Hood River, Oregon July 18, 2010

On family business I travel to Portland, Oregon and drove up the Columbia Gorge to spend a few days with my brother’s family who lives in Hood River. Some of my relatives traveled far to visit with me and I met two new generations of cousins for the first time. One year old Deven is the little man, my 3rd generation cousin, I think he was telling me he wants to give wind surfing a try.

Hood River known as the wind surfing capital of the world as well as being known for growing luscious apples, pears, cherries, peaches and other fruits, and for their views of the majestic snowcapped peaks of Mt. Hood and Mt Adam. Hood River has become the destination of choice for wind surfers from around the world. The winds from the Columbia River Gorge, best during the middle of the day, create ideal conditions for riding the waves.

To enjoy the view of "boardheads" at play, drive to the Columbia Gorge Sailpark or follow Second Street to the waterfront. You may even see this unique one of a kind 1959 Cadillac in the parking lot.

The small city has transformed to tourism quite well with its many speciality shops and food choices. I’m told the business streets are closed to traffic on Thursdays and Fridays for tourists to walk about freely, party, eat, shop and enjoy this one of a kind get away.

You can see a huge sand bar in the river that is very unique to the Columbia River. I wanted to learn more about it and was able to find this site which has the city's and river’s history documented. click here.

The tributaries of the Columbia River are choked with steelhead and salmon right now and I have no time on this trip to get after them. While walking about the city I did stop at the Gorge Fly Shop a very complete and informative business to help the fly fisherman. I was told the Columbia is having record runs of steelhead and salmon this year. This really got me pumped up and only made me start thinking when I could come back for an Oregon fly fishing adventure.

Until then; I'll be fishing my spey rods in the tributaries of the the Great Lakes, practicing longer range casts and of course tie some West Coast pretty spey flies - just in case they don't like our Great Lakes patterns. Catching fish will be the bonus, living the experience will be a life time memory.

Steelhead Colors and Lampreys

Here is a beautiful Spring Conneaut Creek male steelhead with great spawning colors. Females like other animal species are not as spectacular in color, but never the less are beautiful in my eyes. Spawned out males will not stay around long hanging out with the guys. Instead they pack-up and head back to the lake. Many of them get beat-up by other dominant males while competing to fertilize eggs. Unfortunately all their spawning efforts are for not, Ohio’s rivers do not have the right conditions needed for eggs to hatch and fry to survive.

Unlike salmon, these fish do not die after spawning. Spawners return to Lake Erie and if they're not caught by a boat fisherman will return the following year and repeat the spawning cycle.

Unlike spawned out males, females will take their time recovering in the lower river from their hard spawning efforts. They want to eat just about anything that looks eatable too regain strength and while doing so will start changing their colors to a mirror like silver.

Because they are so silver often they're mistaken by new comers to the sport as a fresh fish coming into the river to spawn. To identify a spawner, you need to examining its tail. The fish will usually look thin and skinny too. If you see noticeable damage, it was causes from fanning on rocks and/or slate. If the tail is deformed and does not look normal, it's a spawner. The good news is, usually before the fish returns in the following Spring, the tail will have healed and repaired almost back to noral.

A spawned-out female is eager to eat and therefore is easy to catch. When you set a hook on one of these fish, expect several spectacular jumps and long runs.

Gene, a great fisherman and client from Oregon fishes his home waters with a fly, spey and float rods. This day he's using his 8 wt fly rod to get the job done.

Gene holds a very nice 10 lb Rocky River steelhead that he tricked into biting a Trout Bead. I was so impressed with his clever way of pre-tying them; I’m now doing the same. His 2-beads setup is very effective off the end of his fly rod and would not be approved by the fly fishing purist. After tying several different color combinations, he wraps them on a piece of cardboard to keep them tangle free. This allows quick color changes and you’re back fishing in a few minutes. Look for instructions on future postings.

The scar you see on the side of Gene's fish is from a lamprey. Lampreys in the Great Lakes claim the lives of many steelheads every year. Ohio combats the lampreys by treating their river systems with a very expensive chemical, TFM which is manufactured in Europe. The chemical kills the lamprey without killing the ecosystem and other aquatic life, so I'm told. To read more about the Great Lakes lamprey Click Here.

A Hard Day to Fish

Low and clear water makes for a hard day of fishing. The photo is a nice steelhead about 27 inches long, caught mid April 2010. The water is so low you can see the smallest pebble on the river’s bottom and every detail of the fish’s body.

This day was hard fishing, no clouds in the sky, T-shirt weather in the 80's and it looks like there's more of the same following. We looked off the top of a high bank and saw 30-plus steelhead in the tail-out of a run. They also saw us at the same time and started scrambling all over the place to find cover. It was a welcome site to see so many fish. We watched for several minutes and let them be. We continued on our journey to another section of river and until now never thinking to take a photo.