For the Fishing Set

[Zeno]

Here are a few ramblings of fly-fishing for salmon on the Rogue River this fall with my dad.

We did all boat fishing in the lower river. Plenty large enough boat for two people and the plethora of gear that always follows fishing fanatics around. We hit the 3 Standard Deviations from the mean in the fishing department. Almost everything that could go wrong did. In fact, the first morning driving to the Rogue we got a flat tire on the front passengers side of the truck. We had to hop out and change the tire while it was still dark. It was downhill from there.

We hooked, I think, two fish that first day. One, I lost almost instantly because the salmon headed downstream at about 100 mph, was into the backing in 3 seconds, and then the sleeve of my coat caught the reel handle. End of fish. The other fish I hooked I tangled with for just under 1 minute, I think. Same thing almost, large salmon took off downstream and almost took off all the backing. He then shook his head twice and was gone, and we were using 12 lb tippet. A few fish were caught that day, all large 30-40 pounders, but most also lost fish. In fact, I would estimate that only about 1 in 5 fished hooked are landed. Especially the larger Chinook, these beasts are tough to hook and land.

But the other fun things that happen were: the anchor rope broke and we lost the stern anchor; a reel handle came off while I was fighting a large fish that we had a good chance of landing; I hooked myself in the nose with a large fly when trying to cast into a 40 mph wind with a 25 foot leader; the damn Californians where in abundance and we had to fight for fishing spots with these over-aggressive fishing hounds; I hooked a great big fish that we fought for only a little while before it went underneath another persons boat and then zipped across the pool to the far bank, the line friction from the boat caused the leader to break; one day EVERONE else in the line up caught fish and got bites, except for my dad and I. That was the ugliest day; we were of course using the same tackle and flies as everyone else. I think that was the third straight day of fishing and my dad finally said, about 1 hour earlier than we usually knocked off, “I have had enough of this, lets go home”.

We did see a doe and her twin fawns and other deer regularly, wild turkeys, a mink, mergansers, blue herons, kingfishers, and of course harbor seals. The seals chomped up a few fish that people had hooked and were fighting to land.

The funniest thing to watch though is the fight between man and fish. Most of the single salmon fishermen used small 8-foot prams and when they hooked a fished they let the anchors go and the fight begins. One of the most incongruous things to watch is a large thin-bone man of about six foot four standing up in a tiny pram being towed around a river by a large salmon - Upstream, downstream, in circles, through the line up of boats, around anchor ropes and up banks. One guy had his dog with him, and the pointer would be in the bow standing up with his head hanging out over the water while his owner fought the good fight. A sight only a fisherman can really appreciate.

Much more happened than just the above (I also went steelhead fishing with better results) but I think the flavor shines through. It was an adventure, and a good one. Don’t get me wrong, fishing fanatics live for such happenings. If it were easy – it wouldn’t be worth doing, or at least not as much.

-Zeno