A few weathered pieces of wood that have found a home in our garden. I like the similar lines of the wood and the columbines. I did not see the lizard until it was pointed out to me. Now I see it all the time.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
art work
Some recent wire sculptures. I am enjoying the shape and feel of lines in my hands and seeing them in wire.
A few weathered pieces of wood that have found a home in our garden. I like the similar lines of the wood and the columbines. I did not see the lizard until it was pointed out to me. Now I see it all the time.
A few weathered pieces of wood that have found a home in our garden. I like the similar lines of the wood and the columbines. I did not see the lizard until it was pointed out to me. Now I see it all the time.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
road trip part 2, steelhead fishing in Idaho
I caught my first steelhead yesterday on a egg sucking leech.
The steelhead was where he was supposed to be, holding steady in the deeper part of a pool on the Salmon river a few miles north of Stanley, Idaho. He was a male, a big brute with the beginnings of a hooked jaw and shy of the net so I ran him up on the gravel. He gasped in the air while I fumbled for my camera. Across the river was the game warden and a crowd to watch the excitement but I was alone on the far bank. Come on, the steelhead said, dispatch me or something. Impatient at last, the fish flopped and was in the water. Eight hundred miles that fish had swum, entering the mouth of the Columbia river last summer, no yokel from New Mexico was going to stop him from swimming the final few miles upstream. I took a picture of him flopping in the shallows and watched him swim into the deeper water.
Steelhead begin showing up in the upper reaches of the Salmon river in early March and continue through the end of April. 30,000 of them are counted at the Sawtooth hatchery north of Stanley. Another 40,000 counted at the Patsimeroi hatchery fifty miles downstream. Those numbers exclude all the fish caught by anglers and commercial fishermen along the way. And they do not reflect the numbers of wild steelhead that return as well. The numbers increase every year. A success story. Idaho Power has underwritten many of the hatcheries in a successful attempt to mitigate the effect of their dams and power plants in the Columbia river system.
There are so many fish that the hatchery gives away fish on Mondays and Thursdays to people with valid fishing licenses. And they supply food banks in the area with thousands of pounds of fish in season. These are "Run A" steelhead, 20 to 30 inches, 4 to 10 pounds. The brute I caught was average, two feet long, about six pounds. "Run B" steelhead are bigger, 30 to 36 inches, 10 to 18 pounds.
In July the Chinook salmon come into the Salmon river. They are also hatchery raised. They are 40 inches and 20 to 40 pounds. I will be back for them someday.
The Sawtooth mountains surround the Salmon river. They were snow covered and jagged as their name implies. I clomped through snow banks to get to the river in mid April. It was a warm day. The temperature was in the fifties with fog in the morning and sunshine later on. There were lots of fishermen. But close to a hundred miles of clear flowing river alongside the road to fish.
What else to remember?
Ospreys in the trees watching for smelt in the shallows. Smelt being young steelhead released now that are beginning their journey down to the ocean. Elk in the fields, shedding fur but still wooly around their necks.
A seven year old girl below the Buckhorn bridge fighting a steelhead. She was gangly with stick thin legs and she was holding on to a light spinning rod, her butt low and behind her for traction. But the big steelhead was stronger than her. Now she was in the water, the swift current over her red tennies. Shrieking her lungs out, then her Dad was over, laughing and holding her around the waist and she wasn't done yet, no sir, she was cranking on the reel for all she was worth. She needs a harness, I said to the guy next to me on the bridge. He said, yeah but that’s number four she's had on since I've been here.
There were stubble fields with willow thickets along the ditches and a ring necked pheasant and a black bird with a patch of red on its wing. I crossed the forty fifth parallel just north of Salmon, Idaho, half way between the equator and the North Pole. I watched the steelhead at the Patsimeroi hatchery jump the last of the small dams before the hatchery, almost done with their long journey home.
The steelhead was where he was supposed to be, holding steady in the deeper part of a pool on the Salmon river a few miles north of Stanley, Idaho. He was a male, a big brute with the beginnings of a hooked jaw and shy of the net so I ran him up on the gravel. He gasped in the air while I fumbled for my camera. Across the river was the game warden and a crowd to watch the excitement but I was alone on the far bank. Come on, the steelhead said, dispatch me or something. Impatient at last, the fish flopped and was in the water. Eight hundred miles that fish had swum, entering the mouth of the Columbia river last summer, no yokel from New Mexico was going to stop him from swimming the final few miles upstream. I took a picture of him flopping in the shallows and watched him swim into the deeper water.
Steelhead begin showing up in the upper reaches of the Salmon river in early March and continue through the end of April. 30,000 of them are counted at the Sawtooth hatchery north of Stanley. Another 40,000 counted at the Patsimeroi hatchery fifty miles downstream. Those numbers exclude all the fish caught by anglers and commercial fishermen along the way. And they do not reflect the numbers of wild steelhead that return as well. The numbers increase every year. A success story. Idaho Power has underwritten many of the hatcheries in a successful attempt to mitigate the effect of their dams and power plants in the Columbia river system.
There are so many fish that the hatchery gives away fish on Mondays and Thursdays to people with valid fishing licenses. And they supply food banks in the area with thousands of pounds of fish in season. These are "Run A" steelhead, 20 to 30 inches, 4 to 10 pounds. The brute I caught was average, two feet long, about six pounds. "Run B" steelhead are bigger, 30 to 36 inches, 10 to 18 pounds.
In July the Chinook salmon come into the Salmon river. They are also hatchery raised. They are 40 inches and 20 to 40 pounds. I will be back for them someday.
The Sawtooth mountains surround the Salmon river. They were snow covered and jagged as their name implies. I clomped through snow banks to get to the river in mid April. It was a warm day. The temperature was in the fifties with fog in the morning and sunshine later on. There were lots of fishermen. But close to a hundred miles of clear flowing river alongside the road to fish.
What else to remember?
Ospreys in the trees watching for smelt in the shallows. Smelt being young steelhead released now that are beginning their journey down to the ocean. Elk in the fields, shedding fur but still wooly around their necks.
A seven year old girl below the Buckhorn bridge fighting a steelhead. She was gangly with stick thin legs and she was holding on to a light spinning rod, her butt low and behind her for traction. But the big steelhead was stronger than her. Now she was in the water, the swift current over her red tennies. Shrieking her lungs out, then her Dad was over, laughing and holding her around the waist and she wasn't done yet, no sir, she was cranking on the reel for all she was worth. She needs a harness, I said to the guy next to me on the bridge. He said, yeah but that’s number four she's had on since I've been here.
There were stubble fields with willow thickets along the ditches and a ring necked pheasant and a black bird with a patch of red on its wing. I crossed the forty fifth parallel just north of Salmon, Idaho, half way between the equator and the North Pole. I watched the steelhead at the Patsimeroi hatchery jump the last of the small dams before the hatchery, almost done with their long journey home.
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