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