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So 11-year-old Zack Thomas of Kenai could really only stand and watch as dipnetters scooped ocean-fresh red salmon from below the city's riverside bluffs recently.

He tried borrowing a longer-handled dipnet from a fisherman busy cleaning sockeyes, but even then Thomas was handicapped by the kid-size hip boots he wore over his jeans.

He simply couldn't wade far enough out into the silty green flow of the river to get to the fish. Chest waders might have made a difference, but then again maybe not.

The dipnetters doing best were grown men wading almost up to their necks while towing long, 15- to 20-foot nets downstream with the current. It was tough work for a man, let alone for a boy of 11.

Thomas watched them enviously for a while before he finally gave up the netting business and went back to his rod and reel.

" I caught two of them on a pole," he said, as he cast a spinner out toward the sockeyes swirling in the river. " They give a better fight."

Far out from the shore rolled a red salmon riding in on the fast-rising tide. Across on the Kenai's south bank, the silvery sides of another red salmon sparkled in the sun as a lucky dipnetter swung his catch up out of the water.

All around, the gulls squawked and fluttered and pecked at the salmon heads and carcasses that dotted the high-tide mark along this Cook Inlet beach.

Off to the west, the twin volcanoes - snow-topped mounts Iliamna and Redoubt - squatted on the horizon. In the Inlet itself could be seen some of the commercial drift gillnetters who had started fishing early in the morning. By nightfall, they would pretty much have cut off the flow of fresh reds into the river, and a lot of the dipnetters knew it. This was a last chance to scoop up some fish before an almost guaranteed lull in the run.

The day after the commercial opening was expected to be slow. Later, maybe, the fishing would be great.

Thomas, however, wasn't inclined to wait. He had an Alaska fishing hat pulled down low on his forehead in protection against the bright sun glinting off the water on a blue-sky morning. He'd already gotten his behind wet wading just a little too deep in the hip boots.

Now it was time to catch a fish.

His was a passion many others on the beach could understand. " Do you like to fish?" he was asked. " I do," he said as solemn as a wedding vow.

These are the rites of the Alaska summer. They captivate the young and inspire the old.

And few can speak better to the latter than 92-year-old Rose Gebo, formerly of Anchorage, now of Gig Harbor, Wash., who capped her summer with a 44´-pound king salmon on the Gulkana River.

" Was it fun?" she asked. " It was more than that. . . . I'm thrilled to death."

Despite her age, Gebo is perking along quite well. She is quick to point out that she still drives her own car, cooks her own meals, gets around by her self and, oh yes, catches her own fish. " I've done considerable fishing," she said.

She's caught trout all over the West and silver and red salmon in Alaska. But, until this year, she'd never even tried for the big kings.

That she hooked a trophy on the Gulkana can be credited largely to her young whippersnapper of a daughter - Grace Petranovich of Anchorage, a sprightly 72. " I wasn't going to go to Alaska this year," Gebo said, " but my daughter insisted."

So Gebo came. Then Petranovich and her husband hauled Gebo up to Glennallen to meet Shirleen Hills at Something Charters.

" I didn't want to go (fishing) because it was hard for me to get in and out of the boat," Gebo said, " but finally, on the last day, they convinced me to go. I threw (the bait) in, and it wasn't any more than 5 to 8 minutes until I hooked him.

" When my float sank, I set the hook."

With some help from guides, it didn't take long to land the big fish, which was just the beginning of the excitement.

It is not often that a 90-something angler lands a king on the Gulkana, said Hills; so the catch caused more than a little stir when guides got on the radio and started talking about what had happened.

By the time Gebo got back to the boat landing, she said, " all the cameras were out. It made me feel like a celebrity.

" It was such a wonderful, exciting thing to happen to me. It really did make life exciting to me."

pnGebo left the Gulkana for home with wonderful memories. Her daughter and son-in-law left the Gulkana for the Kenai to pursue even bigger kings. Their motor home was camped out with dozens of others in the Kenai Kmart parking lot morning as king salmon anglers from all over the country converged on the river famous for its big fish.

The big buzz was over the numbers popping up on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's king-counting sonar. They went from the hundreds of kings per day to more than 3,500 one recent day.

Fishing in the river was reported to be " hot, hot and hot."

The only downside was the gunwale jostling going on among people trying to get into favorite holes. The chance to catch salmon of 50, 60, 70 or more pounds tends to get some people a little excited.