The last day of trout season '08

This morning started dark and damp. I woke up a couple of times during the night with my old broken ribs aching, knew it was going to be a damp day. Leaving home on my bus route -6:40 a.m.- it was very dark and before I got to town there were a few raindrop on the windshield. Temperature was rather mild at 50º, but it felt like it was not going to be a great day to go trout fishing (would be a perfect day for steelhead fishing). Just not what I had hoped for this last day of trout season 2008.

Reflecting on Wednesday I had a most beautiful afternoon of trout fishing, warm, sunshine, the world was golden. But since I had only brought home two redband/rainbow trout, I needed to go back out this afternoon and catch a couple more trout to make a nice dinner for Kittee and I.

When I got home from my morning bus route, everything was gray, wet and the wind was blowing the golden leaves out of the Maples in front of the house. I could tell the weather was getting worse, and I was beginning to not look forward to fishing for the fish we needed for dinner. But by late morning there was a patch of blue across the sky, and a bit later there was sunshine around the area, my spirit for going fishing was lifted. As the day progressed it was a pleasant fall day with a few passing showers and the temperatures went into the 70's.

This morning the first pickup on my bus route did not make it to the bus, so again I had a feeling that I would be able to get home early to get in that extra little bit of late afternoon fishing.

Kittee was home today and mid-day I spent working with Rusty and around the house. The other day I sold the old buckboard wagon that had been sitting in our garage for the past few years, and today the fella that bought it came to pick it up. I spent most of the morning thereafter cleaning out/ straightening up the garage so we could park Kittee's Subie under cover. By the time I got that finished, parked her car in the garage, the skies were mostly clear and it was quite warm. A perfect autumn afternoon, and it was beginning to look like a great day to go fishing.

I went to do my afternoon bus route and the kids that get off at the last two drops did not show up (about 20 minutes driving time) now adding to my p.m. fishing time. I hurried home did a couple of things around the house, prepared some mashed pumpkin and cole slaw to go with trout for dinner, then geared up and headed for the river.

Again it was off and on passing showers for the afternoon, but mostly sunny. Kittee and I discussed the effect this beautiful weather should have on my afternoon fishing. Reaching the river and looking upriver towards the forks, I saw a bright rainbow...
and hoped that I could get a photo of the trees in gold to go with the rainbow in view but the sun was behind clouds and I had to get in the river instead of waiting for the sun to add flash the Cottonwood trees.

Now today I gambled that I could fish the same waters that I had fished on Wednesday, and catch the two trout I need to make a nice dinner for tonight. I jumped into the river and started fishing hard and steady... this was much like work ;>) it really was (wading river current, climbing over river boulders, etc.), but someone has to do it. I fished where I had been catching trout every time I had gone fishing this season, but today I found nothing more.
I did notice a rig, the same one a few times parked below Joe West Bridge a couple of weeks ago, and now I think that guy was fishing through McKuster Ranch waters and killing trout.
Anyway I came up behind the second cross vein boulder structure and fished the pool there very hard expecting to catch the 3 or 4 fish I had C&R there on Wednesday. I just got one hookup there today and that turned out to be a short rodeo... fish on--fish off. Having worked this area hard and fast I proceeded to head upriver working my Copper John nymph behind every large rock and through every water trough in the river. Again and again, no trout was found; now I am sure someone has been in these waters and taking the trout I had been Catching & Releasing all summer.

The consolation I did have through this lull of not catching any fish was the sunset view of the bluff as I was standing in the river. Beautiful earth tones, and a river runs through it.

Kittee and I feel that we are so very fortunate to have a place like this to call our home.

After taking the above picture, the sun had left the water and there was no trout in my creel to add to dinner, so I begin to fish harder still. Fly line and fly were working well, smooth casting, no hangups, but there was no fish action where I had always found them. I continued fishing upriver until another showering cloud came over, making things kind of dark and gray and almost enough to make me call it a day... done.
Well there I was, with one more pool/run to fish before too dark to fish, and nothing to show for my afternoon's effort. Wednesday as I finished fishing I studied a large boulder in the middle of the river in this pool's tailout and thought that there should always be a fish holding around that rock, but I had never found one there in the past 4-5 years. I was going to fish that pool and tailout before calling it a day. As I came up on the pool it was getting darker and a few more raindrops were falling on the water and me. I made a dozen cast up and down this stretch of water to find no trout. OK, this the last day of trout season '08 was just about done. Just a couple more cast and I was heading home.
To make a long story short I finished the day and the 2008 trout season without a redband/ rainbow to show for this day's effort. It was still a great day to be working/wading upriver, even though my gamble of fishing over the same waters I had fished on Wednesday did not pan out.
Maybe I should have started where I left off Wednesday evening and fished the upper ¼ mile of McKuster Ranch waters, which I was thinking about doing most of today, but just didn't play my cards that way. Oh well now there is next year, and I will be interested to see how the riverbed changes over winter to re-create fishing for the '09 trout season.

I don't think that I have ever mentioned that there is a cave in the bottom of the bluff, that sits about 3 feet above water level. Every time I pass that cave after an evening's fishing and it is nearly dark, I can feel the hair on the back of my neck raise as there is no telling what creature(s) might live in, or come out of there. There is kind of a beaten path from the cave to the water's edge. Spooky? It's Halloween.

OH yeah, maybe before I finish the blog this evening I should mention that even though I did not catch any trout this afternoon/evening, I did hook into a pretty nice char.
On the ole 1wt. rod system the 19" Dolly Varden gave me a pretty good fight. Knowing by law I cannot remove this fish from the water it's caught in, I pulled it up into some slow moving water next to the bank and at that point it broke off my line. This seems to happen many times when trying to "land" a fish on wet ground.
This was the first Dolly Varden "Bull Trout" that I have caught in McKuster Ranch waters in over 5 years. It was back in 0-2, when ODFW fish biologist Tim Bailey and I used to fish for Dolly Varden to place tracking radios in those fish over 17".

This is how I ended the 2008 trout season with my last cast of the day.

Now don't you know... as I waded back down the river, heading for the house, going past the cave at the bottom of the bluff something was rustling the leaves in the bushes on that side of the river. This was in the dim light of early evening; this is Halloween in Northeast Oregon!!
Bob Francis and I are still contemplating the footprints we found in the snow at mile high Shady Camp on the upper Lostine River some years ago. What on earth made those tracks in the snow??? What on earth lives in that Pacific Northwest forest??? A little spooky.

Hope you got in a few rounds of Cat Bowling today, I did.

a day in the life --- Dale

On Golden River

Started this day about 5:00 a.m., thinking of fishing in the backyard, which kept me smiling through most of my morning bus route. It was to be an early afternoon release -Wednesday- from our Milton-Freewater School System, so this meant that I should be home no later than 3:30. A good time to gear-up and jump into the river running through the backyard.

On my morning route the first student did not get on The Double Deuce, so this put a smile on my face to start the day as it meant, most likely I would not have to run the full extent of the afternoon route and that would let me get home a bit earlier than usual. Looked like it was going to be a great afternoon to go fishing!!!

To make a long story short, the day went very smoothly and when I got to school for my p.m. run there was the student that lives at the end of the route ready to load the bus. Oh well, it only cost 20 minutes more of the day to deliver this one.After finishing my p.m. route I got home, swept The Double Deuce, grabbed a snack, and geared up to go fishing.

Oh it was a beautiful autumn afternoon. I probably got into the river a little after 4:00 and found it to be quite golden...
Stepping into the middle of the river to take the picture above, and I began to think of my ole Carolina fishing buddies, wondering what they were doing this afternoon. I proceed to fish below the rock vein structure and found no hookups. I move around to the upriver side of the structure and fished along the right side of the river and found no action for the first 30 yards. Then with a nice cast upriver I got hit. On my little 1 wt. the fish's first run was like a steelhead run, almost out of control. I was using a Copper John nymph so the fish stayed deep and ran hard. There was several nice rips of fly line through the water leaving the rod tip before I saw what was on the other end...


It was a nice redband, played hard against the old 1wt. system. We both had lots of fun.
After this little battle I proceeded to move upriver to the next pool behind the boulder vein to see what was holding in this area.

Very interesting how the river has redesigned itself since the placement of these structures last year. Here in years past the river was very flat bottom and there was no fish holding water. Now behind the boulder structure the pool is about 2-3 feet deep and plenty of room of fish to hangout. Last year on the left side of the river, upriver of this boulder structure it was over 3' deep, now this hole has filled in with river rocks. Just interesting to watch the dynamics of the river hydrology at work.
Anyway, fishing below this boulder structure I hooked into a number of 6"-7"-8" redbands and ended up keeping the largest, still hoping to hookup to another 11-12 incher to join me for dinner.

To finish the day I ended up fishing about a ¼ mile of the lower McKuster Ranch waters, with no further hookups for the day. Water temperature today was 43ºF and the air temperature was in the lower 60's with plenty of sunshine. As the sun set this evening the air turned quite cool, my toes were beginning to get cold, and I was getting pretty tired from my 5:00 a.m. wake up. I turned around and headed home to feed horse.

2008 trout season closes on Friday at sunset, so I am planing to get in one more afternoon of fishing this year. I need a couple more fish now to go with the ones I invited today to join us for dinner on Friday. This is the only time of the year that I kill wild trout; after season closes I feel that I will never see them again if I don't invite them for dinner.

a day in the life --- Dale

October's ranch life

I have had a few inquiries as to where my blogging has gone. Looking back I see it has been awhile since I have posted any of the comings and goings of Kittee and myself. This absence has been due to my having a cold, not getting to go fishing, and not getting on horseback for our usual beautiful autumn rides. Most of our activities are done around the ranch in October, but this year has been slack. Over the past few years we rarely travel more than 5-10 miles from home in October and most of that travel is on horseback except going to/from work.

It was late in September that the October Caddis begin flying all around the ranch. This got me pretty excited about jumping into the river and spending much of October frothing the waters with a #10 Orange Stimulator to play with my share of backyard trout. As I was waiting for the full moon to come and go to start my fishing revisited; this is when I came down with a bad head-cold and spend most of my time just resting in bed/sunshine, and taking cold meds and vitamins.

Well, all is coming back together and today Kittee and I made our first ride in quite awhile up Cashe Hollow Road to see the red sumac blended with shades of gold and fading greens.
With heavy frost and freeze of last weekend most of the colors going up the hill are now on the wane. But today's weather and colors made a most enjoyable ride with Misty and Nugget.

Here at the house we are just getting into our autumn color as the Sugar Maples are beginning to turn red and gold, the English Walnut tree next to the house lost most of its leaves last weekend with the freeze and some wind. Plenty of walnuts coming off this year, even though this is the off year for nut production.

Late this afternoon Kittee and I enjoyed the sun's lighting as it shown across the river bluff. As the sun is moving further south for the season there is more late p.m. lighting on the bluff and it shows nice earthly color textures/tones across the rock face.

Today we finished doing some repair work on the barn in preparation for winter and bringing the herd into the barnyard paddock area. We usually put the gelding and mare herds back together for the winter sometime in November as it appears the snow is going to blow.

Today we separated Rosey and Shaiela to wean Rosey as it also appears that Shaiela has contracted "Pigeon Fever". It was about two weeks ago that I brought Rusty into his keep, when he was acting mopy and had a whelp on his chest, day before yesterday we noticed that Derby appears to be infected with the virus with swelling on his sheath. All of these guys are now isolated, and we hope it doesn't spread to others. Talking with horsey folks in the area, "Pigeon Fever" appears to be running rampant in our area this autumn. Bummer.
Our equine vet Dr. Doug Corey asked us last year if we had seen it in our herd, we told him that we never had, he told us then of its growing frequency in the lower Walla Walla River Valley. This year it appears to be all over our valley.

It was about 10 days ago we got a new chestnut Arabian mare to come to the ranch from Idaho. Her owner was on her way to moving to Portland and got here around 10 p.m. that evening. We made a quick offload into the pasture during a pouring rain storm (the first we had had in months), signed off on her boarding contract, and Kim was off to Portland in less than an hour. Said she would be back in the spring as she was heading for a new job, and would be out-of-the country for awhile. Our new girl's name is Moonie, registered AHA and this weekend we blended her into the rest of the mare herd. All went quite well and again this was a non-event as all the horses meet the new arrival and they begin to run the pasture together. It is beginning to look like an Arabian horse ranch around here, but we have a tendency to love and care for them all... Arabian, Appy, Paint, Quarter and Quarab. It is a beautiful sight to lookout across the pastures and see a herd of horse (many colors) standing around.

With Shaiela being separated from the mare herd, now Goldie is "Ms. Alphamare". Rosey seems to be quite happy to buddy up with the girls from Arizona (Raji and Sunny) that are one and two year olds... making a great little sub-herd for Rosey to bond and play with.

Last weekend as I was getting past the cold I had, we had a most pleasant Sunday afternoon/evening with some new found friends from Walla Walla. Our friends Ed and Bill, introduce us via the Internet/email to a couple settling into Walla Walla. They are Dennis and Sharon and they are developing a small farm operation with lots of critter and a large blueberry patch. We are looking forward to spending more time with these folks as our busy schedules may allow.

This next week I will be making two trips to Pendleton, one with the Double Deuce for a school ball game, and the other to visit the monthly fly fishing club meeting. I am now working on an Internet slide show to attach to our ranch website and hope to upload some photos while in Pendleton on Wednesday, if this works well I shall let you know of the progress. Other than that, this week I hope to get in some afternoon trout fishing and maybe do a little horseback riding to make up for the lost time of the past two/three weeks of not. Kittee and I hope to be riding next Friday - Saturday - Sunday if this beautiful October weather holds steady for us. This is our favorite time of year to be sitting in the saddle in wide open spaces.

Happy Trails,
a week in the life --- Dale