Well, winter is just about here; when the thermometer dips below 32°F, that’s getting into the cold range. Getting up at 4:00AM is tough enough when it’s shorts and T-shirt weather, hopping out of the sack when it’s 50° makes it extra special. We wait as long as possible to turn on the 24/7 heat(money, you know), because we fight winter to the last stand. Anyway, even though everything is going against us, the sun is shining and there is at least one fish in the river, so we are out there.
Fishing is dead on the Columbia River, so we head way up into the hills for salmon and steelhead. We had a pretty good run of rain for the past few days, a lot of it probably fell as snow on Mt. Adams, but the Columbia tributaries are still murky from rain, visibility is only about a foot. We hoped for better conditions, but nature runs the show around here. Like they say; “it was a great day of fishing”, but not for catching. Not a huge disappointment, this is the time of the year for the hardcore fisherman. When you fish for trophy fish, sometimes you get nothing. This time of year, one last fish is all you want, one more fight before packing it in for the winter.
Not even a nibble today, I would say “man, the fishing sucks“, but then I look around and wonder how I could complain about anything.
According to local sources, the river is so muddy because there was a small earthquake on Mt. Adams that caused a landslide into the river.