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Gray clouds blanketed Kenai's north beach Sunday. Several people were still in the water, nets in hand, despite the dreary weather, but the droves of dipnetters who crowded the beach the weekend of July 19 were largely replaced by hungry seagulls.

"As far as I'm concerned, last weekend there were more people down here than I've ever seen," said David Needham, a dipnetter who came from Palmer for the second weekend in a row. Needham and Danielle Pietrok, also from Palmer, started fishing at 10:30 p.m. Saturday and had 16 or 17 fish in his cooler. The weekend before, even though he said it was a bit slower, Needham and his parents still came away with 30 fish in a three-day period.

"The tents were stacked two deep -- one row near the fence and one row where we are. It's usually never like that," he said.

Most dipnetters who took advantage of the last full weekend of the fishery made the trip from Anchorage, Eagle River or the Matanuska-Susitna Borough at least once before. Some said the fishery is slower this year, but many felt the trip was worth the cost of gas and time spent away from work.

Tom Starr, a resident of Meadow Lakes near Wasilla, caught four fish shortly after his arrival Saturday and added eight more to his cooler the next day. For someone who came to the fishery late, he said he didn't do too bad.

"It's been OK," he said. "The run is slower this year than we've had in the past."

Starr, who also acts as a proxy for his parents who are in their 80s, said the free fish and cost of gas usually balance each other out. This year his three-quarter-ton pickup used $200 in fuel to make the six-hour drive from Wasilla, but it's still worth it, he said.

"Kenai is a very nice town," he said, adding the drive is worth it for families. "As an Alaskan, overall I do not like the fact that the Kenai fishery is open for commercial fishermen. All the people down here didn't come to make money, they came down for the resource."

The dipnetters who fished Sunday agreed things were more mellow on the beach than the weekend before. Erica Thye, who spent most of Sunday in the parking shack at the end of Spruce Street, said last weekend she was so busy she didn't have time to chat with the people passing through.

"Last weekend was out of control," she said. "It slowed down a little bit, but last weekend was the craziest."

Thye, who grew up in Kenai before heading off to college in Montana, said this is her second year manning the shack. Last year, she was at the end of Old Cannery Road on Kenai's south beach and said it wasn't as crowded as the north beach. Before she began working for the city of Kenai, Thye would come down to the beach to watch the craziness, but now when she isn't working she usually avoids the beach.

In addition to taking parking fees, Thye said she keeps track of who's paid and where they're from. For the most part, she's noticed the majority of dipnetters on the weekends are from Anchorage and points off the Kenai Peninsula. Locals tend to come during the week when the crowds are fewer.

Tina Sam came to Kenai from Anchorage three weekends in a row and said the fishery has been very slow.

"It took since 10:30 a.m. to get two fish," she said. "That's bad."

After four years of participating in the Kenai dipnet fishery, Sam said she and her husband usually wind up with more fish than they need. But last weekend they had no luck because the water was too rough.

"We haven't limited out this year," she said, adding she and her husband missed the peak of the run because he had to work. "It's awful."

Not far from where Sam set up camp, Dinah Abood, of Anchorage, and Linda Shafer, of Eagle River, brought in two gleaming reds on shore at the same time.

"I eat more silvers than reds," Abood said, whacking her fish on the head. "But this is fun."

Abood owns a cabin in Kenai and has participated in the onshore dipnet fishery for about six years. She has dipnetted by boat for three years. For her, a trip to the beach is more to enjoy watching other people catch fish than fill her own freezer.

"I wanna just have fun," she said.

Over the years, Abood noticed people were taking better care of their fish. They bleed them and put them on ice right away, she said, and there aren't as many heads this year.

"This is my fourth time down this year," she said. "It's a nice experience."

Stephen Gerteisen took Friday off to get in an extra day of fishing. On Sunday he had 19 fish in his cooler and wanted to get one more before making the trip back to Anchorage. Dipnetting is a spiritual experience and a means of supplementing his winter food supply, he said. But while he would have made two trips to Kenai in previous years, because of the gas prices, he could only afford one.

"We can't afford to come down here for fun," he said.

Jessica Cejnar can be reached at jessica.cejnar@peninsulaclarion.com.