Thanksgiving

Here are just a very few things that I am thankful for this year.

• The continued health of my wife and children, our rich opportunities and wonderful life together.
• My family and friends with whom I have had chances to grow closer this past year.
• My work, colleagues and our mission.
• The land that we live in, it's rivers, woods, fish, birds and the peace it brings.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

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.

Hunting

This weekend I embark on my first hunting trip since I was a kid. My family, cousins, Grandpa, Dad an Uncle and some nephews will embark to Sprague WA. We'll hunt pheasants but most of all we'll eat, drink and BS together for a weekend.

There's fishing and there's Fishing

Today I loaded up three different rods and drove south to the Cowlitz. I went to the barrier dam and watched a line of folks throw corkies and yarn through the main channel. I saw three fished hooked, all of them foul, in the back, tail or side. There were probably 30 people standing elbow to elbow. I drove to the Blue Creek boat launch hoping to fly fish for cutthroat and ran into a dozen gear fishermen standing still looking for coho. No room to step, cast, step through the run properly. I took a leak and weighed my options.

I hop on the freeway back north and grab a fritter and a mocha. I pull into the Tumwater Valley golf course and don my waders. Mikayala and I rig up with a glo bug again and I hike down to the run across from the railroad cars. I step carefully into the river, watching for salmon redds and see one across the river. A small deep slot, no more than eight feet long lies behind it. I toss my glo bug to the top of the redd. I can see the orange fly clearly even as it sinks and rolls across the red. It drifts into slot.

Have you ever watched fish in a fish tank. It's said that this is stress relieving. They seem to float around effortlessly, happy and perfect in their environment, poetry in motion and a study in effortless movement. Fish in a tank no longer fascinate me and what happens next is why.

Out from under the edge of the slot, where he sat perfectly hidden a cutthroat levitates up, watches the glo bug go past, turnes with a flip of his tail, takes it into his mouth and turns back down for his lie. In the trouts world they hide for there are many birds and bests looking to eat them. The river has it's own tribulations, high water, low water, heat and cold. They are tough and they will race each other to food. They will try to swallow crayfish or sculpin whole. Their life is caution and calories. They are predator and prey and like all predators who know what it is to be hunted, and I do believe they know, their hunting is swift and cold, without remorse. Their grace is the same grace of a cougar hunting or a deer in flight.

I lift Makayla and the line comes tight. The cutthroat runs and uses the current to fight. I lift him out of the water and remove the hook. Butter yellow and spots, not unlike the mature Chinook whose eggs he is stealing. Perfectly streamlined I know he's dispatched countless baitfish, bugs, crawdads and who knows what else. I let him go.

Seven fish come to hand that day. At least two of them large for this river. They leap out of the water and work in the current. They all have my respect and I catch myself hoping that Karma sends me back someday with scales and spots born into a river.

Seasons

Roderick Haig-Brown wrote a series of books called fisherman's fall, summer, winter and spring. They are wonderful books and a must have for any true northwest fishing reader. Just as fall in British Columbia brings it's own movements, changes in rhythm and melodies so too does Olympia's.

The first day of fall is portentous. The fall Chinook are moving into the Deschutes and Coho are migrating up almost all of the Southwest Washington Rivers. The Steelhead that I love to fish for in the Cowlitz are strangely drawn to flies after living in the river for a while. The first of the leaves are starting to turn and there is a bite in the air.

Today I got Mikayla and took her out to the river. We fished below the old mosquito hole and down to the fence by the golf course. I tied on a glow-bug, perfectly round reddish-orange yarn with a single spot on it that mimics a salmon egg because right now, up in the park, it's easy in the low water to see the clean patches of gravel that the female chinook have prepared for their redds. Many of them will have already laid their eggs and the cutthroat who live in the river, as well as the big sea-run fish, will be sitting behind them looking for a free easy meal.

I first fish the big gravel bar and the alders. I roll the egg pattern through the top of the run, watching the orange dot easily in the gin clear water. Once behind a downed tree I watch the flash of a small cutthroat swipe at the fly and miss. I throw it upstream a few more times hoping to bring it back with no luck. I cross the river and walk upstream towards where the old mosquito hole used to be. The bank is being cut out as the river throws an oxbow into it's path. The ledge makes a long slow deep run and I roll the egg through as I walk upstream to where a riffle runs into the head of the oxbow. I look up to the head of the riffle and see the sideways tail of a hen chinook sweeping out gravel for her redd.

I let Mikayla swing out the glo-bug easily right below the redd and follow it through the riffle. Just as it settles into the slower water on the near side a fish is on and I land a small 8in cutthroat. This is a resident fish that has come downstream just to feast on the eggs. She is silvery with a touch of gold and covered in spots that aren't round. More like freckles or speckles. In the summer and fall she would have more yellow and more spots.

I walk further up to the next riffle and see several salmon working a couple of redds. Females digging them out while the males scrap for the right to reproduce. I roll the egg through the end of the riffle with no luck. I walk further up and let it in again just below the redds and as it rolls through the tail of the riffle I see the shadow of a cutthroat come out and swipe away. It's a little bigger than the one I've caught so I work the riffle over and over again. It swipes twice, once right on the top of the water, and misses each time. After a while the salmon become agitated and several males fall back to the water where the cutthroat was. The trout doesn't ever come back after that.

I walk back downstream below the big gravel bar and find a series of redds, one after another, that sweep down into the head of the long slow bend. Again I settle the glow-bug down into the tail of the redds and wait. Three casts later a bigger fish hits the fly and fights back and forth. Mikayla comes to life as the fish surges back and forth trying to find it's way down the riffle to the series of snags that represent shelter. I work it back up to the top and let it tire. Then I wet my hand (to keep from removing scales) and lift it out of the water. It's a sea-run fish of about 13 inches, spotted and silvery. I can imagine this fish cruising around Hope Island or Briscoe Point just weeks ago, hunting sticklebacks, candlefish and sardines. Growing faster than it's cousins that stay resident in the river and like the salmon hearing the call to spawn.

Like clockwork they find their way back up just like the salmon. They become fat on eggs for the journey to follow, waiting until late winter or even early spring to spawn until again, like the chime of a great clock they will go back out to the sound to hunt baitfish again. They are the harvest trout and harvest season is my favorite to fish.

Athena

Athena and I broke the ice earlier this year at the Kalama. It was awkward. I didn't know how to handle her and in response she would only overhand really wide open loops. I got the nail knot stuck in the tip top and nearly dropped her. Neither of us were happy and I had my doubts.

I drive to the Cowlitz in the morning, mocha in hand, with Athena resting in the passenger's seat. I take my time stringing her up, with her 14 foot leader and tie on a copper bee. We walk in silence down to the run below the boat launch and step into the water.

The water is always cool and until I wade in up to my hips it tries to trip me, pulling at my shins. I let out some line and roll out a short cast. She doesn't like it much. The line just kind of spits out there and the leader piles up at the end. She seems unhappy and as cool as the water.

Perhaps I need to load her up, I wonder, so out comes more line, 50..60..70..80 feet. I let the current carry it down (river right) and remember the incantation....

Up comes the tip, sweep the rod upstream and the fly is directly in front of me, sweep back around and forward and this time the line punches out but stalls and the leader piles up again. In frustration I pull the tip up and the line straight back and give it a short flick and ..... she whispers to me .... the leader straightens out.

I pause, I relax, count my breathing and think....

Tip up and sweep left, fly is in the water in front of me, sweep back around smoothly and flick. She sings to me, the line whispers past my ear out into the river, the leader turns over and we are fishing together.

She is a goddess throwing nearly a hundred feet of line with effortless power. She needs none of the gentle coaxing that it takes to fish Patience, nor the playful teasing of Mikalya and would loathe Bender's deep pragmatic swing. She demands respect and excels at what she was built for. Steelheading on the swing.

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...