I thought I would put up this story since I never did have an intro when I first started ifish and now I'm over 2000 posts
When I was growing up me and my family would fish together at Tillamook and Nehalem Bay, the Willamette R, Buoy 10, the John Day and the mouth of the Deschutes to name a few.
Every time I smell the smoke of cottonwood I am flooded with memories of cold December and January mornings chasing winter steelhead on the banks of the Clackamas River. By the time I was a junior in high school I was running the river in his sled.
During spring Chinook season dad and me would not only fish the weekends but at least three nights per week after school/work we could be found backbouncing prawns on the Willamette in Oregon City.
One fun trip I will always remember was down to Tillamook Bay with my mom and dad, neighbor Mark from across the street and my high school buddy Sam. We were a little packed in since there was five of us in my dads 17 foot Almar sled and mom had a cast on her arm.
Fishing was very slow, we may have seen only two fish caught all morning so my mom decided that she would "experiment”. Since it was always something odd ball I never let her do it so when I wasn't looking she poured soap into her herring.
Minutes later she was yelling "Fish On!"
This is when it get's fun. With all of us the boat there wasn't enough seats to go around so mom was sitting on a cooler. As she set the hook the cooler tipped and she was on the floor, rod tip high in the air, one arm in a cast and screaming for help.
We were laughing so hard we couldn't!
We took over long enough for her to get back on her feet and eventually the chrome hen was brought into the boat. It was then she told me how the herring was treated and that it left a trail of bubbles as it dropped into the depths.
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Now to the present, fifteen years later.
Growing up my sister Deanna went fishing with the family pretty much when she had to and we made her. She never really liked fishing, except for bass fishing because she always caught the most.
Since then she has went on the get a Fish and Wildlife degree from OSU. While working with salmon and steelhead at a fish trip on the North Santiam and also interviewing anglers on the south Santiam she caught "salmonilla" and got the bug to go steelhead fishing and now loves it.
This past month I got a chance to take my family fishing, all four of us, my mom, dad and sister.
Leave it to mom to make us all laugh.
She was the first to hook up.
I was watching her line as we were drifting eggs when I saw it making a bunch of sharp little twitches. I assumed there was a trout or smolt on there so I told her so and said to reel in. There was a ton of slack in the line so about ten feet from the boat, the line finally came up tight and then Wham! It starts peeling off!
There was a steelhead in there and we didn't even know it until it was almost to the boat. I don't think the steelie knew it either!
The fish headed straight up river and the boat was drifting over the line so I yelled to fallow the fish. Mom did. She ran to the front of the boat and the fish was under it, then to the other side and back again and then back to the other side.
Mom was tripping and falling, slipping and sliding, from one side to the other. Rolling on her back on the bow's step deck.
Finally they were both exhausted and mom's first steelhead in ten or twelve years was netted and bonked.
Dad speaks up and says, "What were you doing, making a new break dancing move or something?"
We all busted up
We fished a few more hours, catching one about every hour. Deanna was next, then dad and then dad again.
A successfull trip in many more ways than one. :smile:
This was one of the most special fishing trips we have ever had. I never knew how much I loved them and missed being with them [img]graemlins/hearton.gif[/img]
Two days later my mom and dad stopped by the house, mom had to show off her bruises from "break dancing". Her legs looked like they belonged to the goalie of a hockey team.
[ 03-01-2004, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: David Johnson ]
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