The guys went fishing again that night, but didn't get back in quite as late b/c we had to be up and have camp cleaned up before 11.  Thankfully the weather was pretty darn awesome with only an occasional sprinkle.  It wasn't warm by any means...we usually stayed in hoodies or jackets and definitely coats by evening...but it wasn't raining so that was nice!!  The kids did great!  They slept good, they had fun with all the friends, and even Tiny stayed out of the fire.  :)  I took my Kindle and spent a lot of time reading by the fire when Tiny was either napping or kids were asleep and Shayne was fishing.  The first night of fishing all the girls hung out around a campfire and just talked which was nice too.

I say the weather was nice up until the last night when it started raining and didn't stop.  It was still raining the next morning as we were cleaning up camp, which was no fun, but at least it waited until the last day.

This is definitely something I would do again!  We had so much fun, good food, and lots of good company!