Sturgeon

This is the view from the back of Zale's boat as we sped out of Chinook bay into the Columbia just south of the bridge at Astoria. We ran upriver about a couple miles past the bridge and found a flat next to some deeper water. 6oz cannonball lead on a slider rigged up on trolling rods. Baitcasting reels with braided line and a 20 in leader. We ran the leader on a needle through a Sardine and half hitched it. Then you cast, put the rod in the holder and wait.

The first bite came on my rod and I lifted it out of the holder. The tap tap tap of a fish got me excited and I lifted the rod to set the hook and the fish was gone. Zale told Dave and I that you have to set the hook like you mean it. A few minutes later Zale hit a fish and brought it in. A 20 in Sturgeon was tossed back to go home...

After a while the tide started to come in compressing the river and slowing down the current. We ran further upstream, closer to shore and cast again in 60 ft of water. Again my rod got the first hit and I lifted it gently out of the holder. Tap tap tap, but I waited. Pull pull pull and I threw my arms up lifting the tip of the rod as fast and high to the sky as I could but the end of the rod pointed down into the water. The fish was hooked.

Dave and Zale reeled in their rods as I made my way to the back of the boat as the fish ran right under the motor, and splashed once hard. I thought I had lost him but the rod dove down again, after seeing the surface he understood that there was peril in the situation and line came off of my reel as he ran for his life. Minutes later after lifting and reeling the fish was in the net. He taped out to 37 inches. Too short and we let it go.

Later Zale's rod would be hit so hard it would dive towards the water but the fish was gone as soon as it appeared. Dave would reel one in after we ran to the east again that would tape out to 44 1/2 in. Just a half an inch too short to keep.

All in all we spent 11 hours on the water and boated 4 fish. None big enough to keep but nontheless our first Sturgeon for Dave and I. My thanks go to Zale and Dave for inviting me. Time on the water is priceless. Time on the water with other fishermen is even harder to beat...

Foodstuffs

Part of fishing and hunting is remembering the primordial sense of self sustenance. For the first time in three years we have a garden. Chelle already has a list of snazzy things to make with our crop. She ordered a food dehydrator yesterday.

This picture is one of three raised beds. This one has corn, cilantro, basil and salad greens. Good stuff for crab cakes and grilled salmon. Maybe we'll make salmon tacos.

Kenai

I went to Kenai with Grandpa in late summer. It was my second time fishing in AK and his first although he had been here before to work. The trip started with a delay, the starboard engine on the 737 wouldn’t start so we moved to another flight. The flight from Seattle to Anchorage is beautifull. It follows the inland passage. Looking east you see the endless mountains of British Columbia. Rugged, white and impassable. To the west are are the islands of the inland passage and the names of their rivers float across my mind like poetry. Nimpkish, Gold, Campbell, Stamp….. I translate between Grandpa and the flight attendants over the roar of the engines and we both try to rest a little. We get into Soldotna late, eat at Buckets (a burger joint) and make arrangements with the guide.

The next morning we get to the boat launch early. There’s only one other vehicle there and it belongs to a guide. I walk down and ask him what’s up and he tells me that our guide (Rick) will be along shortly. We meet him and the other two guys that we’ll be fishing with. They’re a father and sone from North California who are staying at the lodge that the guide works out of. The guide tells me that the first fella there saw some bears when he first arrived (right before Grandpa and I), a mother and cub. I walk back up the hill to the parking lot singing loud and nervous… Welcome to Alaska.

We board the jet sled and cinch up our hoods as Rick takes up several miles up-river. Rick pulls us over to a good spot and sets us up to back-troll kwickfish. His favorite colors for the day are called Tammie-Fae, big purple eyes and pink mouth. 10 minutes in and my rod bounces…. A big 26 inch Rainbow that is carefully released.

We fish through the hole and come back up to the top again and our boat-mates each take a fish. Several hours we sit and watch our rods as Rick skillfully guides the boat back. Grandpa takes a five pounder by the end of the afternoon. Rick tells stories about emergency landing his Piper Club after losing 18 inches of prop and working construction across the inlet. He tells us stories of the other guides going by and how every year they have a trip for all of the state congresspeople as they lobby for the commercial fishers to get less of the catch. About how he upstaged another guide who had a film crew in his boat and then they later became fast friends. He’s on his cellphone every 20 or so minutes talking to other guides and checking to see where the bite is good. He calls his wife and checks on his 3 week old baby.

At the end of the morning we pull up to a guide shack and relieve ourselves. We talk strategy, the coho bite is better in the morning so we switch gear for trout and plan on doing the same routine tomorrow morning. We jet upriver again and throw slinkies and beads for rainbows and dollies. I hook the first rainbow again and Grandpa brings in the biggest one. We’re using light gear now and the rainbows of the Kenai put our lowland lake fish to shame with their fight. We rest on an island for a few minutes and get back to it. I haven’t fished this hard for years and both Grandpa and I start to get punchy.

Later on, drifting through a pool where kings are known to spawn grandpa hooks a huge fish. he fights it 20 or so minutes and can’t even get it to come up off of the bottom a little bit. It runs up and down river until the line breaks. Grandpa smiles. We catch more trout, that by law have to be released, and Grandpa keeps shaking his head. What a shame….

We return to the ramp and go back to our hotel. Completely tired and sleep until dinner time. We eat and go back to bed. The next day is basically the same. Grandpa gets another coho and I get one right at the very end of the afternoon. We watch our boat-mates put three more in the cooler and then fish for rainbows again. Tired and exhausted we sleep and eat again and then drive North to see Eagle creek and look for fishing there. We’ll be on our own the next day and so we scout out the water and talk to the other fisherman. I see one steelhead hooked and landed and hear about several more being caught. The next morning we drive in early.

We fish Eagle creek for several hours walking about a mile of the river splitting up for a while. Then we catch back up with each other and fish down along a cliff for a while. We both sit and rest and on a rock we just watch the water. We’ll never see this water again, not even in teh same place. It goes by as we watch and just like Thoreau says it would. We go to Homer that day and ask for gallery contacts for Grandma. Grandpa drives us back to Soldotna and we talk. We talk about a lot of things and none of them will be recorded here. We talk like we have never have had a chance to talk before and in the words I find the wellspring of my self. The source and the beginning that hasn’t been interrupted from Grandpa, to Dad and then to me. We’re all three so very much the same and to have heard what he has known over seventy four years now is the greatest gift of that trip. I’ll never forget any of it.

We drove South at one point to try and find the site where he worked so long ago. The three liquified natural gas tanks that he helped build. Stories of his friends and workers, how they built the tanks and how they walked miles to a tavern and his long walks in the Tundra every Sunday, alone with naught more than a pistol. Men to whom fighting was part of their livliehood because that was how you settled disagreements and to whom hardship and being away from their families was natural. We pull down the road and don’t see the site and so pull over and ask at a convience store. Grandpa comes back out, gets in the truck and says “Well, he says they tore it all down and moved the tanks years ago. That’s alright, it’s not important I guess.” It’s important to both of us though. I pull out to the road and look further South. “Well Grandpa, maybe you’ll recognize the site down there at least. Let’s go look”, “Well, it can’t hurt” he says.
South two more miles and a refinery starts to take shape along with a bunch of tanks. We look and Grandpa seems unsure. “Well, he says, those are probably the tanks”. We look and I pull out South again. “No! That’s them there. Those are the three that we built. None of this other stuff was here then”. We pull over and he looks, his memories coming back quickly. The site sits at the top of a beach that looks out over Cook Inlet and the mountains on the opposite side. More stories and I smile. “Well, I’m glad it’s still here!” he said. Me too.

I’ll go back to Alaska again. I’ll go back for the fishing and hopefully I’ll go back with Grandpa too. He told everyone around through most of the trip that this would be a one shot deal for him. He related how he loves this wide-open country and misses it. For me it’s not just the fishing though. It’s the feel of someplace that is still somewhat wild. This is the earth as the Dinosaurs and the first people must have known it. Somehow both very very old yet very very young. The tundra grows across the land like the first mold on a newly dropped apple. The stunted spruce grow up around the peat bogs and then the maples and alders start to fill it in. The mountains still carve out the land with their glaciers and moose and bear live in a land of plenty. It doesn’t feel right that people are here somehow. I look down from our flight and see the creeks drain into the inlet, weaving their fractal paths through the mud below. I see the deep, perpetual snow on the upthrust mountains and think about the months of darkness that will fall with the uncaring and hard winter and I feel a youth that is deeper than I’ve ever known.

Grandpa looks at me on the plane as we head home. “Maybe next year we’ll come back in July and try for the kings!”.

Courting Disaster

Spent the morning in bed sleeping in and having Father’s day breakfast delivered to me. An omlet (spinach, feta with basil, mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes) with some coffee, bacon and toast. I drove the girls out to Friendly Grove park where we ran, played on the big toy and chased low flying sparrows. I mowed the lawn for my exercise stopped for a rest and then walked into my garage. My CLEAN garage.

I puttered around with my Radio Shack electric motor and discovered that it was way to fast and twitchy to work for my rod drier design. Bummer! Alas, I could probably do some sort of gravity drive with a flywheel but instead Chelle suggested I get a professional rod drier. Espcially if I plan on making another rod someday. No sooner said than done.

I spooled up a new flyline on a new trout reel and then turned my attention to the box in the corner. The long skinny one that held the bits and pieces of Athena. Out came the four rolled graphite sections, two handle sections, a reel seat and a bag full of guides. Step one. File the bore through the handle sections so that they will fit on the high diameter Batson Co blank. The bottom guide went first. It was tricky to get the far end reamed out enough for the rod to fit. Over and over I’d work on it with the rasp and then check, rasp and check, rasp and check until finally it slipped over the butt end of the bottom section of the rod. I pushed it down and it wouldn’t go all the way. I tried pulling it off to rasp some more and POP off came the bottom section. Step one apparently wasn’t as easy as it might have seemed.

Clearly this wasn’t ideal. Livy and Carly had brought their lawn chairs into the garage to watch me, as though I was a one man croquet or badmitten match and when it broke Livy piped up with, “Daddy, you have to perservere. That means don’t quit.” I smiled to myself and promised her that I would. Digging around my scrap wood pile I found an old section of oak dowel that I used to pin together pieces of wooden hand planes that I built. I wrapped it in masking tape until it plugged straight into the bottom of the rod blank and the end of the handle equally tight. I then mixed up a tiny batch of rod building epoxy, stuck the plug firmly in the end of the handle and pushed it onto the rest of the blank like a tinkertoy. The epoxy squeezed out of the crack in the cork, I wiped it off and looked closely to check the fit. Diaster averted! The plug assembly seemed just as strong as the rest of the handle.

Next I began rasping the fore-grip. More carefully this time and paying more attention to the taper of the rod itself. Slowly but surely it began to fit the blank until finally it slid down easily over the section of rod just above where the reel seat would go. In a sandwich bag I saved the cork-dust to be mixed tomorrow with good old fashioned wood glue for filling the crack where the bottom grip busted off.

The spacers for the reel seat are wrapped on in masking tape, layer after layer of blue rough tape. Another batch of epoxy is mixed and we can hold a reel now. Some light spacing is done for the fore-grip by way of masking tape again and following a good thick coating of epoxy on it goes.

Now she sits in the garage curing until tomorrow when I will begin marking the guide-spacings and perhaps wrap the winding check and hook keeper. Clean garages rule!

Garage

My garage is now clean. The floor is swept and uncluttered. The punching bag is hung in a place where it no longer interferes with the opening of the garage door. The garage sale stuff is all gone except for a few key things that shall be eBayed for charity. The workbench is cleared off and the tools are put in their right places and ready for work. The lumber is stacked in back and where I can get to it without major moving of boxes and equipment. Most importantly the fishing and boat gear is stowed in the SE corner where it’s easy to take out to the boat or truck prior to a fishing trip and with all of the misceleanea in two giant tupperwares so it stays clear of sawdust and bees.

With the uncluttering of my garage I find my mind beginning to unclutter as well. A problem that had been stewing for a long time, the need to purchase or build a rod drier for the new spey outfit, has finally found a solution in ingenuity and creation rather that consumerism (breaking down and buying a low speed drying outfit). Driving home today I saw the circular plate that needs no pulleys (my first inclination, fraught with questions of tension, traction and dimension), uses a simple locking device for the rod itself and a dirt simple clutch to keep the old Radio-Shack stock high RPM electric motor driving the rotator. I saw it! Even the far end support made out of the old tires from a model airplane that never came together to eleminate the rotational drag on the rod while the extremely low voltage and power motor slows down enough to keep the rod turning at a moderate speed. My mind is pleased by simplicity and elegance. Especially simplicity so to think clearly in this year of stress at work and ridiculous growth is nearly bliss.

Fall approaches and the spey rod sitting in it’s box, unassembled, begins to grow restless. I think often of the Cowlitz and how much more water I hope to cover. She’s incubating and not yet born and like a parent who is expecting already I think of names. Her stature (I don’t know why she’s a she but she is) is larger than life and more stately than her peers, Bender (the first indestructible teacher), Mikayla (lithe and handlesome) and Patience (virtuous and supple). Her name is Athena, goddess of wisdom, cunning and war. With her comes the ancient wisdom of covering water, preserving movement and delivering without a back-cast.

I can already think ahead to the meditative repetetion and movement of steelheading on a large river. The down and across cast and concentration on the swing (just the right speed). Daydreaming has to be metered and limited and the surface of the river and the cobblestones under your feet are known more fully. Other minutia is drowned out.

The rod must be ready by September. My workshop calls, pregnant with potential.

A Lake Within Driving Distance of Olympia

Yesterday Chelle called from the road telling me that the weather looked better and asking why don’t I go fishing? I checked out the river levels (most of them are blown because of the off and on rain) and decided that maybe it’d be a better time to take the boat around a lake.

Lowland lake fishing is a weird game in Western Washington. The population along the I5 cooridor basically ensures that all of the lakes would be fished completely empty within a season so for decades now the Washington Fish and Game department has stocked these lakes with hundreds of thousands of fish every year. It’s kind of a quantity instead of quality type plan but I support it because it offers more opportiunity for people who otherwise would never get out, hook a trout, roll it in cornbread and fry in a greasy skillet. More kids in this part of the country learn to fish this way than any other probably. The basic gameplan for lowland lake fishing is to get out the boat with it’s electric trolling motor and more or less cover as much water as you can by trolling a spinner, spoon or more often bit of Berkeley Power Bait in the top 5 feet of water or so. In this regard it’s much like plunking where you bring a lawn-chair to a pond or slow pool in a river, cast your bait out and wait for the rod to jump. For this reason both trolling and plunking can be social affairs as much as exercises in fishing. The biggest difference is that when trolling in a boat there’s no getting away from your fishing partners, you’re closer together generally and only one or two more can come along. Usually that means more beer for both people involved.

I’ve plunked at places where a dozen people sat, drank and listened to music while their kids played in the grass. It’s about as far from fly fishing as you can get. More like a picnic where someone decided to bring a rod and these days picinics are altogether too rare.

I stated thinking about the last time I had a chance to fish on a Saturday, the fact that Grandpa doesn’t fish Sundays (church) and then Grandma called. First thing I asked her after saying hi was “What’s Grandpa up to today?”. With the second kitchen pass secured we set our rendevous at 12:30 at their place and I started getting the boat ready.

The lowland lake stocking program usually means that most of the fish are little 10in half pound rainbows. I had discerned however that there was a lake not far away that had much better quality fishing through one of the key receivers in my limited fishing intelligence gathering apparatus (FIGA). I got the name of the lake the previous week and when Grandma asked where we were going I told her. Her response was “Where?”. The Lake will remain nameless less a Valery Plame like incident brings down the FIGA Deputy Director of Intelligence. The Jacksontown President is good friends with the DDI’s boss and also happens to be my wife so don’t ask!

I picked up Grandpa at his house where he contributed a cooler, extra battery and fish basket to the cause and off we went. About the time he asked if we had hit the Canadian Border or not yet we saw the glint of sun on water flashing between the trees. I parked the truck and we walked on down to the ramp to see what was what. There was a steady one foot chop on the lake and the wind was almost howling. We looked at each other and wondered if this would be worth it. Trying to jockey a boat around a lake with an electric trolling motor with the wind pushing you around isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I looked across the lake and saw a treeline and did some thinking. The wind was coming out of the West and that side of the lake would be in the lee of the wind. We oughta at least try.

We both confirmed the plan, I backed the trailer down to the ramp, dumped the boat in and parked the truck. Then I jumped in, walked to the back of the boat, dropped the 25hp Evinrude and for a change the battery was fully charged, saving me the effort of having to work the pullcord, Grandpa pushed us off and deftly perched on the front deck. I shifted the Critter Getter into reverse to back us away from the bank, turned us around, shifted into forward and twisted the tiller handle down until the throttle was wide open. My hat flapped in the wind and Grandpa put up his hood (looking backwards from the front of the boat) to keep the spray and rain off of his face. A minute later we were on the west side of the lake where the chop was almost nonexistant and the wind was quiet enough we could hear each other.

We both rigged up, I fired up the electric motor and cast out to each side. We’d just started moving forward when Grandpa had a fish on! It put a nice bend in his old Eagle Claw fishing pole and the smile on his face said it all. It was not one of your good old I5 cooridor stockers. This was a nice fish. We boated the critter, hooked perfectly in the lower lip and tossed it in the basket after admiring it for a while. Instead of the faint purplish stripe along it’s body it had a bright pink/red stripe of a healthy rainbow trout. It was about 16 inches and FAT. We both commented about how Grandma’s eyes were going to pop out of her head when she saw the fish and how we were both glad that we didn’t toss in the towel and go to a bar.

We fired the motor back up, I missed a bite and rebaited, and trolled further up the Northwest shoreline. Swampy sections gave way to small beaches and behind it all a treeline of Douglas Firs going up a steep hill. On the Northern end of our run was a long series of pilings that looked for all the world like they belonged to an old logging railroad trestle from a long gone logging camp. Another boat was tied up there where it’s rumoured that the big bass in the lake like to hang out. About the time we both fell silent to feel the sun pop out of a rain squall to warm us up Grandpa had another fish. Healthy, red striped and just a little bit smaller than his cousin. We both whooped and hollered and turned the boat around for another run. Somewhere on the way back I picked up a rainbow and we got to thinking and talking again. I tossed Grandpa a cigar and we both struggled to light up in the wind and rain. Eventually we were both drawing on a small Macanudo and talking again. Two tiimes back and forth we went and on the second Grandpa changed from yellow power bait to red and hooked another nice fish. This time a cutthroat, spotted all over and still slightly silvered from late winter/spring spawning colors.

Our Cigars burnt out and we decided to call it quits. We headed back to the ramp (I had to fight with the Evinrude that decided to flood on me) sputtering while the motor fought to keep fire. We loaded the boat up and on the way home he told me about how he missed working and that his plan was never to retire in town and lead a quite life. His hope was to stay in the country and raise cattle and ranch to save some extra money but things change. He shared stories of working and living in a camp at Kenai Alaska while on a crew building two liquefied natural gas tanks. Stories of the workmen, bartenders, businessmen and hookers that lived there. Everyone packing a pistol even though company policy was no guns in camp. “The company line was that we weren’t supposed to have them in the camp but everyone knew it would have taken a two ton truck to haul them all out of there” he said. Near fights, his walks through the tundra on Sundays, keeping his lunch in hole he dug in the 6 inch frozen condensation on a break room window and then in the days after working Kenai, back in Washington, when his boys grew up and driving with them to work in Kelso, Longview, Tacoma, Everet and anywhere else they needed welders. “I gave them the only thing I had and that’s welding. Your Dad used it some, uncle Dan used it his whole life and now his boys use it and Jeffrey used it until he found another living too.” Someone taught my Grandpa to weld when he was 14 living in Oklahoma. “If it wasn’t for him who knows what would have happened to me.” I don’t know either but I’m very very proud to share my Grandpa’s name.

Back to the Basics

Today I spent some time in the morning fishing the WA Deschutes at Pioneer Park for late searun cutthroat. I’ve caught just a couple of these critters about now in years past. The last one was a shimmering silver fish of about 16 inches that nailed a wooly bugger stripped across a deep pool with a logjam on the far side. I didn’t catch anything but it’s always an outside chance for this type of trip anyways. Most of the cutthroat are way up in the headwaters and shallow tributaries spawning and so need to be left alone.

It was weird to go back to that part of the river again. I used to consider the Deschutes my “home water”. It’s where Bender and I spent a lot of time chucking streamers and dry flies, usually at the wrong time of the day or to the wrong places, in search of my first fish on a fly. Eventually I did finally get my first fish. It was on accident as I let my fly dangle downstream while I walked upstream towards the next hole. Once again a black wooly bugger only this time it was taken by a small cutthroat that could barely get it in it’s mouth. That’s always been a good fly here. I think the fish see them as small crayfish that they love to eat.

My first dry-fly success was at a spot that I called the mosquito hole in the park. A long trail ends at a small gravel beach where the river comes back together from going around an island. Where the water converges is very very deep and then, against a wall of alder and bushes, it shallows out into a broad tailout before a wide shallow riffle. I happened to be there right before dark and heard the splash of a rising fish. After about a dozen casts and not being able to locate my fly in the twilight my line pulled taught and another small fish came to hand. I was ecstatic. The purists only catch fish on dry flies. Now I could say I actually pulled off fly fishing.

There is one episode though that is burnt into my brain as strong as the first images of childhood that I can recall. I can say with certainty that it was that incident that changed my obsession with being able to say I could flyfish into an obsession with the fish, rivers, sounds of the water, birds and taxonomy of really being outside. It turned me into an outdoorsman again after a long hiatus during college.

The river flows through the Tumwater Valley Golf Course and they allow fisherman to fish as long as they are respectfull of the games that are going on. I had heard that there was some good water to be found there and so I started exploring. As you walk along the river there is an island of firs and oaks around which the out of bounds line bends outward. The river can’t be seen through the wall of alders until finally they thin and across the the river and out the other side can be seen train tracks beyond the green. Down a steep hill is a pool that starts with a shallow river under overhanging branches, curves around to the left as you look downstream, to the outside (right) of the curve is a sandy beach. The bottom is cobble and the left hand side is deep and overhung with branches and roots. All of it dumps unceremoniously into the next pool without the benefit of a proper riffle as it chokes through a narrow and deep channel.

Trees line both banks except for where you can see across to the box-cars so casting is hard and I was not very good at it yet. This was before I had caught a fish on a fly yet and I had switches from dries to streamers, more like spin fishing that I was used to, and so on my line I had a big blue Clouser Minnow from the Fly Fisher in Lacey. I roll casted out to the far side of the pool over and over again and let my fly and line swing across the pool to the deep side overcast with trees. Dozens of times I did this because I thought this spot must surely hold a fish. Then I held out my rod (good old Bender) to start shortening the swing and keep the fly in the gut or middle of the pool. Dozens of times again. I was wading wet but still the sun was hot. It was July and there was sweat in my eyes.

Over and over I roll casted. I steped down a bit to get my fly further across. I began to lose my concentration and daydream. Then the moment that is “burned in” happened. My fly was not more than 9 feet away from me and I was watching it reflect the light of the sun and thinking about leaving when a silver flash with the white wink of an opening mouth tagged my Clouser. Bender lept to life for the first time ever and the big healthy cutthroat dogged with it in the current. My line was in my left hand so that I could strip the clouser back in and I was so suprised that I forgot to let go and get the fish on the reel so that the drag could protect the tippet and as fast as the fish was on he was off. Bender again went to sleep, the line went from taut to the soft parabola pulled by the water only. My heart raced and there was salt from my sweat in my eyes. Twice the fish jumped downstream, my Clouser still in his jaw and he stopped after freeing it.

That was the first fish I ever hooked on a fly. It was also without a doubt the biggest Deschutes River cutthroat I ever saw with my own two eyes. The Deschutes river fish are beautifully naieve when young but the big, old lords and ladies of the river are cautious and rarely show themselves. I can count the number of 12+ inch fish I’ve caught since on two hands and count a 10 inch fish a fine catch.

So today, in the cold rainy morning I donned my waders looking for the cousin to that fish. New and still ocean silver from the bay and territorial enough to kill a weighted wooly bugger. I couldn’t find one. I had a hard time recognizing where the fish might lie. The mosquito hole is now deeper and longer with the beach washed out and the deep water on the near side. The far pools on the island are unreachable to me because the water at it’s head is now choked with a logjam and deep braided water that I don’t dare wade for fear of losing my footing and getting caught under the newly downed alder and maple. It was good to remember that I don’t really know my “home water” unless I fish it often. That while I quest for salmon and steelhead for the freezer or to hear my line rip out of my reel that the river and the fish that I learned on were not perhaps so easy after-all and that perhaps I do know a thing or two about fly fishing.
Only in this life on God’s green earth could not catching a fish tell me that I really do know something about fishing.

Great Day

This morning I got Livy and Carly up for school, breakfast and out the door. We got to talk about cereal, Clifford, drawing and the obligatory excitement about seeing the preschool bus come and getting a sticker from busdriver Bob (who wanted to talk politics this morning). I then ran out towards Yelm to spring Henry from his Kennel stay since we just got back from snowball fights, snowmen, coco and a horsedrawn sleighride out past Leavenworth. The girls want to know when we can go back to “our” cabin.

Last night I stayed up cutting new lead and tying new leaders for my spincasting outfit. Gear fishing is not nearly so clean as fly fishing but it opens up a lot of water that you could otherwise never reach. A corky drift rig, sandshrimp or bobber and jig can cover a lot of different types of water. It also requires that I carry a small tackle bag to the river. On the way to get Bob I picked up some sand shrimp.

After dropping off a happy Henry, kissing Chelle and draining a 20oz mocha as fast as I could I pumped up the old iPod and ran for WA8 towards Aberdeen. After a pleasant drive through the Black Hills and Chehalis valley, misted with fog and diving in and out of rain squalls I found my exit right after Montesano.

On the way I marked the cheese making outfit that shows up at the farmers market and their fancy cows. I was glad to see that the huge Maple in the middle of the hayfield survived the windstorms. I saw the tin corrugated roofing on barns that didn’t, peeled back, exposing the tarpaper underneath. At the first boat-launch I counted eight driftboat rigs. The river has been busy. On and on past the logging trucks on their way back from Grisdale and beyond, past the fire department substation to my turn towards Wishkah. At the parking lot I’m greeted by four driftboat rigs, a hatchback and one small truck. Based on this I estimate 3 people fishing the slate cliff.

I pull on my waders, don my fleece and pull down my wool stocking cap. My gloves are fingerless so I can tie knots quickly with warm hands. I walk the path along the dogwoods and barbed wire until my boots scrunch into the gravel of the bar across from the cliff. The slide from two years ago has been cleared with the years floods. There are two great oak trees that span half the river in it’s place, on their sides, sweepers dancing in the current. The big slabs of slate are there but the tailout is broader and wider. It’s flanked with another tree, a fir, that points stright down the river, right in the middle creating a chute between the broken rock and the cobble stone current.

I start with the sand shrimp at the jam where the creek dumps in. The slack water there has held cutthroat in the past and I know that the steelhead must sometimes rest there. I wade across as far as it’s safe to make the cast shorter and promptly fling my shrimp across the river and into the far bank, right off of my hook. I rebait and throw again. I work this way, cast step cast, down to the first slate slabs. A tiny one person driftboat appears out of the fog, curiously works his way behind me, anchors and works behind the slabs.

I lose a rig to a hidden log and switch to a purple corky and pink yarn outfit. Eventually the drifter weighs anchor and moves along. As I turn the bend I can see the first of my comrades in company. Down past the first set of slabs and in the holy water bewteen the next set. I work this water hard, near to far and ensure that my drifts are near the bottom. Winter steelhead do not move far for a lure, unlike their summer cousins. Behind me I notice a new player, an old-timer, working through the logjam just like I was. Casting and stepping in time with me.
Eventually I approach the first fellow that I saw, working through each foot of water as best I can. He and I exchange pleasantries. From him I hear that one of the other folks working the run has put two fish on the bank. He’s kind and friendly and shares what he knows (two were caught here yesterday afternoon, the fellow down below is throwing small corkies, things have been slow). He ends our conversation saying that you never fish the same river twice as he goes back upstream for another try.

I skip over the next guy fishing right in front of the big oaks. No hits he says, slow and weird, he says, nobody getting anything. It’s interesting to see how people react to questions on a river. Either he or the first guy are wrong. Only other way it makes sense is that they didn’t see the same stuff. I drop below him and work through the big tailout. Right after I start working the old-timer who I saw cast-stepping behind me hooks a fish where I stood no longer than 5 minutes ago. I laugh!

Mister “no hits no nothing” complains about the rain and heads out. I walk back down past the old timer to see what he’s using. Fishing teaches you how to approach strangers wonderfully. You never know what you’re going to get but you’re almost never ignored.

“I’d ask you how you’re doing but it’s pretty obvious you’d say pretty good” and I motion to his fish.

“Yep”

“Do you mind if I ask what you’re using?”

“Just a bit of eggs with an orange corkie, ya know this used to be a really good spot except for all the boat traffic. Now you gotta get here at first light and there’ll still be boats right on you”

“Well”, I say, “it beats working!”, (nobody every disagrees with this on a river)
“Sure as hell does”

The we wish each other good luck and I start over at the top of the run. On the way there I stop to admire his fish. It’s oceanic silver, running about 8lbs. Pretty fish. I switch to a bobber and Jig and start working through the pool again. Eventually the old-timer leaves. I have the pool to myself.

I run the bobber and jig all the way to the end of the pool with no bites. I then look downstream. While I was talking to “no hits, no nothing” I watched another angler down below the tailout, working just below the doug-fir lying like an arrow, pointing downstream. I can see how he got there, walking across a 2 foot deep run of cobblestone bottom and I see why he was there. There’s a slick between the chute and the next riffle. About 30 feet long and 10 feet wide right up against the grass covered bank where the water runs slow.

I switch my rig to an orange corkie and yarn and wade downstream. At first I have a hard time getting a good drift, my lead is a little light for this run. I tied my leader long for this work and am wondering if it’s too long to stay down in the slow current of the slick. I cast and step, cast and step. Once my line hangs on a rock and I strike, thinking it’s a fish. Cast and step, cast and step. In my cadence I have a rythm to which I sing in my head a Slim Pickins song.

“Make me down a pallet on your floor”

Step, Drift

“Make me down a pallet on your floor”

Step, Drift

“I’m heading up the country, cold ice and snow”

Step, Drift

“I’m heading up the country, fourty miles or more”

Step, Drift, Pull

The pull is almost like the rock but it pulses, I set the hook hard and I see the fish flash. I tend to my drag while he pulls line off in his first run, trying to get back up into the slick where the safe slow water was. When the pressure doesn’t stop he turns and runs downstream into the current that runs over the cobble. It’s not deep but it’s persistent and faster than a man would walk and I begin to worry about the riffle below and the two logs to the near side. I wonder how I’ll walk myself upstream, into the current, back to the beach where I started while trying to manage the fish. Even as I’m fighting him I can see his red flank twisting and the white flash of his mouth opening, the orange corkie clear in his lower jaw. I let my rod bend deep to buffer my line as much as I can and slowly and carefully start walking back upstream. He runs straight below me so I apply pressure to the side, trying to force him the other way but he won’t budge. I pull straight up and he planes back over to the side. Walking upstream is like sloshing through quicksand. I finally get back to the beach and plant my feet on dry land. I pull him up and in the shallow’s he starts to panic and makes on more run for it, very close to the logs at the start of the lower riffle. I patiently work him back to the beach and walk him up onto the sand and pounce on him while he flops looking for the water. He’s a 6lb buck and the red on his flanks makes me think he’s a late summer run. I dispatch him as quickly as I can and bleed him out to save the meat. I take off my hat and gear bag, breath deep and feel the rain on my face. I hang him on a branch and work the slick one more time. Then it’s back down the path to the truck where I clean him and stow my gear before heading home.

I show the girls the fish, Carly wants to touch it but is too afraid in the end. She explains that “he got dead” and Livy want’s to know if she can help with the smoker oven. He’s filleted, the head, spine and tail frozen for crab bait later in the year. One piece is kept in the fridge for dinner and one more vacum sealed for later. The other two sit in brine as I type, waiting the 10 hours to soak up the salt, sugar, honey, maple syrup, garlic, ginger and red wine that will get them ready for the smoker. Livy will help me check and then eat as much of it as I do. I’m going to make an omlet on Sunday.

Chelle heads out for some groceries and a trip to the gym. I cook up a piece in a frying pan with garlic, salt and pepper, make some rice and the girls and I eat. Livy’s homework takes longer than I expect and now I type. Pleasantly bushed. Meat in the freezer and the first fish of 07 written into my card. I’ll sleep really well tonight.

Spey Rod

I’m definitely not an early adopter. So now that the use of 2 handed spey rods is more than just popular in the Pacific Northwest (there’s a style of casting named for one of our rivers now, Skagit style) I gotta try it. The trouble is with two Sage (not cheap) rods already in my collection justifying the purchase of even a low end spey rod is kind of hard to swing. For Christmas I got the green light to buy some fly fishing gear and was lucky enough to find some spey rod building kits at Hook and Hackle for a really good price. This whole mess raises two questions. First, why buy a kit and build it myself. Second, what in the hell is spey casting.

Spey casting is a fly casting technique developed on Scotland’s River Spey. A low gradient river lined with trees so the fishermen there favored long 18-20 foot two handed rods to get their flies out. They then invented a way of casting that is essentially a modified roll cast to get their line out where the fish were. This was the birth of “traditional” spey casting. Since those early days where the rods where made out of hardwood, typically Greenhhart, split cane and then graphite rods have changed the possibilities greatly. Now there are spey casts, underhand casts and good old fashioned overhand casts that can be performed with the two handed rod.

It was on the River Spey that the Spey style flies were first tied. Many of the Washington and BC steelhead flies can trace their lineage back to the original spey fiies. Remind me someday to tell you about Syd Glasso……

Now why get a kit? Price is one part, I’d never be able to afford a finished Redington, St Croix or Sage at this point. On top of that I’ve been suppressing for a long time the urge to get into bamboo rod building. This will temporarily satisfy the bug.

The kit arrived today with a good solid handle, reel seat and the bits and pieces to wrap it up and get it into action. The rest is details…..