Some fishing, some farming

Was out on the Touchet last week for 5 days. Headed back ASAP. Fished
most mornings and evenings. Water levels up a bit as some of the
irrigation on the forks stops. Driving around Ive noticed some water
seeping back in the draws and my wheat farmer neighbor says yes, and
that they got a bit of a recharge up on the rolling paloose. Temps
still seem up a bit , and the fish still are clustered more than usual
below the oxiginated riffles. Caught many 6-8 inch cutts and a few
"rainbows" 8" to 10" or so. All on small stimulators in hopper tones.
Most interesting was dragging a 4" weighted black bunny leach thru a
few choice larger holes below riffles, fished with a steelie leader
and a 1x tippet, In one of these I had wild assed grabs 2 evenings in
a row and breakoffs. Ive had this happen in warm water from turtles
but I am pretty sure these were fish. I am pretty sure the Dolly
Vardens, which do wildassed grabs to perfection, are absent from my
streatch of river. So my fantacies run to monster browns. We shall
see.

On the farm groupie side of things, we pulled the irrigation pump and
boom pipe out of the river, moved then picked up the pipe off the
alfalfa. Picking up 40 foot long, sun hot pipe at 66 years is more
than enough to put my farmer fantacy jones back in its box. The
swather was leaving too much so I helped replace some of the cutter
blades, and the fields got cut. The humidity and sun were such that
this 4th and final cutting was put up in 700lb bales 3 days later. My
lessee is tarping and holding most of this year's crop till prices
pick up. Most of the livestock has been moved to his new place in
Oregon and i notice the coyotes are getting more nervy at nite near
the few hogs that are left.

With this last alfalfa crop we are shifting to fall sown, dryland hard
red wheat. Should be a good crop because the field is moist and has
lots of nitrogen from the alfalfa. Things look good on leasing the
water right to keep the water in the river. Ive also made some
progress on marking out where some lines of hybrid poplar will go to
cool down some dry pasture and where there is enough soil on some rock
scabby areas to support survival of some more ponderosa pine. Ill wait
till first snow fall to seed some wild wheat grass into the CREP
strips. Its a small place, but the river front is 1/2 mile. If half of
what i plan and do works, it will make a difference in summer river
temps and keep at least 70af in the stream at a critical time. Anyway
this is much more than ROFFians would want to know but for some
weirdness I do enjoy sharing these farming groupie and amature
conservation experiences.

Dave