Steelhead Camp Part 1

Keith Darnall and my old lab Sage taking a break.

Our Fall annual Steelhead camp this year was a lot different then in past years. Usually we try and spend at least a week on the Dry Side fishing on several different rivers and this year only allowed for a short window to be spent in these different locations. Also for the first time I was able to take my father on this yearly pilgrimage.

My father, an old vet who grew up trolling for walleye in Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa could never really get the hang of fly fishing. Though he has caught a fair share of fish in Alaska on the fly, he has always been intimidated by casting the single hander and leery of trying to cast the spey rod. So this year with the help of friends who fish gear, we were able to outfit him with semi appropriate equipment for salmon and steelhead fishing.

Not ever catching a steelhead on gear, I only have a modest knowledge of how to catch one with such equipment. Also knowing the etiquette of the river and knowing how he listens to his youngest son, I was not sure how this trip was going to pan out for him, not to mention the odd amount of stress I had knowing I wanted him to catch fish and have a good time, while I had to try and help him do something I had never been successful at.

So after a long night of driving and a nap we found ourselves with some good friends on the Clearwater River. Like all good tourist in the area we decided to drive up the river, visit Poppy at the Red Shed and get our licensees and tribal permits. After feeling like we wasted the morning we finally got a swingable run in the lower river. The sun was on the water and fish were in the area because several boats kept on catching them just upstream of us. After working the run for a few hours I finally get that dry line grab and the loop taken from me then the set followed by this odd feeling I have come accustomed to on the Clearwater. Seconds later my annual dry line whitefish on the Clearwater was landed. That was the last grab I got in the two days spent there.

So the following morning we headed upstream to one of my good friend Keith Darnall's spots. We put my dad in the bucket, Keith went downstream and I walked above the run and worked the tailout into the run. About a half hour later I work my way to where my father was. He had broken his jig off on a rock and was trying to re-rig his outfit. Knowing granny knots are not the best knots for fishing, I decided to get him set back up. With my line still in the water on the dangle I got his setup back into working order and casted it while trying to explain how to run a drift down the seam. After reeling it in I casted again and then it happened, bobber down, reel, set then a fish flying through the air. I still had the spey rod in my arm pit and 90 plus feet of line dangling below me and handed it to my dad. I guess a good son would have handed the rod with the fish on it to his father, but I handed him the spey rod instead. Oops :).

A half dozen jumps later the fish was on the beach. A nice big B-Run. I was shocked how much control I had on this large fish on a 6'6" spinning rod. The black and red jig the fish was caught on I tied just a few days earlier. The jig it was tied on was pulled off a rock in the river and sat in a box with all the corkies and hooks I had kept over the years. Thank god for recycling.

Now catching a steelhead on a spinning rod is not a big accomplishment by any means. Hell lots of steelhead fly fishermen have done it before they took up fly fishing, but for me this was a first, and a grand fish to do it with.

"Save Bristol Bay" Road Show

The "Save Bristol Bay Road Show will be at Portland, Oregon's Bagdad Theater Wednesday, October 19th. See Kate Taylor, Justin Crump and the rest of the ambassadors of the Bristol Bay Region of Alaska in their pursuit of saving one of the last strongholds for Pacific Salmon in the world. Check out Red Gold and the show at McMenamin's Bagdad Theater. They will also be in Corvallis on Friday, October 21st at 7pm (The Art Center). Lets join together and prevent some spoiled bitches from ruining God's Country for a couple pennies and copper wire Meth heads tear out of our catalytic converters.

See you there.

New Beginnings

This weekend marks the first time that I am unable to make it out to the annual Eastside Steelhead Tour on the Clearwater/Snake/Grande Ronde, and while Dawn and I will miss the good times and focused audience of steelhead this time of year, we have a new addition to the family that is taking our full attention. On September 24th, our first child Natalie Kai-Yen Chou (her middle name is a traditional Chinese name meaning "new beginnings" and is based off an ancient family poem) was born at a healthy 8lbs and 21inches. Dawn is recovering slowly but surely, and I'm finally learning why God invented coffee. For those of you who are parents, I'm sure you remember those first months pretty well (although it may be more of a blur, as these past three weeks feels like to me), full of many midnight diaper changes and half awake origami swaddles, with the methodical bouncing that unconsciously starts happening while talking about the weekend with coworkers.

For the record, I have actually managed to make it out fishing for a couple hours in the morning (or maybe it was just Dawn's way of politely kicking me out of the house for some fresh air while my visiting mother watched the baby), but what I found mid swing was that my thoughts kept drifting back to what it felt like for my baby girl to fall asleep on my chest after I did what I do best thus far in her life- get her to burp.

Coming home was even a different feeling. As I raced home from my morning outing, I realized this was the first time I was coming back from fishing to my new family...the first of many I'm sure, but it was something I had never felt before. Hundreds of fishing trips, and this was the first of its kind. I didn't feel the need to make a call on the way home to ask if there was anything I could pick up at the store (which is my crafty way of saying that I spent slightly more time than I thought fishing, and now I'm going to attempt and divert any potential conflict with this selfless act of errand running)....none of that. Just that I wanted to get home, hold my baby girl and breathe in that smell of baby through her soft hair.

So while our friends are camped out somewhere out east, and believe me, we will be joining them as a family in the near future...for now our entire world is right here, between dijon diapers, getting puked/peed/pooped on, Friday night runs to Babies 'R' Us for the "right" binkie and many sleepless nights staring into the eyes of this baby...waiting...for the first time she looks back at us and smiles.

Brian

Steelhead Dreams

Awesome videography, beautiful landscape, beautiful river, beautiful fish and beautiful Hannah Belford showing us guys how women can do it too.

Skater Time

Well its been Skater time for a while now and I finally put one in the books for 2011. It doesn't happen too often on the Wet side of the state, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. High pressured rivers mixed with hatchery drones around highly populated areas always put skating flies on the back burner. However with the success over the years from my good friend Brad Smith, who has been fishing the local rivers since he was a kid, I have continued to give it a go and finally sealed the deal.

To my surprise while skating a riffle hitched black and purple smuddler minnow, mid-day over some overhanging trees I finally rose a fish. Not knowing what it was because I rose a few smolts in the same location, I was not sure what grabbed the fly. Over the years I have been surprised at the takes on skated flies. Some like rabid trout hungry for dinner, others sipping a bug like tricos on the Missouri, while others literally come out of the water trying to kill it. The point is I have learned to keep the faith and continue to work that fish until I know for sure what it is. This led me last year to a skated monster whitefish on the Clearwater River in Idaho, but that's another story.

Continuing to work through this little tailout below some overhanging trees I started chatting with my friend Bill that was working his way over to me. After casting a single spey, the smuddler started to skate down and under the trees. I turned my head and said something to Bill when it happened. Dammit I missed it, but the grab was solid and the fish was on. Not soon after I was beaching a bronze male hatchery fish.

Hatchery fish are not known for great fights or size, but what I have noticed over the years is that I have caught 3:1 more hatchery fish on skaters then native fish. I am sure this has to do more with East-side fish being more acclimated to their surroundings and thus relearn their instincts as trout, though this is probably bullshit since we know Jack about steelhead behavior. Then again I don't really care because this genetically retarded fish finally took a fly on the surface, on a river I have been fishing for years and though was of hatchery origin, went back into the river for the reason that it was worthy adversary.

I can't wait to get back at it and this time keep my eyes on the fly for the take. You can learn a lot about swinging flies by skating and those few takes you get every year make all that time well worth it. Do yourself a favor and give it a try, you may be surprised at what you find.

2011 Pinks

Found on the banks of a well known river below a well known run above a dam or two.

You know its a Pink Salmon year when you start to find them on rivers that they do not belong in. Pink Salmon are to salmon as Whitefish are to trout, almost always a pain in the ass unless your bored and live in the Superfund site known as Puget Sound. Now do not think I am talking smack about these mini salmon, in fact I have been well known to travel all the way to Alaska to pretty much just fish for them. These fish got a lot of heart and in the salt they are a ton of fun, especially on Miyawaki Poppers or wogs.

I remember reading years ago that these fish are well known to travel and spawn up rivers that are not from. I have seen sockeye in the Klickitat and Cowlitz, but never a pink in any of the Columbia tributaries. Pretty cool if they decided to populate a river on their own. Finally mother nature changing the ecosystem and not hatchery dropped fingerlings. Still in all reality this won't happen, but pretty cool if it did.

Damn Condit Dam is Going Bye Bye

On October 26, 2011, Condit Dam on the White Salmon River will be breached. This 97 year old dam, located 3.3 miles from the confluence of the Columbia River, standing 125 feet tall will be removed, thus draining 92 acre Northwestern Lake. This breach will allow for fish passage of Spring and Fall Chinook Salmon, Winter and Summer Steelhead as well as Lamprey. There is also speculation regarding the return of Bull Trout to the watershed, but good luck finding them. It is estimated that this breach of this very non cost effective, obsolete dam will allow for increased spawning habitat for all listed species.

Although the home owners on Northwestern Lake will miss their summer hideout, mother nature will be able to take this river back. For those of you that have driven by the mouth at Underwood, Washington, the sight of derelict boats and tribal nets are not very encouraging. If you took the time to hike up the river you would see the beauty and possibility of what might return. This portion of the river that has been under water for almost a century will produce scenery that has not been seen in a decade. Only time will tell but this river could once again become a stronghold to our native fish, and at least we are now giving them a chance.

The lower section of the White Salmon River is a thermal refuge for migrating fish up the Columbia Basin. Just like Herman Creek in Oregon and Drano Lake in Washington, this location at times can hold thousands of our anadramous fish as they make there way up the Columbia during their great migration. This fishery which is more like a stillwater fishery in most of the lower stretch will change and that is not a bad thing.

I have fished this area for years in secret, though never in the stillwater portion of the lower river. The canyon walls below the dam and fast runs and pools are breath taking. The water is hard to get to and you have to put in a lot of work to find water suitable to fly fishing. Then again the fish is not the only reason why we travel to these locations. The work and effort to get to that secret pool that only the locals know about is worth every scrape and bruised knee. Now with the changes in the river planned for this October, the river that I am used to and know will change and the fishery with it. I take solace however in that it is in the good for the fish and the habitat around it.

With the removal of the Elwah dams, Rogue River dams and now Condit, we are following a precedence that hopefully will continue and help to bring back our native fish. Please continue to help advocate and fight for our native fish. What we do now matters. Read more about the Condit Dam removal courtesy of the Osprey Steelhead News.