StillCreekSam
New member
Hi, Oregon Fishing Forum community. My name is Sam. I’m trying to make a habit of journaling after fishing trips. Thought I’d post a short entry about a weekend coho adventure. I have to keep this one short; lunch breaks don’t last forever!
Went to fish my usual spot, which I’m treating as a kind of test site. Rather than driving up and down the valley, my strategy’s been to visit the same location again and again; one of these days, if I’m persistent enough, the coho and I might cross paths. It's not a novel strategy, by any means.
When I got to the river, there were a number of rigs with trailers in the lot. Two veteran (meaning, senior) fishermen walked up the bank. They looked happy and slightly dejected at the same time. One saw my fly-rod and said, “All right!” The other said, “Just so you know, the fishing’s good, but the catching’s not.” We chatted about the lack of salmon in the river, and the reasons for why. Our conclusion: the coho got upriver, decided it just wasn’t right, and went back to sea.
The theory was not disproven. After a few hours of swinging and stripping flies through the fishiest water, including two long runs and a couple of froggy pools, my line remained untugged. No rollers, no rises.
I did, however, cross paths with some other things of note. One was a rusty oil drum, half-buried in riverside cobble, with willows growing around and through it. I was reminded that everything is fluid: metal rots, empires fall, willows persist. Another was a flock of geese passing overhead, their back-and-forth calls like old gate hinges, squealing open and shut. Who doesn’t love seeing geese on their southward journey? Probably golf course owners, but they can handle it.
Then, in the river-gravel, I found a still-intact Heinz mayonnaise packet. A little scuffed, but clearly unpunctured. I texted a photo to my buddies and asked how much they’d pay me to eat it. One said they’d buy me a coffee. Another said, “Only a real man can handle Heinz mayo, so the mayo is the reward of full manhood.” I’m still trying to decipher that.
While I’d much rather have seen (or landed) a silver, finding random, lost things, valuable or not, is one of the underrated joys of fishing. What surprise treasures have you found on rivers?
Went to fish my usual spot, which I’m treating as a kind of test site. Rather than driving up and down the valley, my strategy’s been to visit the same location again and again; one of these days, if I’m persistent enough, the coho and I might cross paths. It's not a novel strategy, by any means.
When I got to the river, there were a number of rigs with trailers in the lot. Two veteran (meaning, senior) fishermen walked up the bank. They looked happy and slightly dejected at the same time. One saw my fly-rod and said, “All right!” The other said, “Just so you know, the fishing’s good, but the catching’s not.” We chatted about the lack of salmon in the river, and the reasons for why. Our conclusion: the coho got upriver, decided it just wasn’t right, and went back to sea.
The theory was not disproven. After a few hours of swinging and stripping flies through the fishiest water, including two long runs and a couple of froggy pools, my line remained untugged. No rollers, no rises.
I did, however, cross paths with some other things of note. One was a rusty oil drum, half-buried in riverside cobble, with willows growing around and through it. I was reminded that everything is fluid: metal rots, empires fall, willows persist. Another was a flock of geese passing overhead, their back-and-forth calls like old gate hinges, squealing open and shut. Who doesn’t love seeing geese on their southward journey? Probably golf course owners, but they can handle it.
Then, in the river-gravel, I found a still-intact Heinz mayonnaise packet. A little scuffed, but clearly unpunctured. I texted a photo to my buddies and asked how much they’d pay me to eat it. One said they’d buy me a coffee. Another said, “Only a real man can handle Heinz mayo, so the mayo is the reward of full manhood.” I’m still trying to decipher that.
While I’d much rather have seen (or landed) a silver, finding random, lost things, valuable or not, is one of the underrated joys of fishing. What surprise treasures have you found on rivers?
Good one.
