Trip Report (mushrooms, steelhead, and mussels)

Previous weekend:
Headed up to Sauvie Island, on the Columbia River, to look for morels.
The trail runs along the beach before eventually moving inland ~100ft
to the trees. Hiked about half the trail with no signs of mushrooms.
Then all of a sudden, found 1, 2....6 in one 10ft section. Big meaty
fresh morels. Hiked the rest of the trail and found 1 or 2 more.
It's an out-and-back trail, so on the return we seriously
bushwhacked the first section and found at least 6 more.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Outdoors...lsSauvieIsland

Ate lunch and watched the HUGE container ships pass by.
The salmon must have been in because fishing boats were
lined up as far as the eye could see. Oh yeah, saw osprey,
frogs and the biggest garter snake I've every seen.

Latest Weekend (Saturday):
The SO had to go to Lincoln City to help with a garbage
sale. I tagged along but was free to fish on Saturday.

I've always had limited luck catching steelhead and the
weather sucked (it poured all day). But the rivers were in
good shape and I figured at the least I'd practice my spey
casting.

Back in January I tore my rotator cuff playing volleyball.
If you've never done it before, it's the oddest injury I've
ever had. Most normal motion is fine, but every once in
a while you'll try to lift or move in a certain way and
the strength just isn't there. About a month after my
injury I thought I was healed, but went to pick up a book
off a shelf and couldn't lift it. I started doing strength training
using bands to try to get all the ranges of motion. I had
been fishing since my injury, but not with a spey rod.
Apparently I missed a range of motion. I couldn't cast
worth anything. Had to switch to casting with my
left hand on top (it's a two handed rod)......it wasn't
pretty.

Anyway.....I spent the morning fishing the Nestucca,
about 20 miles north of town. It's raining, I'm drenched,
casting left-handed, with a 14' spey rod standing on a
wet boulder with no room to cast to my left, right, or
behind. Ugly, pitiful little rollcasts are apparently all
I'm going to be capable of. After several hours of this
I'm about ready to call it quits when as if by accident
I catch a bright shiny steelhead. I know it's good for
the river, but unfortunately it was wild. (Fin-clipped
steelhead are fair game to take home)

Decided I was tired of rollcasting so I drove down the
river a ways to a new spot. I can see some fish out
50-60ft away taking something off the surface.
Made the conscious decision to stick with the
streamer and keep targetting steelhead. Another
hour without a nibble and I head back to town for
lunch.

After lunch in Lincoln City I decided that I didn't want
to drive 20 miles back north to the Nestucca when
the Siletz is just 5 miles south of town. Unfortunately
the Siletz's tidewater extends back much farther
than I expected. Wound up driving 40+ miles upstream
to get to a section that didn't look like the Mississippi.

Spent several more hours casting streamers to no
avail. Pretty waters, but 7 hours of fishing with only
one fish was getting old. I need to get back soon, but
again I can see fish rising and taking mayflies off the
surface. So I swallow my pride and tie on a #16 tan
mayfly (onto my 14' two handed 9 weight rod...I'm
glad no one else was around). First cast and no sooner
does the fly hit the water when WHAM! he hits it. I'm
not sure how, but somehow he missed and got hooked
in the fin. It's a steelhead (wild)! I didn't think that
steelhead took dries. Took two more (both wild) in
the next few casts.

Time to head back to the garage sale, fortunately I
was too late to help clean up. ;-)

Sunday:
[abbreviated version since I already wrote 10x more
than I expected to]

Caught the low tide in Lincoln City before heading out
of town. Collected some nori for later dehydration.
And a bucket full of mussels and barnacles. Barnacles
are a ton of work to clean, but they taste fantastic.
Ate a mess of mussels and barnacles stir fried in
olive oil with curry and red peppers for dinner.

Not a bad start to spring.
- Ken

wrote:

Previous weekend:
Headed up to Sauvie Island, on the Columbia River, ...
.....

Latest Weekend (Saturday):
The SO had to go to Lincoln City to help with a garbage
sale. I tagged along but was free to fish on Saturday.
.....

Morels, steelhead, mussels, barnacles..... Excellent. Excellent.

I've never had any luck as far down on the Siletz as I think you
were. Certainly not on dries! I guess these were early summer
fish to be so full of **** and vinegar?

Thanks for the report.

- JR

On Apr 23, 12:25 pm, " wrote:
Previous weekend:
Headed up to Sauvie Island, on the Columbia River, to look for morels.
The trail runs along the beach before eventually moving inland ~100ft
to the trees. Hiked about half the trail with no signs of mushrooms.
Then all of a sudden, found 1, 2....6 in one 10ft section. Big meaty
fresh morels. Hiked the rest of the trail and found 1 or 2 more.
It's an out-and-back trail, so on the return we seriously
bushwhacked the first section and found at least 6 more.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Outdoors...lsSauvieIsland

Ate lunch and watched the HUGE container ships pass by.
The salmon must have been in because fishing boats were
lined up as far as the eye could see. Oh yeah, saw osprey,
frogs and the biggest garter snake I've every seen.

Latest Weekend (Saturday):
The SO had to go to Lincoln City to help with a garbage
sale. I tagged along but was free to fish on Saturday.

I've always had limited luck catching steelhead and the
weather sucked (it poured all day). But the rivers were in
good shape and I figured at the least I'd practice my spey
casting.

Back in January I tore my rotator cuff playing volleyball.
If you've never done it before, it's the oddest injury I've
ever had. Most normal motion is fine, but every once in
a while you'll try to lift or move in a certain way and
the strength just isn't there. About a month after my
injury I thought I was healed, but went to pick up a book
off a shelf and couldn't lift it. I started doing strength training
using bands to try to get all the ranges of motion. I had
been fishing since my injury, but not with a spey rod.
Apparently I missed a range of motion. I couldn't cast
worth anything. Had to switch to casting with my
left hand on top (it's a two handed rod)......it wasn't
pretty.

Anyway.....I spent the morning fishing the Nestucca,
about 20 miles north of town. It's raining, I'm drenched,
casting left-handed, with a 14' spey rod standing on a
wet boulder with no room to cast to my left, right, or
behind. Ugly, pitiful little rollcasts are apparently all
I'm going to be capable of. After several hours of this
I'm about ready to call it quits when as if by accident
I catch a bright shiny steelhead. I know it's good for
the river, but unfortunately it was wild. (Fin-clipped
steelhead are fair game to take home)

Decided I was tired of rollcasting so I drove down the
river a ways to a new spot. I can see some fish out
50-60ft away taking something off the surface.
Made the conscious decision to stick with the
streamer and keep targetting steelhead. Another
hour without a nibble and I head back to town for
lunch.

After lunch in Lincoln City I decided that I didn't want
to drive 20 miles back north to the Nestucca when
the Siletz is just 5 miles south of town. Unfortunately
the Siletz's tidewater extends back much farther
than I expected. Wound up driving 40+ miles upstream
to get to a section that didn't look like the Mississippi.

Spent several more hours casting streamers to no
avail. Pretty waters, but 7 hours of fishing with only
one fish was getting old. I need to get back soon, but
again I can see fish rising and taking mayflies off the
surface. So I swallow my pride and tie on a #16 tan
mayfly (onto my 14' two handed 9 weight rod...I'm
glad no one else was around). First cast and no sooner
does the fly hit the water when WHAM! he hits it. I'm
not sure how, but somehow he missed and got hooked
in the fin. It's a steelhead (wild)! I didn't think that
steelhead took dries. Took two more (both wild) in
the next few casts.

Time to head back to the garage sale, fortunately I
was too late to help clean up. ;-)

Sunday:
[abbreviated version since I already wrote 10x more
than I expected to]

Caught the low tide in Lincoln City before heading out
of town. Collected some nori for later dehydration.
And a bucket full of mussels and barnacles. Barnacles
are a ton of work to clean, but they taste fantastic.
Ate a mess of mussels and barnacles stir fried in
olive oil with curry and red peppers for dinner.

Not a bad start to spring.
- Ken

Good report thanks.
Thats not a container ship. Thats a load of Toyotas going up to the
Toyota dock in NE PDX. They drive em off the ship. Add a few things
( like radios etc ) if they need and load on to trucks or trains and
away they go. As an engineer or what ever you would be amazed at how
much the longshoremen make for driving those Toyotas off the ship.

On Apr 23, 4:48 pm, BJ Conner wrote:
Good report thanks.
Thats not a container ship. Thats a load of Toyotas going up to the
Toyota dock in NE PDX. They drive em off the ship. Add a few things
( like radios etc ) if they need and load on to trucks or trains and
away they go. As an engineer or what ever you would be amazed at how
much the longshoremen make for driving those Toyotas off the ship.

I have 0 knowledge of container or otherwise ships, but it looked
like it was riding really high in the water. I assumed it was
mostly empty.
- Ken

On Apr 23, 5:35 pm, " wrote:
On Apr 23, 4:48 pm, BJ Conner wrote:

Good report thanks.
Thats not a container ship. Thats a load of Toyotas going up to the
Toyota dock in NE PDX. They drive em off the ship. Add a few things
( like radios etc ) if they need and load on to trucks or trains and
away they go. As an engineer or what ever you would be amazed at how
much the longshoremen make for driving those Toyotas off the ship.

I have 0 knowledge of container or otherwise ships, but it looked
like it was riding really high in the water. I assumed it was
mostly empty.
- Ken


For ships they are not heavly loaded. They are seagoing Puget Sound
ferrys.
http://images.google.com/images?q=co...ges&ct=t itle