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Salmon and Steelhead Fishing on the Klickitat River

Oct 182012

The thing about fishing is that sometimes you catch them, sometimes you don’t. We rarely get skunked, but when you are fishing for big fish, many times you either get something big, or you get nothing. So far this season, the success rate for catching the big trophy steelhead and salmon has been basically zero, but that all changed today. The low water levels and unseasonably warm weather had kind of shut down the fishing, the fish just didn’t seem interested in biting. After a couple days of rain, which usually gets the salmon and steelhead moving upstream because they know winter is coming, we were hoping for better luck on our favorite big game Columbia River tributary; the Klickitat River.
When we got to one of our favorite fishing holes, we were a little disappointed to see that the river water was still clouded with silt from the recent rain. Normally, that is not a good thing. We waded out and started fly fishing with our favorite Klickitat River flies. After swinging our trusty flies and running a few nymphs through the hole, it was pretty clear the fish were not going for the “river runs through it” action, so I figured I would throw some shiny stuff at them. The only other fishing rig I had with me was an 8lb. test setup that I normally used for smallmouth bass, but I clipped on a 1/4 ounce Thomas Bouyant gold spoon and threw it out there. A couple casts and I got a big hit. I set the hook and started reeling, rod tip high. I knew right away that it was a big fish. It surfaced briefly, confirming it was a good one and headed for the bottom. I walked towards the fish and kept reeling, but with the drag set for 8lb. test line, more line was going out than coming in. Back and forth, I finally got the fish onto the bank, as I did, the hook broke off in the fish’s mouth.
Sure enough, it was a very nice fish. Not the steelhead I’d been trying for, but a nice native Chinook salmon, probably a female Spring Chinook

The fish went about fifteen pounds or so, because I thought it was a female on the way to spawn, I figured it was good fishing karma to take a few photos and put her back in the river

A great day of fishing. Caught a big one on really light tackle, got the photo to prove it’s not a fish story and there is a female salmon swimming up the Klickitat river to spawn. Think I’ll have a beer.

Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day 2012

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Oct 062012

October 6, 2012 was Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day, so along with Northwest Trail Alliance and Just Fruit, we did just that on a beautiful, crisp early fall day at Stub Stewart State Park near Buxton, Oregon.
We got there about 8:30AM and got the skills course, registration table and Just Fruit stand set up straightaway.

Bike Gallery was there with a full fleet of demo bikes and technical support

Joe Rykowski from NWTA set up a great skills course for the kids to test their skills and they all had a great time

Don from Just Fruit got everybody fueled up for more riding

After a little work on the skills course, Joe got everybody out on the Stub Stewart mountain bike trails

After the trail ride, the cool folks from Bike Gallery had burgers and hot dogs for the hungry riders and there was a mountain bike video to watch

The Lumberyard indoor bike park was there, looks like they might have a future customer

How’s this for a mountain biker’s ride?

A great day for the kids and not bad for the volunteers either.

Fly Fishing on the Klickitat River

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Oct 042012

Another day fly fishing for the elusive Klickitat River steelhead today. It was a beautiful morning, starting to get a little chilly; in the low forties to start out. Wading in a glacial ice melt river adds to the chilliness. October and November are the best months for fishing here so you have to handle the conditions if you want to catch fish.
I get in the river before first light, so a good strategy at this time of the day is to swing flies; cast out into the river and let the fly “swing” across the river downstream of you. This morning I started out with a Klickitat favorite; a purple and black fly on sinking fly line, 12lb. test tapered leader and 12lb. test fluorocarbon tippet. I was swinging my fly down this section of river

I hate to say “the big one got away”, but today it was true. On the end of a swing, I started pulling line back. The line stopped and I thought I had a snag when I felt the telltale tugs of a steelhead shaking his head. I yanked on the rod and a nice sized fish started splashing around. I could tell by the bend in the rod that it was a nice fish, but after about thirty seconds, there was one last tug and the fish was gone. Kind of bummed, but I’ve only been fly fishing on the Klickitat a couple times so I can write it off as part of the learning curve. At least I know my gear is working and the fish are there.
Too windy for the Columbia again tomorrow so I’m back on the Klickitat. I’m going to get one of those steelhead!

Fly Fishing for Steelhead on the Klickitat River

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Sep 222012

It’s the time of year when the salmon and steelhead run up the tributaries of the Columbia River making it one of the best places for fly fishing in the United States. It’s been a long time since I’d done any fly fishing and was hoping I could get back in the swing of things so I could catch one of these elusive steelhead or maybe even a King salmon. Got the 9′, 8 weight rod out of the garage and checked my supply of flies to use on the Klickitat steelhead.

Got to get up early so you can be on the water by the time it gets light. Most experienced fly fishermen in this area will be at the fishing hole in the dark, walking through the bushes and wading through the water with only the light from a headlamp. As soon as you can see where you are casting, the first cast of the day goes out.

Steelhead are not easy to catch by any means, the local nickname for them is “the fish of a thousand casts”. Being a little rusty on my fly fishing technique, it may take me all thousand casts to get one. I had one hit on the first day out but didn’t manage to hook the fish, I’m hoping to improve the next time out.

The Klickitat is a classic fly fishing river; scenic, great fishing and this time of year the weather is beautiful.

We’ll be back out there soon looking for that first trophy steelhead of the season.

2012 Pear Harvest in Hood River

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Sep 182012

Summer is drawing to a close here in the Columbia River Gorge, that means it’s time to harvest the fruit that grows throughout the Hood River Valley. The fruit trees are full of fruit, the nights are getting cool with hot days and the air is full of smoke from nearby forest fires. The orchards come to life with the tractors distributing the empty fruit bins throughout the rows of trees.

The golden Bartlett and red D’Anjou pears are ripe and ready to pick.

The sun was barely over the hills when the ladders were out and the workers started picking the pears.

From dawn until dusk, the workers went from tree to tree picking the fruit

Quickly, the pears came off the trees and into the waiting fruit bins

When the bins are full, a tractor comes by, picks them up and takes them to a collection point where they are loaded on trucks and taken to a sorting and processing facility.

In a day or two, the trees are bare and the bins are full and on the way to the produce sections of supermarkets around the world.

All quiet around the orchard now.

Back To The Blog

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Sep 172012

Been out of town for awhile and have been busy since getting back so the blog was temporarily without any new material. That will change in the next few days; plenty going on and lots of photos and commentary will be uploaded to make up for past few weeks. We’ve been out making photos and videos, just haven’t had the time to process and upload them.
I took a trip back to where I grew up in Northeast Ohio to visit my family and help with some chores that needed to be done. There was time to do a little driving around and checking out the local sights.
This is Daniels Park on the Chagrin River. There used to be a dam here where we used to fish with our Dad when we were young, impatient fisherboys. They removed the dam so salmon and steelhead can swim upstream. There were no fish like that when we were kids, only catfish, suckers, smallmouth and rock bass.

The Chagrin River is low at this time of year, but in a month or two, the steelhead will be returning for the winter and the fishing will be good.

Of course we want to get out on Lake Erie as much as we can to get the freezer stocked up with tasty yellow perch, so every morning my Dad and I would head down to Sims Park to check the conditions. Lake Erie is shallow and it doesn’t take a lot of wind to kick up waves that make fishing a tough job. My brother and I used to ride our bikes down here to go fishing during summer vacation, I doubt if many kids do that these days. Sims Park also has a nice disc golf course, the first basket is right on the lake.

We did get out fishing a couple times; the perch were no match for a couple of long time perch slayers

Then it was off to Texas hill country to do a little bit of weed wrangling at the Tamarac Ranch. Good thing I warmed up by roofing in the 90° Ohio heat because it was over 105° just about every day. That’s hot.

Got all the work done and managed to enjoy a few beautiful evenings

Back in the Gorge, summer is winding down. Been doing a lot of fishing, will be posting photos in the next day or two. Haven’t done much bike riding; it’s been hot and a lot of the trails are closed because of fire danger. There’s smoke in the air just about every day as well.

Check back soon for resumed blog goodies.

MBO August 2012

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Aug 202012

This past weekend was the final edition of Mountain Bike Oregon for 2012 and as usual, it was a great experience; fantastic mountain bike riding, carousing with old friends and enjoying the small mountain town of Oakridge, Oregon.
The weather has been hot and dry in the Pacific Northwest and the hot weather continued through MBO, but not as hot as predicted, that was a relief. There were a number of forest fires in the area, one of them closing down Alpine Trail, which is one of the marquee rides at MBO, but a couple rides were added to make up for it. So on a warm Friday morning, we loaded up and headed out to Flat Creek/Salmon Creek.

MBO guide Lee D. guiding the crew safely through the Willamette National Forest

Here’s Don from Just Fruit, one of MBO’s sponsors, trying to stay out of the hot sun with an expensive, all carbon fiber Cannondale Scalpel demo race bike

One of the Salmon Creek waterfalls

Here’s MBO guide Lee again crossing one of the bridges on the lower part of Salmon Creek trail

When you get to the Salmon Creek dam and spillway, you know you are almost back to camp. On this hot day of riding, a lot of people stopped here for a quick dip. The fishing was pretty good, too.

We got back to camp with plenty of time for more riding, so we hit up the shuttle for Larrison Rock. All downhill in the shade; perfect for an hot afternoon ride.

Larrison Rock trail is a really fun downhill trail; fast, but not too sketchy

After a solid day of riding, time to wash down the trail dust at the adult beverage garden. Here’s seasoned MBO guide Matt talking up the day’s riding

Here we have trusty MBO guide Dan(right) with Erin(left) who is a volunteer at MBO and fellow MBO guide Dave(center) having Friday night dinner

The day wound down with a beautiful sunset in a clear, blue sky

Despite the clear skies on Friday night, Saturday morning brought thunder, lightning and rain showers. The rain was welcome to help out the dusty trails, but with lightning caused fires already burning, more lightning dry strikes were something that was not needed. No major new fires overnight, so in a light rain, we loaded up for Lost Creek, a ride that had been added to replace the Alpine trail ride that was closed due to fire.

Lost Creek is a new trail for MBO, so it was kind of a mystery what it would be like. It is mainly the Hardesty trail ride with an extra section of the Sawtooth trail on the top. A very challenging ride with steep uphills, hike-a-bike sections and great downhill singletrack. Here’s demo Don again on another expensive carbon fiber bike. Today’s ride was a Santa Cruz Nomad; a long travel, carbon fiber rocket sled, perfect for this ride.

The last section of the ride was on Hardesty trail, pretty well known to most of the riders today, so it was easy to let ‘er rip down the last part of the trail.

Here’s Augusto from Nossa Familia Coffee, another one of MBO’s sponsors. Augusto gets up at 5AM every morning to make coffee for all the riders. After a night in the adult beverage garden, there is a long line for coffee every morning. Augusto is a strong rider, pretty sure he liked the Lost Creek ride.

Think Lost Creek wasn’t a tough ride? Not much jumping around at the end of the trail

Back to camp, a quick shower, then off to dinner

After dinner, more carousing with friends from around the country, and around the world, one more awesome Oakridge sunset, and everyone heads home until next time

That’s it until MBO 2013.

1984 Olympic Cycling Photos On WatermanAtWork.com Website

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Jul 282012

It took me twenty eight years, but I finally scanned and edited photos I took at of a few cycling events during the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles, California.
There’s photos from the mens and womens road races, where Americans Connie Carpenter-Phinney and Alexi Grewel won gold medals in exciting, down to the wire races.

There are also some photos from the 4000m Individual Pursuit finals taken at the Olympic velodrome at Dominguez Hills, where Americans Steve Hegg and Leonard “Harvey” Nitz won gold and bronze medals.

Click HERE to check out the photos

July MBO 2012

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Jul 232012

One of the highlights of the mountain biking year is Mountain Bike Oregon, a really cool mountain bike event held in one of the best mountain biking areas in the United States; Oakridge, Oregon. The event is put on by Oregon Adventures and raises a lot of money for local organizations besides being a heck of a lot of fun for the participants.
We loaded up the truck with Just Fruit bars, one of the MBO sponsors, at their headquarters in North Bonneville, Washington and headed west, then south, then east to Oakridge in the Willamette National Forest.

We left a sunny Columbia River Gorge and arrived in Oakridge to clouds and light drizzle

Friday morning we woke up to cloudy skies and light rain. So much for the 80° and sunny the weather forecast had predicted. We were riding Lawler/Hardesty, or “Lardesty”, trails that were predominately downhill and were hoping the rain did not make the trails too muddy and slippery. Shuttled up to the Lawler trailhead and headed out on the moist Lawler singletrack

The trails were mostly pretty close to ideal, a touch on the wet side with a few slick muddy spots. The wet roots and rocks kept you on your toes. After meeting at the bottom of the Lawler trail, we headed over to Hardesty. MBO Head Guide Matt gave everybody directions and we headed up the Hardesty climb to the top of the mountain

There’s a pretty good climb up a gravel road, then a short, but tough singletrack climb to the top. This is when you’re glad it’s not 80°!

The top of the mountain was covered with clouds, giving the deep woods an unreal feel to them

Only one way to go from here and that’s down. Hardesty is a great downhill ride, a few technical sections, the bonus wet rocks and roots and a bit of exposure(mountain biker description of riding next to a cliff). All in all, the trail was in great shape, everyone had a smile on their face at the bottom

The sun was shining by the time we got back to Greenwaters Park. The campers were cleaning up and getting ready for dinner and an evening in the adult beverage garden

Friday night dinner was huge chicken and bean burritos, rice, veggies and brownies for dessert; perfect after a day of riding.

Saturday, we decided to ride Heckletooth, a trail we’ve never done before. It shows how much good riding there is around Oakridge; you can come here for years and not ride it all. With clear blue skies and sunshine, we loaded up the vans

Arrived at the Heckletooth trailhead and unloaded the bikes before the mosquitoes knew we were there

There’s a bit of a challenging climb up to the top of Heckletooth, MBO Head Guide Matt and Guide Jennifer led the way up

Great view from the top of Heckletooth

The trails were damp and tacky yesterday, today it was a little different on the exposed flanks of Heckletooth; the upper trails were dry, dusty and slippery. The Heckletooth downhill trail has some knarly switchbacks, if you can clear these hairpin turns, you’re a heck of a rider

After white-knuckling it through the top section of the Heckletooth trail, the lower part of the trail turns into sweet singletrack; perfect traction, fast and flowing

We rode back to camp, took a little break and headed out for a quick ride out Salmon Creek

Stopped to check out the fish hatchery next to Salmon Creek on the way back

The hatchery is where salmon smolts learn how to swim upstream

Back to camp for a quick shower and off to dinner and Saturday night hijinks in the adult beverage garden. It used to be the “beer garden”, but now MBO serves wine along with a wide selection of PacNW beers, so now it’s referred to as the “adult beverage garden”.

Always lots of fun hanging out with our friends in the Just Fruit skybox, Fred doesn’t look that happy though.

The evening debauchery is capped off by the always popular minibike races. The winner gets a free Niner bike frame, so it gets pretty serious

A great weekend of riding and general fun. Looking forward to the August MBO in a few weeks.

Too Hot For The Streets Car Show 2012

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Jul 092012

It’s prime time summer weather so we’ve been riding bikes on a regular basis and fishing when the conditions allow, but recent rides are pretty much solo training rides, so nothing too exciting to report and the fishing has been a little slow(at least where we went), so last weekend we took up a little spectator sportsmanship to check out the Too Hot For the Streets Car Show in North Bonneville, Washington. The car show is one of the events of North Bonneville Gorge Days, we usually drop by to take a few photos and talk about cool cars.
This is a cool little car show, pretty much everything is free; parking, admission, etc. There’s stuff for the family and events and raffles for kids, live bands, food, beer garden, sock hop, all kinds of things to do. Of course, we are here mostly for the cars.
Having owned a couple 57 Chevys, we are always interested in those 55-57 Chevys, there are always a few nice ones at this show, this year was no different. Here’s a nice 55:

A mint 1957, completely restored to stock condition:

Plenty of old American coupes:

How about this flathead V8? Unless you live on a farm, flathead engines are something you hardly ever see

This is the Pacific Northwest, so there were plenty of classic pickup trucks:

Many, many great American hot rods

A few American muscle cars

A couple classic VW vans

How about this Mercedes Benz roadster?

The always popular Shelby Cobra

One of America’s premiere car builders, Carroll Shelby passed away not long ago so there is even more than normal interest in his automobiles. One of the most interesting things at the show this year was this pair of Mustangs; a Roush Mustang and a Shelby GT500.

The Roush is the wife’s car. Doubt she is late getting anywhere.

The Shelby GT500 is a limited edition model

Here’s a shot of the interior. The driver’s seat is a Recaro racing seat

These people are obviously big time Ford Mustang fans, he is serious about that Shelby GT500, that’s for sure. It’s a limited edition Shelby, number 527 out of 600, it is signed by Carroll Shelby and Henry Ford. A Carroll Shelby collector’s gem

I was so inspired by the car show, I came home and tuned up my Toyota pickup truck and changed the oil, that’s about as high performance as it gets for me these days. Back on the bike tomorrow, hopefully, the wind will die down towards the end of the week and it’s back on the water for more kayak fishing.

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