A tale of the Pacific Crest Trail... and a Brookie

It must be hard, married to a steelhead junky. Too much time passes between fishing sessions and we become, well.. wierd. Wandering the house saying obscure cryptic phrases... bet the waters good, counts are high... my lines gonna be all springy if I don't stretch it soon, subtle hints, hidden suggestions.. muted begging.. let me fish.. I NEED to fish... get some. So it was no suprise that out of fear for myself, her and my daughter that Caron suggested I find a friend and go fishing.. a flurry of emails and texts that could dump AOL flew out in the next ten minutes, 5 minutes later.. a bite, Eggs ( Erin, but arent fishing nicknames so much more interesting ) messaged back, "whats the plan?" simple, swingin for the steel on the Kalama or North Umpqua.. Im open to both, Eggs obviously understanding my need responded with " hey why don't we hike two and a half miles at 6500 feet to a puddle and fish for 4 inch brookies on the hottest day of the year" I stared at the message, sure, and then we could stop at my sisters house and have her read all the notes from her high school year books.. I waited several hours to respond, becouse strangely enough.. the thought of some stillwater spoke to me. Now I believe with all my heart that it is Eggs personal mission to wake up the 5wt fisherman that sleeps in my soul.. and he's decent at it. So I went downstairs and rolled a 4 wt around in my hand for a bit and responded back, shall we make it 5 a.m? it was a rodger on that and the game was set. As the day passed I fell further and further behind in preperations, life happened and I found myself not even ready to leave yet, I texted Eggs.. lets make it 4 and im not even gonna sleep.. another rodger. I left the house at 12 a.m, gas, and a 5 hour energy, chased by an Irish cream mocha out of the gut bomb machine I made the meeting location 2.5 hours later, ready for a couple hours of in the truck sleep. I lay back and closed my eyes only to be harrased moments later my some p.o.s in a white jeep... Eggs, he decided not to sleep either. So here we are in a gas station parking lot at 2:45 in the morning, almost 3 hours untill sunrise and a half hour away from the trailhead, we decided to get started anyway. We arrived at the trailhead on Santiam pass at around 3:15, the kick off point of our trek, I had already been up 20 hours.

I must admit with a little Boy Scout shame that the map we used was on Egg's android phone.. I guess its that age and it was handy. We hiked with the speed of men on the path of discovery.. adventure, today had to be good after all shortly after getting on the highway I had run a skunk staight to the devil with my truck.. smelled it all the way to Salem, the skunk was handled.. 2 in the chest, 1 in the head.. fishings gonna be hot! The trail to the lake winds through the B and B complex burn, and as you can imagine its dusty, as a mater of fact im still tasting it as I write.

We arrived at the lake in the dark and started inflating the tubes and stringing the rods chatting about what first light would bring. Eggs was starting out with a dry, I decided to start with a full sink and a crystal bugger, this would prove to be a mistake.. rusty trout fisherman I am. Within half an hour Eggs had raised a 6-7 inch fish and put the first mark on the game card, and then 3 more, I know this becouse each fish he would raise his hand with the appropriate number of fingers raised. My C B had rewarded me with simply 1 half hearted bump.

Two hours later I kicked to shore, relieved myself and went to the bull pen.. floater and dry's.. its what they want. I imediatly missed 3 fish on a BWO and then it got slow for another hour. the water was crystal clear with visibility to about 20 feet, so I added 2 feet of 7x fluoro greased it with floatant and tied on a different BWO pattern... and Crack! first ( and only ) fish of the day. A nice fish aswell.

It was time to go, I paddled back to the shore and left Eggs eating chicken as I headed for my truck. Now at 3 a.m my waders were comfortable for the hike, it was now 93 degrees in a forest fire burn, relentless. The walk out felt like a sentence, the green mile.. or should I say charred kinda green mile. It took me an hour and ten minutes to make it to the truck where I promptly downed a whole 93 degree gatorade that had been lying on the dash all day... I will never drink a purple gatorade again.. but it was wet. All in all Eggs kicked my ass 8 to 1... and I enjoyed every minute. By the time I arrived home I had been up for 38 hours.. and then made my family dinner, fishing can be tough business. Thanks Erin for dragging me up to altitude and schooling me, I needed it- oh, and Erin...my fish was the biggest,its qaulity.. not qaunity, right? - Tight lines-

One of the greatest posts ive seen..... family

Carp on the Fly: The John Day: It doesn't take much to make a memory when you are blessed with two kids like mine. All you need is time together, and wonderful things hap...

Another direction

Tonite I read a post on another blog that really hit home for me, it covered the basic feeling of not feeling the need to blog. To be honest I have tons of material and photos from the last two months but just havent formed or molded them into a post, time, the lack of it, or acomplishing other goals has caused me to neglect this blog. Ive recieved a few emails in the last couple weeks asking if everything is ok.. thank you for your concern, truth be told I have been focusing on another project that is closer to my heart... a book, for me, as im not sure who would wish to read it otherwise, the problem is I am a poor writer and frankly under educated for the task I have undertaken... great stories about steelhead, friends, bears and beer.. easy right? it is hard to put what is in my mind down on paper in the same fashion that the stories are in my heart. Im seeking higher education for this problem. I promise to write more in the near futer- Good fishin

Rogue Angels: Casting For Conservation

Rogue Angels: Casting For Conservation Please help fight for the fish... or do we have to ruin everthing?

940 Saturdays

There is a river in Idaho's panhandle where I first cast a fly, It seems like a lifetime ago and I suppose in many ways it was. Over the years my son Mat has often mentioned going up to the St Joe and fishing the very run where the 10 year old me first cut his teeth and became enchanted by the art of standing in a stream waving a stick. Time passes, closer rivers, the allure of chrome brite steelhead, finances.. all stood in as reasons to not go. Many times we fished close, bear hunted along it.. or simply disscussed it, made plans..and watched them fall apart. In May Mat turned 18, ending his career as my little boy.. follower.. he cut his own trail to the Joe and tangled with its famed Cutthroat, and won. He text messaged me some photos.. and my heart jumped with exitement, then sunk with saddness,of all the fishing days ive missed in my life, Ive never regreted missing missing one more than yesterday, I let 940 saturdays vanish to poor excuses, Someday I will take his son there.. if he has a son... I won't make the same mistake twice- Good Job Mat ( there are no photos of fish, it was near 90 degrees and he released them as quickly as possible )

The Scott Fiberhammer and Naha River Alaskan steel

The plan was simple, portage my kayak a qaurter of a mile to the inside bank of the large 2 mile saltchuck (lagoon) that procceeds the mouth of the Naha, go to bed early, jump out of bed at 4 a.m and cork the whole river before the rest of the guys even mugged up, I could picture it in my mind.. them, all sitting around drinking coffee waiting for the 20 degree air tempature to warm with the sun, joking and laughing, speculating on the caliber of fishing that awaited them, while I hit my fourth or fifth run or slot.. racking up numbers and putting my new Scott Fiberhammer through the strokes, feeling it out and getting to know it better. My plan was going pretty good, Kayak deployed to chosen cache, bed early, out of bed at 4, then I stepped out of the door and was instantly crushed by the cold air that filled my lungs like a sucker-punch... wow, ALOT colder than I had anticipated, back inside and turned on the coffee, plans were made to be broken, this is how great days often start. At the first sign of dawn I made my way the short distance to my Kayak and was not to suprised to find a thin layer of ice on the lagoon, as I paddled in the pre-dawn darkness the ice broke as the yak cruised through the water giving the whole enviroment an edgy erie feel ( there's no such thing as lake monsters... right? ) A short time later I found myself at the mouth of the Naha and started paddling up hoping to make it at least half a mile before the current stopped me. The river was much lower than I had expected it to be, as was the snowpack, my snow shoes would not be required.. relief. Stowing my kayak on the bank of the lower river I set up my new Scott Fiberhammer, shouldered my pack and quickly headed up for the first slot I had dreamed of all winter. After tying on a sexy black steelhead muddler I made my first cast, as the muddler slid past a submerged log I stalled the fly and then dropped a loop rolling it along the bottom at the root ball.. the four foot long flash of a fish caused an aggressive false hook-set that landed my fly in the trees behind me..Damn! Kneeling in a foot of water I quickly switched to a purple muddler and swung at it again.. stall...drop.. roll, fish on! the four foot long fish that had resided only moments before under the root ball had shrunk down to an 18" rainbow.. happens to me all the time, must be some strange physical ability for steelhead to shrink themselves after being spooked.. becouse it sure seems the flash of every steelhead is four feet long... bank shrinkage I guess. I tried the slot for a few more minutes before wanderlust got the best of me and I continued on to the next slot. As I walked through the fog streaked river popping the ice out of my guides with my fingertips the radio came alive " boat to scout " I smiled, no way.. radio silence.. " Bradley.. answer the F****** radio" oh, gonna talk dirty to me now.. buy me dinner first I snickered " ok, well.. do we need snowshoes? " I keyed the mic.. "negative" The radio went silent for a moment.. " alright, guess we will see you up there" doubt it.. I broke into a brisk walk.. the river is mine. I skipped the next four or five runs and slots to be a good sport and headed for my go to spot, a wide 3'deep turn in the river where a rock garden transitions into swing water and then a heavy tailout with a small falls below it.. the resting run, the steel stack in the heavier water on the far side, easy swing and very little garbage to lose flies and fish on. The heavier fish in the 34-38 inch range prefere the deep notch on the tail end of the heavy water, a flat rock rests on the bottom there and the fish love to lay on top of it. I wanted the Fiberhammers first steelhead to be a trophy fish, in Alaska a steelhead is 36" before the state considers it a trophy fish.. only 8% of Alaskas steelhead reach this size.. I was swinging for the fence. I sat and stared at my flybox... 98% black flies, with a few Morish flies and a couple Black and Royal blue muddlers.. South East Alaska steelhead love blue, and the sun was now out.. I,ll give em a little color, and on went the two toned muddler. Five casts in I was starting to have my doubts, "what gives?" and what is that annoying thunk in my cast? I felt all of my guides but the icing conditions had passed with the morning sun and no fresh ice was apparent. I ran my fingers down the shooting head of my Royal Wulff Ambush line, 10 feet into the head my line was perfectly broke in the plastic coating and only the braided core held my line together " WHAT THE F.......?" I can't belive it.. a two month old line.. broken..thank God im only 300 miles away from a fly shop.. but don't worry, all was not lost, instead of 4 miles of 20 lb backing I have 30 yards of backing and then carry a Rio steelhead and atlantic salmon wf7f as my backing, so all I had to do was pull the Royal Wulff off, and put the spare tire line on the outside and away I went ( a special thanks to Aaron Shook for that trick ) I switched to a Morish Trailer Trash and still nothing.. this run has never failed me.. something is wrong. I looked up into the rock garden at a large boulder that has never been there before, behind it some deep slower water in the otherwise turbid rock garden. Walking up I put the two toned muddler back on and sent her thru, my line vortexed and spun, stopping and then moving, impossible to read... and then bam! fish o... off, crap, just not getting the hook set I needed, the fiberhammer takes amuch more aggresive hook-set than any rod I have fished before.... to be continued

Cold Steel

long cast, uphill mend and slack... the line moves, hook-set the black muddler burys, the hook sets.. the fight is on, glass bends into the cork.. me and it.. alone in a snow covered wilderness.. we greet, photo.. and im alone once again, God and the Fiberhammer have been good to me. 56 steel since the first cast in April.. I adore my new friend.. best money ive ever spent.