(NOTICE TO READERS: Headlines on this page quite often link to the rest of the story.)

The Local Fisherman Report for May 2004

The Columbia regs are tricky in places, but fish numbers and conditions are looking good. There was a smasher of a day on the Willamette River recently.  Coastal streams north and south look perky.  Your better fishing hounds sniff shad approaching. 

Use the headline above to reach the jump page and read about all this, various fishing tournaments, tackle and techniques, straight from the pen of Rick Martin of the LFN.  

Klineline Pond in Hazel Dell, Washington, gave up one of its finest for Tyler Farrell of La Center.  Farrell was fishing the southeast side of the popular lake with his family Saturday, May 1, 2004. 

Tyler hooked and landed the nice plump 20-inch Rainbow trout dangling a night crawler under a Wing-it bobber.  Sam Farrell, the 13-year-old's father, said he likes the new Wing-it bobber because it’s so easy to cast.  He said the new bobbers have greatly improved their success. 

“We bring the kids down to fish at Klineline Pond just about every weekend during the spring and summer,” Sam said.  “The kids have a ball and really enjoy the time that we spent here together.”

To reach Klineline Pond take I-5 to Hazel Dell.  Get on Hwy. 99 and turn west onto NE 117th.  The lake is located in Salmon Creek Park.   There is a fee to park there

    --- LFN

 ODFW grant keeps 147,000 acres open to public hunting

Wallow Country Chieftain -- A $44,905 grant from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's Access and Habitat Program awarded to Boise Cascade Company will be used to hire a wildlife technician during the 2004 hunting seasons as part of a cooperative management program that helps keep 147,000 acres of the company's timberlands in Wallowa County open to public hunting.

Dam contract may mean $22 million for habitat

WASHINGTON — Rivers and streams in the Deschutes Basin could receive more than $22 million for habitat and water conservation projects as part of a preliminary agreement between utilities, federal agencies and environmental groups over how to repair damage caused by the Pelton Round-Butte Dam complex.

Headline links to article.

First Metro Chinook

Jack Howell, of Newburg, Was This Year’s First Angler to Land a Spring Chinook in Oregon's Willamette River
 

The excitement has been building ever since the first of January, with every angler and sportsmen in  Portland awaiting news of the first spring salmon caught from the Willamette
 

Then it happened, at around 9:30 am, the morning of January 24th, an unidentified angler phoned The Oregon City Fisherman's Marine and spoke with Mike Boettcher, an employee there. The angler asked Mike if there was any sort of prize or award for catching the first Springer, and if so had any one clamed it yet.
 

Mike told the angler there was no prize, but if he brought the fish in to be weighed he and the fish would likely get their photo published in the Local Fisherman News, and possibly in the Oregonian. A few hours later the angler brought the fish in 
 

The angler Jack Howell had been fishing from a boat off Meldrum Bar. He was using a bone-white Wiggle Wart with a red belly fished off a diver. The 25-pound springer hit during the early morning hours. Howell said the fish put up a pretty good fight, making several runs, completely spooling his reel once. 
 

"After we got the salmon in the boat and realized it likely was the first of the season, I called Fisherman's Marine," he said. "It was the only fish we caught today, but it sure made the whole trip worthwhile." 
 

Rick L Martin
The Local Fisherman News
A & B Pro Guides
4524 NE 89th
Portland, OR 97220
503-255-5958
www.localfishermannews.com
www.abproguides.com

The Frankenstein Fly
by Joseph Hollak

Summer 2002 --  You may not have seen an uglier imitation of a natural bug in your life, and hopefully you never will.  In fact, the world’s leading entomologist would’ve had a hard time determining what I was trying to duplicate with this fly.  It was by far the sloppiest attempt at the traditional elk hair caddis pattern to date.  Purely an exercise in beginning fly tying, and one of the first to come off of my assembly line known as a vice.  It was a combination of ego, sentimentality and hopeful romantic fantasy that allowed it into my fly box. 

  Wouldn’t it be something if it worked and I actually landed a fish with my first attempt at fly tying?  A lost cause you would think while looking at it.  But, it felt good just have it sit in my fly box next to those store-bought, $2 apiece, professionally tied flies.

Headline links to article.

Surfing for Perch

Both sharks and perch swim under the shoreline rollers. The evidence cannot be challenged.  I have caught the perch. As to the sharks, there are photographs, and surfers have been attacked, right here in Oregon.  They say it has something to do with paddling along on a surf board.  From below, especially in a dark rubber wetsuit, you look like a seal when you do that. 

   But, seals do not stand among sharks in the surf, wearing old blue jeans and sneakers. Neither do seals smoke cigars.   Sharks do not like the flavor of old blue jeans, sneakers or cigars.  The proof of that is that in all my fifty years of fishing the surf I have never been eaten by a shark.  In fact, I've never even seen one, there.

Headline links to article

sailing science
Rope trick calculated

Mathematics is unpicking the secrets of a centuries-old nautical skill called splicing - joining two ropes together end to end by interweaving their strands  Chris Leech of rope and fibre consultants Technology Tension International has calculated 
the mechanical properties of three different kinds of splice, to understand what holds them together and what rope properties give the best result. 

For example, Leech finds that the angle at which strands are twisted around one another can have a critical influence on a splice's strength. He also estimates that one weave, called 'the Admiralty splice', can support up to 96% of the load carried by a single length of rope - even though the strands are bound together by nothing but friction. Indeed, friction holds the key to every splice, it seems. If fibres are too slippery, they will slide apart. On the other hand, friction is what ultimately breaks a rope, as strands rub, abrade and heat up every time it is stretched.

Headline links to article.

AN ANGLER’S NIGHTMARE
It was an opportunity to join a wilderness cruise on the west coast of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island…a jaunt organized by a Portland yachtsman seeking  photo coverage of his diving expedition to locate the bones of a British frigate sunk by Indians almost three centuries ago.

Headline links to article

Oregon Dominates Federal Protected Streams List

Sardines and anchovies cycle with climate   Pacific fish stocks may swing every 25 years.

Fishy tales hide facts
Anglers' exaggeration scuppers fish conservation.

Fungus-contaminated steelhead discovered by squirrel hunter

Float Tubing for Handicapped

Catch an afternoon wind  (sailboarding)
Coastal Clammers Find A Bonanza

No Hatcheries, No Salmon!
Headline links to article

Compleat Beginners Guide To Fishing With A Fly

Fly Tying:
Westfly
This is a page with a search function. Scroll down to "Feature articles on this topic," click a dot into the circle, then use the down-arrow to select "Fly Pattern/Tying."  Then scroll down and click on "Go." (Some good ones there.)

Places:
A couple of favorites:
Fishing Holes

From the Bend Bulletin:
Fishing the Madison

Fishing High Lakes  Here's a primer for angling these quiet, isolated places. Central Cascades Hike-in Lakes and Mt.  Hood Hike-ins

May fishing in northeast Oregon

Northeast Oregon streams closed in mid April to allow steelhead and salmon smolts to migrate outunmolested, so anglers are shifting their attention to still waters until streams reopen on May 22.

Wallowa Lake fishing for bluebacks begins this month and steadily improves during May as the kokanee follow the warming water temperature to the surface.

Excellent fishing continues for several weeks until July water temperatures gradually push the kokanee back into the depths of Wallowa Lake.

Fishing reports in late April indicate that kokanee still holding near the 90-foot depth, so the fish haven’t begun their ascent from winter holding water, but during the next three weeks that situation
will change and by mid May kokanee are more accessible at 30 feet or less.

Wallowa Lake holds the state record for kokanee with a fish weighing 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

In addition to kokanee, Wallowa Lake has a good rainbow trout fishery and these fish are readily available to anglers this month through late fall. Fly anglers can work midge and occasional caddis and mayfly hatches at the surface as well as subsurface with nymphs.

On May 22 streams reopen and fly anglers can expect good for rainbows during these
early-season conditions. Trout are feeding heavily on caddis, mayfly and stonefly nymphs and adults and are catchable anytime the water levels is stable or falling.

Northeast Oregon steelhead prospects 

A story this month in Field and Stream magazine reminds me how fortunate I am to live near such good steelhead fishing. 

The Snake River basin is listed at the 47th Best Place to fish in the world in the Field and Stream story and the BEST place in the world to catch a steelhead on a fly, beating out such notable destinations as the North Umpqua, and Kispiox rivers. While the F&S writer focused on the Idaho tributaries, perhaps because they have the larger B-run fish, the Oregon and
Washington tributaries are not second choices. 

Decades ago Ted Trueblood called the lower Grande Ronde River the best 100 yards of dry-fly steelhead fishing in the world.

The few paragraphs in F&S mirrors a story that I published in American Angler in March 2004 about the merits of steelhead fishing in the tributaries of the Snake River system.

Last fall we landed more than 100 steelhead and since Jan. 1 we have landed 40 more - a pretty decent season.

If you have a penchant for steelhead, start making plans now to visit this region this season for a great steelhead fishing opportunity.

                      -- Mac Huff

Eagle Cap Fishing Guides
Orvis Endorsed Fly Fishing Guide
P.O. Box 865
Joseph, Oregon 97846
(541) 432-9055
800-940-3688
E-mail: machuff@oregontrail.net

Creekside Fly Fishing's
Hatch Guide for the Lower Deschutes

Photo is a link to the Deschutes Wild and Scenic River Page

Fishing Prime Tribal Water
By Keith Ridler - The Bend Bulletin

WARM SPRINGS — In   some parts of  the Northwest, getting the rights to fish a high-quality stretch of private river for a day would cost a small fortune.

But for anglers interested in the six miles of the Deschutes between Dry Creek and Trout Creek on land belonging to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the price is $8 per day That's $1.33 per mile.

Headline links to article.

Angler Catches, Eats What Likely Would Have Been Washington’s New State Record Coho

On November 13, 2003 Chad Harvison, an angler new to the sport, stopped by The Tackle Box (360-687-4441), a small fishing tackle and bait shop in Battle Ground, Washington.  Harvison had just spent the better part of the day fishing the Naselle River in Naselle, Washington, where he hooked and landed several fish.  One of these was a very large Silver salmon.

  Being proud of his success and seeing it as bragging opportunity, he headed directly to a shop he knew of in Battle Ground, The Tackle Box managed by Jack Baxter.

Jack said when Harvison brought the huge Coho in he didn't think much of it because he initially assumed it was a Chinook, due to its size.  As Jack hung the fish from the shop’s scale (which he said is quite accurate) it registered a whopping 26 pounds.  Upon closer inspection Jack determined the fish to be an unusually large hatchery raised Coho salmon. 

Jack snapped a quick photo and Harvison then carried the Coho back to his vehicle and headed home to prepare the fish for dinner. 

Little did both men know, the Coho Harvison and his family were about to eat was a new Washington state freshwater record.  This outshined the current record of  25 pounds .27 ounces, by nearly a pound. 

Oregon’s current record for Coho salmon is 25 pounds 5.25 ounces. The world record for freshwater Coho salmon is 33 pounds 4 ounces.

Rick L Martin
The Local Fisherman News
A & B Pro Guides
4524 NE 89th
Portland, OR 97220
503-255-5958
www.localfishermannews.com
www.abproguides.com

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