CityView Magazine

58 | July/August 2015 feature BY COURTNEY PHILLIPS Fayetteville men are gone fishin' FROM TO Kenai, Alaska Carteret County Don Latella has been fish- ing the Kenai River in Alaska for the past 15 years. A longtime resident of Fayetteville, via the Army, he grew up on the New Jersey coast. "From the time I could hold a rod in my hand, I've been fishing," said Don. F ayetteville gents who may be familiar to you have also joined this excursion, like Bob Adams, Herb Bryan, Tony Cimaglia, John Harbison, Steve Kouba, Billy Freccia, Skipper Smith, Bowman Smith, Ben Lennon and John Lennon. With the many accessible lakes, riv- ers and coastline of the Old North State, why does he travel all the way to Alaska each year? "I was having a discussion with a friend many years ago. He asked me, 'Would you rather go somewhere to catch a fish every other cast, or would you rather fish a place where you might not get a bite all day, but if you did, it would probably be a wall-hanger?' I thought about it and said, 'I think I'd like to catch a world-class fish.'" e rest is history. Don fishes the same area at the same time each year with a group of men and a guide. "I go where the fish are," he said of the Cook Inlet and the Kenai River, which is named for the town of Kenai and runs through south central Alaska, about 150 miles south of Anchorage. Salmon are anadromous, which means they travel from salt water to fresh water to spawn. Uniquely, Kenai salmon stay out to sea a year longer than most salmon, which helps them achieve a classic "trophy" weight for the fisher- men who flock to the 82 mile-long river. In July alone, 45,000 salmon run the river, affording many opportunities to reel in a record-breaker. Strategically, he plans his trip each

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