A river report from the eyes of an angler, from a walk-in trip on the North Coast. February 15, 2008
I got up at 4 AM on a cold Friday in February, had breakfast and pulled two duffle bags of fishing gear out on the porch. One bag had two rods, two reels and my fishing vest. Unlike golfers who have a caddy or a cart to carry a dozen sticks, fishermen only take two and hope no more than one breaks. In a dozen years of serious fishing I have broken a rod or a reel on the average of one a year. My family insists I am clumsier than the average fisherman but I’ve never met a serious fly fisherman who goes out with less than two rods and reels. The other bag had my waders, wading shoes, wading staff, and most important of all, my heavy-duty rain jacket.
Jesse showed up promptly at 5AM and by 7:30 we were wading in the upper reaches of a stream in the Northern Coastal Range of Oregon. Jesse is only 32 but has been fly-fishing since he was four. Jesse has caught more fish between Mexico and Alaska than I have caught even in my dreams.
When I was exactly Jesse’s age I did geologic mapping in the same general area and didn’t think about steep canyons and seemingly impenetrable paths obstructed by deadfall and sticker bushes. But that was in the summer and I was wearing hiking boots, and that was 36 years ago when I could still lift my knees and I didn’t have what feel like stumps for feet. And then I wasn’t wearing what I call my Mickey Mouse costume: clumsy waders and floppy wading shoes. There are old fishermen and there are careless fishermen but there are no old careless fishermen. The first trail we took down to the river was so steep I didn’t think I could make it, but Jesse pulled a rope out of the brush that some one had tied to a tree for the purpose of keeping old men on the trail. That’s one of the things guides do: bring old men home.
The other thing guides do is catch fish. Jesse rigged up for the day with quarter inch diameter plastic bead two inches above the hook, then attached a small nymph below the hook on a nine inch piece of leader, then three quarter inch lead shot 24 inches up the leader and then a half inch plastic indicator at the top of a 9 foot leader. Even if you don’t know anything about fly-fishing you can figure that’s a lot of crap to cast. Especially when there is a high bank in the back with over hanging branches on each side of the river.
We fished 70 feet of water, then climbed up out of the canyon and went down and fished another 70 feet. The reason for all the trips up and down is because we fish the quiet water between the rapids. After four rigs lost in the bushes and half a dozen trips up and down it was 11AM. It all seemed like a wasted effort but Jesse said the next hole, only a half mile up the road, is one of the best in the river. It wasn’t any better but Jesse had another hole just a bit farther up that he promised was almost as good.
I hooked what Jesse judged a 15 pound steelhead. The fish was sluggish and I didn’t set the hook hard enough and it got away after a couple minutes. I met a guide in Wyoming who also fished steelhead who asked me how many steelhead I landed. I said I landed about one for every three I hook. The Wyoming guide said that’s about the same for me. Jesse says he lands half, but I knew I should never have lost that fish even if I only normally land a third. In the same hole I hooked another fish, almost as big as the first but this time I set the hook much harder and I landed it and we got a picture. The first two fish seemed confused and didn’t fight much but the third, the same size as the second, was more stubborn. We got that fish to the bank but it got away before Jesse could get a picture. We don’t use a landing net; we try to get the fish to swim up onto a shallow bar. These are all native fish and we have to release them unharmed, anyway. We counted the second as a caught fish.
The water’s warming up, Jesse said. The fish are getting more active. Jesse got up on the high bank and told me where to cast on the next run. Oh My Gosh, did you see that! That one tried to take the indicator! No, I didn’t I said, I’m down here trying to keep the drag out of the line. Make the same cast. There he is! Jesse could see the fish flash but all I could see was the indicator move. I set the hook and started getting the slack line off the water. He’s coming right at you! I reeled furiously but couldn’t keep up with the fish. The fish came around my right leg, made a U-turn and went back past my left leg. I raised my rod over my head and swung it behind my head and over my left shoulder and the fish took off. It went over the rapids into the pool below. The reel handle was spinning too fast to stop. Gotta get down steam! Jesse grabbed me by the nape of my heavy-duty rain jacket and pulled me down stream. I kept both hands on the rod and reel, trying to reel whenever I could get any line back. With Jesse keeping me from being washed away I stumbled and waddled 20 yards downstream to the next pool. By the time we got there the fish had crossed the rapids and was down in a third pool. Jesse estimated the fish pulled out between 80-100 yards of line. By the time I got the line back there was no fish. The fish had wrapped the line around a rock and went home. That’s what happens, Jesse said, when the water warms up. When it’s cold the fish are lethargic but when the water reaches the right temperature they become torpedoes.
I landed two out of four should have landed three but I will have to become a much better fisherman to land a fish like the fourth one. It’s not the size of the fish that counts. Some big fish are sissies and some small fish are tigers. All the steelheaders I have talked to say it’s impossible to stop a running steelhead in the rapids. Once they get in the fast water all you can do is chase them downstream until you get to quiet water. The trick is to keep them in the pool you hook them in. I did that for the first three and thought I had the fourth one cornered until he got behind me and took off.
Jesse and I are scheduled got back and try again in March. I don’t know what will happen but I know for certain my heavy-duty rain jacket is coming with us.
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