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February 2009 Featured Articles

North Umpqua Chronicle - Feb. 18, 2009
P. McRae - February 26, 2009

North Umpqua Chronicles

Feb. 18, 2009, Flow 1,450 cfs, water 41 degrees F.

I spend the morning working on Steamboaters’ business, and it is mid-afternoon when I finally head upriver.

 My first stop is Standpipe, where I wade out to a position well above the soft water channel below.  From there I can make the long cast quartering well down and across, and let it swing.  It creeps slowly across while I wait until finally it hangs straight below me.  I strip out two arm lengths of line and repeat, until I am approaching my maximum distance, and there has been nothing.

Half a dozen casts later I feel a “tic” on my line and my rod slowly begins to bow…YES, THERE IT IS!

No, it isn’t…the fly has simply hung up on part of the structure below, and what I am feeling is nothing more than the pull of the current.   CRAP!

 I hurry on to Upper Baker. It takes very little time to fish and is always worth a try.  I’ve had two grabs here recently, though neither stuck for some reason.  No fish here today, so I move on.

The Circle "H” is open upriver, and it is impossible for me to pass it by at these water levels.  I work my way carefully all the way through it, anticipating a grab right up to the last swing.  Damn it, nothing here either.

A few miles upriver, I stop to glass Upper Mill Run…the river is so clear it takes almost no time to see there is nothing there.  While I am here, several rigs come cruising down the highway with rod racks on the hood and yellow fly lines wriggling in the breeze.  As always there is a honk, wave, or a headlight flash as they pass by, and as always, I get the feeling that somewhere upriver fish were caught today.  We seldom visit, but are kindred spirits…steelhead bums.  I know a few of their names, but not all.  Apparently none of us have full time job or even jobs at all; we exist in a loosely affiliated society with no name, in which steelhead are the only thing of consequence, and the “members,” without consciously thinking about it, follow in the footsteps of Bill Schaadt, the greatest steelhead bum of them all.  

In the waning hours of the day, I rush all the way up to Upper Boat, work hurriedly through it without a touch and end the day at the Pantry, fishless in the gloaming.

P. McRae