Pheasants

Last weekend my Grandpa, Dad, Uncle, Three Cousins and two of their kids went to Sprague WA. We pulled in late Friday night and setup campers. Saturday Morning we got up and walked 50 acres of scrub looking for pheasants.

I used to go along on hunting trips when I was a kid but was too young to take along a gun. Once in Ohio my Dad and I walked the woods on the farm we rented for squirrel to hunt with a 410 single shot shotgun but we never found anything. My Grandpa, uncles and cousins all hunted deer, pheasants, prairie chickens, grouse, deer and elk. One year one of my uncles took a black bear. I had never hunted anything.

So it was on a farm near Sprague that I found myself following my cousin and his dog Ollie with a 12 gauge in my hands. There were seven of us so we broke up into two groups. It wasn't fifteen minutes in when we heard the other group shoot twice and a pheasant came over and flew down the draw which we were walking down. We were all excited to know that the birds were around. Coming up out of the draw onto a flat table of land Ollie, my cousin's pointer, began getting excited and pointed. Curt, his proud owner smiled at how well he held even with the bird only feet away. Knowing I'd never hunted before Curt told me to come forward to take the first shot and when I was ready flushed the bird.

Shotguns are strange things after learning to shoot rifles. Most of my shooting had been done with air rifles and 22 s with which I could put out a candle if I wanted. There are those that can light a match (my mother could with a 30 06) but I never tried. With a rifle you peer with one eye down the sights and wait as your gun wobbles with each breath, beat of the heart or the slightest twitch of your arm until you pull the trigger. Borrowing my Dad's 12 gauge at a trap range I learned how to shoot a shotgun, both eyes open, swing through the target and squeeze off the shot when it leads the clay just the right amount. Repeat... My tendency is to swing slowly and catch the clay further out than most. I like a full choke that keeps the shot in a tight pattern.

So it was the the bird flew nearly straight up out of the scrub and I swung my 870 up, squeezed off the shot and caught the bird right as he was straightening out. The image, like my first fish on a fly, is etched now in my memory. The black rail on top of the gun with it's silver bead at the end, the pheasant's wings wide and tail out like an elongated spade. It's solid weight in my vest pocket afterwords and Ollie's excitement.

For my Grandpa's birthday several of us pitched in to get him a new side by side double barrel shotgun. The old man's eyes have had issues but his right eye is still clear and I got to watch him shoot straight as any of my cousins who are dead shots and fast. He bagged two birds with his new gun and Saturday night we cooked pheasant and potatoes for dinner. Before we were done walking the scrub we stood at the top of a hill.

From Pheasants 08

"I sure miss wide open country" he said. "I get so sick of seeing green trees everywhere and feeling closed in". We looked to the west where the sun was tracking down, the clouds ran in bands that alternated purple and peach. A farm sat at the bottom of a wide valley, green patches denoting crops and fenced off scrub land holding cattle. To the north more of the wide open land with it's red brambles, birch and water alder hollows, sage brush, rocky outcroppings and rolling hills and though I love my home, full of green trees, lowland lakes and wandering rivers I understood why a man from Oklahoma would long for this type of country. It was painted by god long long ago and a man might feel his rightful scale in the universe and know to be thankful.

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!”.

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.