So. How have you all been? Hope you had a great fishing season last year. I obviously didn't write on here all I wanted to. Now I'm trying to remember dates of when I fished where and how many fish I caught and what I was usin'. Oh well. We had a pretty good steelhead season here in the Willamette Valley. Most of our fishing was here in town. Hopefully I will be able to come up with a few photos to link up on here and some stories to go with them. We had some great days on the water and some uneventful ones. Can't say that any of them were bad though.
Fall brought hunting season and less and less time for the river. My oldest daughter was nine last year so she was able to participate in the mentored youth hunting program. We had some fun days hiking through the Cascades. We were able to get a little buck on the 3rd Saturday of the season. It was a memorable day for us. It's been a long winter and I'm ready to get back out there after some fish. I have a hard time getting away during the winter to fish unfortunately. So hopefully I will do a little better this year keeping a log. Tight lines. wt

My eight year old daughter Alyson caught this beauty last Saturday. 29 inches and right at 10 pounds. Story to come shortly.

Still a little early

Last Saturday I had a few hours in the afternoon to get out with my 3 daughters to float down the Willamette in Springfield. We put in a Island Park and floated to D street. Maybe a mile of river in that section. More steelhead than usual have passed Willamette falls than is normal for this time of year, so thought we might as well give it a shot. I'm pretty excited for the fishing this year. My oldest daughter (8) now has her own steelhead tag. This means I will almost always have someone to fish with. I'm excited for her. Very much looking forward to her first steelhead. She has caught a lot of trout since she started fishing at 2 years old and has hooked some monsters but never got one to the bank or boat. Soon. Very soon. We fished divers and bait through some likely spots for the fish to be holding. After an hour and a half of nothing, the girls were ready to call it a day. My wife was on a walk with our youngest in the stroller and saw us from the bank. It was a pleasant suprise and was fun to wave to her from the middle of the river. No fish and no bites. A couple more weeks and hopefully we'll see some good numbers of fish up here.

With work being quite slow of late, I find myself at home a lot more looking for something to do. So, I guess I should up date my blog.
Had a chance to go fishing on Saturday as part of a get together put on by the Oregon Fishing Forum (OFF). A small number of its members met up at Lookout Reservoir to try the fishing for rainbows, landlocked chinook and whatever else might come to the boat. I was up there last Saturday with friend in my driftboat and the wind about blew us off the lake. Lookout is a very long reservoir on the middle fork of the Willamette River. I've been told that when it is full, it is about 18 miles long. The wind seems to blow up there more often than not. Even a slight breeze and the lake gets quite a chop to it.
Well on Saturday, my brother Nimrod and I put the boat in at about 800 am. It was already windy on the lake. We let the wind blow us north towards the dam as we trolled some small spoons while drifting. I also tried some flashers with a small spoon. We decided to cross the lake to the west shore, but decided against it when we got about to the middle and the waves were crashing us pretty hard. We thought that if it got worse, we would be in big trouble trying to get back later in the day. So we fished along the east shore towards the dam, trying to stay in water a little less windblown. Nothing biting. We turned around and headed back towards the ramp, fighting a pretty strong wind. The waves were a little too big to use my electric trolling motor, so we were working on man power. We got back to the hill that juts out into the lake just before you get to the boat ramp and Nimrod got a good solid take on a small orange dick night spoon. He landed a nice 13 inch cuttbow. Beautiful fish. While I was taking his picture I noticed my rod bouncing. I reeled in a small chinook about 7 inches. So we both got a little action, which really brightened our moods about the whole thing. We fished a little longer in that area with no action. It took about 40 minutes to row the last 100 yards back to ramp against the wind. My back was quite sore when I woke up this morning. Nimrod rowed the last 50 yards I so. I just couldn't go anymore. We called it quits a little before some of the other fishers with bigger boats. I talked to one fellow fisher who lost a passenger overboard. He was ok but wet and cold.
So now I find my self watching the fish count of salmon and steelhead over the Willamette falls. Patiently waiting for them to make there way into my neighborhood. Ok, not so patiently but what can I do? It's supposed to rain all week. I'm hoping to give it week after the rain and then start fishing. A little early for me, but I'm ready to give it a shot. Tight lines to yuns.

In the beginning....

I was born in the White Mountains of Arizona. My first memories of fishing there as a child, are of cool summer mornings at Big Lake. Being one of 9 kids, I'm sure it was a task for Pa to get all of us loaded up and 2 am to get on the road. I remember my dad carrying me to the van in my sleeping bag. We'd arrive at the lake a little before sunrise, and lay our blakets or sleeping bags out on the big rocks next to the lake. As soon as that sun started to give it's light the fish would start biting. We would come home with a cooler full of trout and have quite a fry. There were a few other places I vaguely remember fishing at.
Pa and Ma moved our family to Oregon in 1987 when I was 9. It was hard to get used to the rain, but we soon found out that there were a lot more fishing opportunities closer to home. The Calapooya River ran through our home town of Brownsville. We caught a lot of white fish and Northern Pike Minnow under and bobber and on the fly rod.
During my teenage years I heard more and more about the steelhead that came up some of the rivers and certain times of the year. I decided I should give them a shot. Not really knowing anything about them, I purchased my salmon/steelhead tag, a few spoons and spinners and hit the nearest river I knew of that had a run of steelhead; The South Santiam. Well, after 3 summer run fishing seasons, I still had not even seen a steelhead in person. I didn't fish a whole lot, or in the right places appearantly, but I was beginning to think that the steelhead was a farce.
I met Curtis at church. I'd heard that he was a fisherman but was a little intimidated by him. We eventually were introduced. He took our Sunday school class up the Mckenzie River where he had spent his childhood. We stopped at the hatchery and saw the steelhead coming into the ponds. These were big, beautiful fish. We then spent a few hours on the shore line. A few of us had brought our fishing poles. Curtis came over and said,"If you're going to do this, you might as well do it right." He rigged up a spoon and told me where to cast and how to work it. Within a few casts, 3 bright steelhead were chasing my lure around in the hole. I lost my breath and my heart started pounding. Curtis's interest was peaked as well. He had not been steelheading in several years. We didn't hook a fish that day, but I think Curtis saw my excitement, and wanted to help me in my quest. We made a date and headed for the Siletz River. He had many years expirience fishing the river. We had a few good trips where I learned a lot about the holding water and habits of steelhead. We drift fished bait and used spoons. We did not catch a fish. The next summer I made a trip to the holes I had learned from Curtis. It was mid June. This would be my first encounter with a steelhead. About 10am I was fishing shrimp and yarn in the tailout, just below what we call the ledge hole. I was casting into the tailout and letting my bait make it's way into the bolders at the bottom. Trout were stealing my bait every cast. I decided to move on after I re-bated. After getting all set up, of course I decided one more cast into that spot. My cast landed just above the bigest rock in the tailout and slipped into the slack water behind the rock. Sure enough, I felt the same thing I had felt on all the casts before. Trout nibbling on the shrimp. Instinktively I set the hook. It stuck into something quite solid. At that moment, it seemed that the water dissappeared and suddenly there was the biggest fish I'd ever seen headed for the ocean. I was trying out Spider wire for the first time. There is no stretch to this stuff, so when that fish turned, my reel started screaming as the line peeled off. It lept out of the water head over tail and tail walked 3 to 5 times before it reached the next pool down river. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I just couldn't help it. I had some help landing the fish from my friend Jeremy. I was shaking uncontrollably. I was thinking that this must be a new record for the biggest steelhead ever caught. I later found out that it was an average summer run of about 8 pounds. 28 inches long.
Since then I have spent a lot of time on the rivers of western Oregon. I still have a lot to learn and really haven't caught a ton of steelhead. But I do have a load of fun trying. I learn something new each trip and love the beauty of my surroundings. So, I'm going to try to keep track of my trips, successful or not, and see what I can learn. Good luck out there. Be patient with the fish, others around you and yourself. Have fun.