Wandering Words

Posted By Heather on July 25, 2010

On Sunday after a couple days of camping and no luck fishing Central Oregon’s Cascade lakes, I decided to head back to a great looking little gem that I spotted in early June. It’s now midsummer, a hot buggy July day with a thundershower in the forecast. I’m already acclimated to the mosquitoes and bright high mountain light, now I just need to actually catch a fish on this rod, and break the “skunking” for the trip. It’s foolish to head to a new place to try and overcome a zero catch rate, but that’s just how I role. Time for something new, the old stuff hasn’t worked.

I drove as far as road would take me, slathered on sunscreen, applied a full coating of DEET, put on the pack, and headed cross country for the sound of running water.

Despite there being a road and a parking area, there was no trail at all. The creek is lush, gorgeous, deceptively clear and full of logs. Stepping off the cutbanks proved to be misguided and the bone cracking cold water is much deeper than it looks. There was absolutely no casting advantage to standing in the freezing cold water. The logs in every direction and the overhanging plants snagged me every time I tried. After a little while of dapping a fly on the water, I decided to enjoy the scenery for a bit and change location and head downstream to where the stream would be bigger.

Finished my 1/4 mile trailess treck without a broken bone or sprained ankle and I got back in the car, doubled back down the dirt road for a few miles, onto the pavement. The creek wasn’t visible from the road, it was just over there, somewhere on the left. I drove until the view through the trees was becoming more open and a true meadow, not just a forest with a meadow understory, now it was a meadow with just a few scattered trees. The wide spot in the road, the parking spot, had no apparent trail to the water and that was a surprise. Again, no trail at all, just waist deep grass hiding logs, tiny springs and ankle breaking rushets flowing south toward the still hidden creek. 50 yards of wading through grass and I could hear the water, and it was good, it was very good.

Perfect water for stalking some brook trout, so I sat down, and rigged up.

Decided a to tie on a grasshopper with a small red copper john dropper. First cast and

Such a sigh of relief. Thank heaven. This is the first fish caught in a month. The first fish caught on this trip, the first fish I’ve ever caught on this 3wt bamboo. Now that the first fish is out of the way, it doesn’t matter, the day can happen however it happens. I tried to stay out of the water as much as possible, it was just so very clear and the fish would see me if I was coming at them from upstream. So I carefully made my way along the banks and pulled several more fish out of each little riffle and seam. I didn’t mess with too many photos of them. i’m just not coordinated enough to lean off a cutbank, manage a fish, and get the camera all lined up. This one was beautiful, even though the wonky picture only grabbed part of the fish. Ah well.

Walked carefully, crossed the creek back and forth about 6 times. It grew and grew every 10 yards or so another feeder spring was adding more water. After 3 hours of fishing, the humidity was really picking up steam, ha ha. The view of the sky was somewhat limited and I knew that somewhere out there, the thunderstorms were brewing. it seemed like a good spot for a break.

The wicked cold water was washing the DEET away and I didn’t really feel like the sunscreen was working. In fact the feverish temp of my arms and legs had me thinking that either DEET is a great solvent for sunscreen, or something else was defective in my chemical armor. Stepping back into the sunshine and I swear I felt the UV rays go wah wahh wahhh and my skin was burning. I had no idea how far I had traveled or how far the road might be. I guessed it would be few miles back.

At the edge of the meadow, I was not greeted by road, but by more treachery of twigs. More people are hurt and lost in the woods due to twisted ankles or broken legs than from axe murderers or bears. When no one knows where I’m at, a hillside like this could be a killer (saying that outloud in my best Bear Grylls voice). I don’t know if it might become more technical , if the road is near or far, and that brings on the acute ninja awareness, well, as its as ninja as a 40 year old white woman can muster. “Super ninja, no boo boos”, I chant to myself as I work my way uphill.

“Super Ninja, no boo boos. Super Ninja, no boo boos. Super….. it worked. A hundred yards of logs and brush and we find the road.

3.5 hours, ninja reflexes, no boo boos, super sunburn, a little lighter on blood supply, many fish to hand, and I must be miles from the car. Look up at the sky and see the thunderheads brewing, and look down and that bend in the road. It looks familiar, the glint of a windshield in the shade. The car, a/c, and aloe are 150 yards ahead. Ahhhh, the fishing time/space/distance warp. It’s happened again.

Category: Fly Fishing, Photos, Rivers, State of Jefferson | No Comments »
Tags: Bamboo, brook trout, lupine, paint brush

Posted By Heather on June 13, 2010

On the fifth day of the adventure, summer arrived. Gave Dave R a call for advice on floating the Rogue and he talked Roger through the Shady Cove to Tekelma float on the phone. Then he met us at the ramp and gave told a joke to make me blush, gave me a kiss on the cheek and we gave him a toast of brandy for the fishing gods, and away we went.

AND WE CAUGHT FISH!!!

I can’t believe I actually remembered the spots Dave had taken me last fall, and we just stumbled through fishing salmon fly dry with copper john dropper and stumbled into fish. And it twas good. So good that after meeting Dave for a drink, we asked him about a longer float, got the skinny, and ….

We did it again the next day- Shady Cove to Dodge Bridge. More fish, lots of time in the sun, and I’m starting to get the hang of fishing again, after much too long away. Got to the take out and Dave was sitting there waiting, and reported that I’d been seen hooking up on the river. How crazy is that? Urban fishing and before we even get to the take out, the report is out..

They didn’t know about the double though. It’s been years since I had a double hookup. Quite refreshing.

Category: Fly Fishing, State of Jefferson | No Comments »
Tags: Dave Roberts, Rogue River

Posted By Heather on June 12, 2010

After such a gorgeous day in the Klamath canyon, the next day was not looking so good. Squalls coming over the mountains looked suspiciously wicked. Since we had worked our way around the Klamath Basin and all the fishable water was muddy, we decided we may as well head for home and be dry and warm. We went the long way to see some more rivers on the way.

So we headed up HWY 62 thinking we might cut through Crater Lake Park. But that squall came down right on us and started putting some snow down. We got to the park entrance and the guy at the gate told us the north exit was closed due to snow, so we abandoned the park plan and headed on down toward the Rogue. Hit the Rogue, hang a right, head upriver, over the pass, hang a left at Diamond Lake, and…..

wait a second, I’m not gonna be specific about this next little gem.

Up and down, back and forth, everywhere we found her, she was just that pretty. It kept pouring rain though and I was feeling delicate, and like not fishing in the drops of water, so we just looked at it, and I made a big ol mental note of it, and we headed back for pavement and down the road.

Rounded out the trip with checking every ramp on the North Fork Umpqua all the way to where the north and south fork meet up. Some absolutely spectacular country that was being subjected to Junuary rain storm. All worth another look, another day. Didn’t take as many photos as I should have. Some things reeally stand out in my mind, but I have nothing to post except this one at Colliding Rivers at Glide.

Category: Photos, State of Jefferson | 1 Comment »
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Posted By Heather on June 11, 2010

On day 2 of the escape to Klamath basin, we decided to get Roger’s new RO driftboat baptized in some Oregon water. We headed for Chiloquin and dropped the boat over the bank into the Williamson River. The launch is just below where the Sprague river meets the Williamson at the town of Chiloquin. The clear spring creek water of the Williamson looked good above town, but the Sprague was pumping sludgey run off so it was the same story as all the other rivers we had seen in the last 3 days.

We hit up the locals at the ramp for all the info possible. The plan was to row up to the confluence with the Sprague (there is a falls above this, so no rowing farther up) and then drift it back downriver to the Water Wheel campground at the HWY 97 bridge. Some folks say when the Sprague is behaving itself, all they do is row up and drift back to the launch, which is just a couple hundred yards. That sounded silly to me, until I stood there for 20 minutes while waiting for Roger to drive the truck to the take out and hitch a ride back.

I stood there waiting with the boat and studied the line of clear water and muddy water down the middle of the river. The two rivers of water were very separate until the riffle at the ramp. Below the riffle, it all mixed and everything was brown. The distinct seam where they met in the mid river, the seam had a nice foam line and occasional salmon flies in it, and a gentle breeze was blowing, and SMACK! Freaking huge fish lept 2 ft out of the river.

My jaw dropped and I quit day dreaming and rigged up my rod with salmon fly pattern. Started hucking out line for the first time in 6months and was happy to see several more slabs of fish fly through the air. Nothing in the vicinity of my fly though. Things got a bit more busy then with a family showing up and the Dad tossing a treble hook spinner out there. I kept after it with my salmon fly.

Roger got back and we pushed off and he was pulling on the oars heading us upstream and the Dad hooked up with a fish. He landed a beauty about 18 inches and fat. He was talking to us about putting it back and then asked is we had pliers to get the treble hook out of the fish’s throat. Ouch. The fish was goner. I appreciate that he wanted to put it back. Roger told him how he should get rid of two of his hooks and smash the barb so that in the future he can release a fish if he doesn’t want it. The fish was dead by the time he got the hook out and the guy did right and took it to eat (it’s legal on the Williamson). I think he really listed to what Roger said, at least I hope he did. As Roger says, those fish are his business partners, put em back.

Anyway, we had a lovely baptismal float in the RO driftboat, but couldn’t touch a fish. Salmon flies popped and so did some caddis, and finally an ant hatch of flying carpenter ants (weird, never have seen these in the spring). Nothing we tried worked on the splashy fish that kept us drooling the whole time. It was a great float.

Next day, we decided to see about the tail water on the Klamath River. Drove south and the entire landscape changed in a few short miles. A tailwater is usually in a canyon, and so I’m used to roads dropping into canyons, sort of, but this road was something else. I think we should have had a bungy cord hooked to the bumper. Miles of drop off on one side and big wall of hydro canal on uphill side, no where to turn around and a horrendous road. The scenery was something spectacular though.

Finally found a sign for a launch. The switch back to the launch road is too tight to take though, so we had to head another couple hundred yards to turn around and come back at it. Yikes. My fear of heights was killing me with adrenaline. I was so glad to pull up to the river and get out at the bottom of it all.

No fish rising, some nice golden stoneflies in the air, so it was time to calm down, have a 3pm lunch and sip of the good stuff, and do some casting.

Spent a nice hour or so casting different rods and not a fish to be seen. We headed out by 5 knowing it would take more than an hour to get back to pavement, if we didn’t plummet off the edge or have a flat. Luckily neither happened. Made it back to basecamp around 8pm. Another fishless day, but a day of hardcore adventure feeling like we fell off the edge of the beaten track. That’s a good thing.

Category: Fly Fishing, Oregon Country, Rivers, State of Jefferson | No Comments »
Tags: Klamath, Williamson

Posted By Heather on June 10, 2010

Are you Stumbling about in life, wondering what its all about? Feel like you should just put your head in a hole?

Well, pull your head out.

I pulled my head out in early June and was ready for my week of fishing. All forces conspired and spring runoff hit the rivers on the west side of Oregon. On friday June 4, I drove to Salem and back on river rights issues and noticed the Rogue was chocolatey, then the South Umpqua a frothy mousse, and the North Umpqua was like mud, and the coast fork of the Willamette River was looking like a real river not a creek, then the Willamette was raging and so was the Mckenzie. The Santiam was just plain ol swollen. I was supposed to be fishing the next day, so that was not good, not good at all.

So when Roger arrived from Montana on Saturday, to fish the not- running off rivers of Oregon, we had a problem. What to do with time off and no water to fish? So we headed east hoping the ongoing drought in in the Klamath basin would yield decent water. That’s really a crap attitude, hoping a drought area is going to fish well?! What they really needed was a bunch of snowpack. But, trying to make lemonade out of lemons is not always easy, so we headed east.

On day one we crossed the Cascades on Lake of Woods hwy and dropped down onto the Klamath Basin (another part of the fabled state of Jefferson). We intended to fish the Williamson the next day, but on this day, we merely were going to follow up on some interesting looking things on the map. So we found a short, and very winding blue line on the map and starting looking for places to give it a look. Best to start at the top, the source, the headwaters, the spring, the font.

And the spring spreads out into a breathtaking pool of pure aqua. I blinked, and it was still that color.

I followed the path around the edge to see the color from all angles, and everything grew quiet inside me and if nothing else happend in this trip, this was enough. The startling color, the snow capped mountains, and I stole a few seconds away from eternity and stayed with it.

This became basecamp for the next 3 days. It’s a good place to come back to, a good place to be stopped and still for a moment.

Category: Photos, Rivers, State of Jefferson | No Comments »
Tags: Klamath Basin, State of Jefferson

Posted By Heather on May 18, 2010

It’s official, I’ve relocated to Southern Oregon and haven’t completely adjusted. In other words, I’m not out being me, wandering around the woods and rivers and friends have noticed. So the other day I received a phone call from Moon. Yes, Moon, my fishing buddy. He gave me a talking-to about disappearing and how I just need to fish and…… he gave me an assignment to find a spot for his June camp.

So on Sunday I headed east back up Hwy 62, looking for a Camp Moon location. Finding ideal camp isn’t always so easy, I have requirements, and I’ve known Moon and Keeper of Moon (his lovely wife Monica) long enough to know that we’re pretty sympatico on camp.
1. Must have fishable camp water that you can walk too for the evening hatch.
2. Minimal mosquito issues. We like to sit outside and BS for the evening.
3. A campfire (see BS’n above)
4. bonus room/overflow for when friends show up.
5. Clothes line stringing opportunities
6. Shade
7. Some privacy or a respectable amound of space to the next camper, like say 20 yards minimum
8. Morning sunshine to get warmed up
9. A favorable view point if we just want to sit in camp and stare at the world instead of fishing.
10. a diversity of other nearby fishing spots (within 30 miles of camp)
11) Not on a major highway with jake brakin trucks going by all night.

So I stopped at Joseph A Stewart State recreation area which is a gigantic state park at Lost Lake Reservoir. It’s all mowed lawn with 15 feet to the next site, play structures painted lines and bike lanes for kids and no access to the water. It’s like a freakin suburb. It would be as much fun as sitting in my own yard at home. Bad, bad bad. It’s off the list. It has no charm.

And Willow Lake is run by private concessionaires working for the USFS. I pulled up to the check in hut and was looking at the bulletin board and prices and the camp enforcer runs down to tell me I have to pay. The place is empty. I tell him I’d like to drive through the campground just to see what it looks like to see if it’s where we want to stay and he tells me it would cost me $5 just to drive through. I dropped my chin, looked at him across the top of my glasses and blinked a couple of times.

“Are you serious? Isn’t this federal land, and you won’t let me look to see if I want to bring friends here next month?”

” It will be $5 ma’am”

So as I turned around his little gaurd house to leave, he notices my dog in the back seat and trots back over to tell me it will cost an extra $1 for each pet. $17 per tent.

I left. I will NEVER camp at Willow Lake, and am likely to never camp in campground run by that private concessionaire. So much for friendly camp hosts and building a loyal batch of campers. Needless to say if I didn’t like the Man, he’s lucky he was pre-screened by me, Moon would have been the end of him.

In the end i did spot a few nice pieces of water that I’ve filed away for future reference.

Category: State of Jefferson | 4 Comments »
Tags: Joseph A Stewart, Lost Lake, Rogue National Forest, Willow Lake

Posted By Heather on March 7, 2010

A beautiful spring day and some exploration of trails and rivers I’ve never seen before.

Category: Hiking, Rivers, State of Jefferson | 4 Comments »
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Posted By Heather on February 3, 2010

I’m off working on protecting river rights, through Common Waters of Oregon, and with several other groups that realize the public right to use Oregon rivers is too important to lose. I hope you’ll get involved and that you’re following this important issue on the Common Waters of Oregon website.

Oregon had to fight to protect it’s Beaches and now they are a national icon. Right now, we’re fighting to ensure we don’t give up our rivers. We would never give up our Beaches, why would we give up our rivers? Just like our beaches, the public right to use rivers is a critical component to economy of several communities in the state. River rights were critical to the settlement and development of this state. They form the fundamental corridors of travel that have helped this state prosper, and connect the state today.

There are a few people that would have personal gain if they could privatize the rivers of the state. I don’t think the 4 milliion people of Oregon would let that happen, but this issue is in such obscurity (it doesn’t get much press at all) and people seem so very unsure of the role of river rights to the economy of the state. It’s just critical that more people get active just like the entire state did in 1970 around the Oregon Beach Bill. Yes, it’s that important.

Please visit the CWO website to find out more about the 2010 Oregon legislative session and the bill that could affect river rights.

Common Waters of Oregon also is a “group” on Facebook and you can join there as well.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=31647572167&ref=ts

Category: Central Oregon, Coos Bay, Fly Fishing, General, Great Basin, Lakes, NEO, Oregon Country, Rivers, State of Jefferson | No Comments »
Tags: Beach Bill, Common Waters of Oregon, CWO, Keep Oregon Rivers Forever Free, Oregon Beach Bill, River Rights

Posted By Heather on January 17, 2010

It’s been awhile since I got out the maps and went for a wander. How long? Well, here’s a hint.

A gal can’t go fishing with long nails. Before loading up, those have to get trimmed off. So long pretty nails, hello practical and Ugg… ugly. Oh well.

So we wander west of Medford toward the coast. Unlike the rest of the state, where heading west is heading to rainforest, this venture into the Siskioyou’s is a completely different experience. .

For someone born and raised in Oregon where certain things are just innate geographic truths of rain fall and rainshadow from west to east, this place throws all that out the window. To head west to more open Ponderosa pine forest feels like a geographic house of mirrors trick.

Until this moment, I’ve been fairly jaded about experiencing Southern Oregon. I’ve seen spectacular and intriguing places all over the state. So far, southern Oregon has been adequate, but nothing has perked my interest and or given me a compulsion to see around the next curve in the valley, or what’s over the ridge. But this is so very different.

In this open Ponderosa and madrone forest, the rocks are amazing. Serpentine rock full of verdigris stripes and lilac inclusions makes every creek and pool a wonder of colors.

And even with all of these signs of an arid climate, there are places with thick lush moss. Once again, this contrast throws me off, this isn’t “normal.” Maybe I need to adjust my idea of normal?

And through this mountain range flows a gorgeous river. There are blobs of grass stuck up high in the willows, and the willows are still deep in water. It is a strong warning to the power of this river. There have been no major winter storms, and clearly this water rises and falls 10feet regularly.

Eric and I fished a few runs, and didn’t manage to find any water that looked perfectly fishy. It’s hard to know though if just like this landscape, if the river and the fish defy things we know.

One thing is for sure, I still know how to snag my fly in the willows. No matter where I go, I can count on that skill.

It’s been another fishless adventure, but full of intrigue and mystery. Any day on the water is a good day.

And how’s this… the first wildflower of the year!

Category: Fly Fishing, State of Jefferson | 2 Comments »
Tags: Serpentine, Siskiyou, Wildflower

Posted By Heather on January 3, 2010

Bought my license today and took it out to the Metolius to try it out. It’s a dud. $59 dud.

Fish were rising everywhere. I carefully slipped that new license into my pocket, rigged up with Parachute Adams to mimic the BWO and I headed for the river. I cast and cast at those fish rolling here and there.

So I switched the pocket my license was in and got a fish to actually rise to my fly. But that was it. So I kept switching pockets and nothing. So then I tried folding it another way and that didn’t help. Even tried a paper airplane fold and thought that would be a sure fire thing.

I’m thinking of experimenting with adding some colors and images to the license and see if that helps.

I’ve got the receipt. Possibly I should exchange it for a different one.

Category: Central Oregon | No Comments »
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