Mud flats

A friend and I went for a walk along the beach near Kenai and the mouth of the Kenai River where it empties into Cook Inlet.  The river is on the left and between this mud and the trees at the back of this photo.  At high tide this area is covered with water.
 Next weekend is the beginning of two weeks of dip netting, where only residents of Alaska are allowed to dip red salmon from the river with hand held nets on long poles. The last two weeks of July millions of red salmon enter the river on their way to various spawning grounds many miles upstream.  The beach in this area will be covered with tents and swarming with people hoping to fill their coolers and then their freezers and canning jars.  This is a subsistence and personal use fishery, and selling the fish is illegal.