Play TIme!

Fishing is more than a mere hobby to some folks. My brother Chris has a passion for the sport that is matched only by my mother. These two have terrorized salmon in Tillamook Bay and up the Trask and Tillamook Rivers for a number of years now. They have pictures of every salmon and steelhead they've caught, and of course great tales of the "ones that got away".

During springer season (the spring Chinook salmon come in from the sea, go up the bay into the rivers) which is April and May - cold weather, frosty mornings, rain, hours on the river or bay with frozen fingers -Mom and Chris are up at the crack of dawn. No, I'm wrong - they LEAVE Chris' driveway at the crack of dawn. Chris has a hard-nosed rule for anyone going with him: when he tells you he is leaving at a certain time, that means he is in his truck, motor running, and puts it in gear at EXACTLY that time. If you are one minute late, too bad, he's gone! So when he tells mom he is leaving at 4:30 a.m., she is there by 4:10! A.M. These are SERIOUS FISHERFOLKS!

One fishing tale Chris loves to relate is when he was getting ready to launch his boat at 0-dark-30 one time, a fellow fisherman who knew Chris chided him for "dragging his poor old mom out on such a cold morning," Chris just laughed and replied, "SHE'S the one who drags me out, she'd get mad if I didn't take her!" And that's the truth! Mom lives to fish.

I've never been avid about fishing, even as a kid when my little brothers haunted the creek and bay, dragging home trout and perch. In fact, I'm not sure I ever even caught a fish during those years, other than jigging for herring with our friends Jake and Laura. This old couple were wonderful surrogate grandparents who lived next door. They hauled us kids out fishing, plied us with smoked herring (which is an acquired taste, let me tell you), and in general were great fun. They would argue with each other all day long, but we loved them.

Anyway. For some reason, this trip home I've been obsessed with going fishing. I just wanted to catch some perch. To eat. Wouldn't you know, they won't be running for a few more weeks, which will be after I've gone home. But I found out from the friendly chaps at the local sporting goods store, that about 8,000 trout had just been stocked at little Cape Meares Lake, on the spit across the bay. 8,000! That sounded like my kind of odds!

I pestered my brothers until they finally got some time to rig me up, Mom gave me a refresher on casting (in the front yard) and made sure I got a license. I dusted off one of mom's old poles, and set off to drown some worms. Terry took me late one afternoon, to whet my appetite. Not even a nibble. But it was fun, and we had a great time reminescing. When I told Chris I hadn't caught anything, he just looked at me for a minute, shook his head, and said, "8,000 fish, and you couldn't even catch ONE??" And laughed, of course!

So this morning, he and I were up early (NOT the crack of dawn, mind you, I don't do dawn), and trekked over to the lake again. This time we were using "PowerBait", a commercial concoction that is like thick sticky marshmellow creme, rainbow colored with gold sparkles in it, and smells like - well, like rotten fish. Phewwwwwwweee.
Chris is very patient, but he's also a perfectionist when it comes to his fishing. He rigged and re-rigged several times, until he was satisfied we had the right combination going for the water, type of fish, weather, etc.

jBeing from Wisconsin now, I have my priorities, too. I don't get cold. No way, no how. So here I am all bundled up - it was a tad windy, we were about a quarter mile from the beach which was roaring with big breakers on one side of us and the bay on the other side - nice cross wind. But not as bad as Lake Michigan, I can testify. Didn't even rain on us, until right at the end. But I was ready for anything that came up, weather-wise. Mom couldn't stand it, she had to drive over with a friend to see how we were doing. She's in the car in the background...

PowerBait may be mighty smelly to us, but apparently to the fish it is primo. Once we found the range of where they were hanging out, we got lots of bites, and even hauled a few in. I got bites, Chris got fish. Now I remember why I stopped fishing with him when we were kids!

The three guys next to us were hauling them in pretty regular. You could tell this wasn't their first day of fishing there. And they came prepared to make a day of it - built their little fire, invited us to warm our buns if we needed too. They were teenagers. As Chris observed, it was nice to see kids that age doing something like fishing all day, rather than out raising Cain. They were definately having a great time, and released the majority of what they caught. It's the sport, rather than the meal, that counts.

But we brought home a couple, one each for me and mom for dinner. These aren't big guys, but they will be tasty. The big ones were jumping out in the middle of the lake, sticking their tongues out at us, I'm sure. Next time. I have a week to go, and I still have a jar of PowerBait!

Oh, did I mention, Chris doesn't like fish? To eat, that is. He makes really great smoked salmon, and gives most of it away!