How to catch fish

Blood in the boat. Finally. My husband caught his first springer of the season. It is late, the run scarcely noticeable, fish counts far less than half what they should be. I say this knowing very little about it. I'm repeating what I hear at the boat launch, around the lunch room, from boat to boat as we troll the Willamette. It is an education. Apparently, the fish counters look back 6 years to determine what the run will look like. They had projected a strong run, but it has not panned out. Perhaps because of the low rainfall this winter. But we did get a nice one and had salmon sauteed in butter for dinner. Catching the fish is fun, killing it-- not so much. Slippery little devils. We catch them on frozen green label herring (blue label are bigger males and don't work as well). Greg, the fishing god from Scappoose, says to make sure the herring don't have white eyes, which, to me, a neophyte, makes absolutely no sense because you cut the heads off anyway. K ties three-hook mooching rigs with a corkie between the second and third hooks. See?? Its another language. Me? I just like to ride in the boat. Depends on the depth of the water how you actually fish. If we're in 15-22 feet, we hold the poles and bounce along the bottom, just keeping the gear out of the muck. If the water is deeper, apparently the fish hang out at about 15 feet depth and we stick the poles in pole holders and wait for the bite. (a great invention, the pole holder. second to the coffee cup holder.) It didn't make any sense to me at first... but I guess its about vision. If they can see the bottom (consider water turbidity, sun out, and depth) they go for the food on the bottom. If its deep and they can't see down there, they hang out in the well-lit water down to about 15 feet. How do they figure that out? Not the fish, the fishermen?? It does make perfectly good sense.

But more about coffee cup holders... I got up as usual at the butt-crack of dawn and made a huge thermos of coffee. Somehow it was shattered on the way out, and we had no coffee all day. ALL DAY. I am so hooked.

And about boat ramps (you don't care about all of this, do you?) we headed out to the Willamette Park Ramp which is out across the Sellwood Bridge, and it was full. No room at the Inn. So we drove down-river (which is hard for me to figure out... which way is up??) to Swan Island and put in there. It was industrial fishing. Not the scenic route by any means. But I like the seedy underbelly of industry. I find beauty in rust and rotten pilings. Boat hulls in dry dock like carcasses in the wasteland. The bone yard. We fished alongside barges and tugs, rolled in their wakes as they blew past us. The Mock's Landing boat ramp is not as pristine as the other one.... kind of like the difference between NE Portland and Sellwood. I'll just say this: I measure all locations by the bathroom. I am diabetic and I pee more than you do, I'll bet. So my travels, while circular, are many, and the facilities, compared to others were sub-standard. I can pee on command in a snowstorm. I can pee standing up, almost. But this was nasty. I peed, but bathed shortly after. You get out of a boat, you gotta go. The bad part was that I was wearing overalls. My twenty pound Carhartts. You have to watch where the suspenders land in nasty outhouses. My husband, handily equipped as men are, peed in a baggie in the boat. The worst accomodations I've ever seen were in Bridge, Oregon behind the general store on Hwy. 42. I would not pee there. No Way. Memorably bad. I found a tree. My favorite? Across the street from the old Copper Store before the Army Corps. levelled it and built Applegate Lake. I have a poem about it somewhere. Ah, here it is:

Copper

the lake
was not always there
was a river
was warm
was too low to swim in after August
but we did anyway
like bath water

the dam holds it all back now
great cupped hands that
save it up and let it go
when the summer comes
keeps the river cold

there’s a town under the lake
Copper
was a town
not much to look at
just Guy’s store and some houses
a two-seater outhouse across the road
diamond shaped notches carved in thick pine boards
where you could piss with a friend
on the way home from swimming
sunburned and drunk
happy
to know the secret places
of deep green water.


Okay, well, that's the story of my life: The Ranking of Substandard Pissers in Oregon, by someone.