My wife, daughters and I had not been camping in almost a year, so when we packed for our four day trip, one of us (meaning me) was bound to forget something like camp chairs, matches, shower slippers or a sweater — maybe even all four.
It wasn’t enough to make me want to turn around. Thankfully, we got out of the Gorge around 3 p.m. after stopping at the market for ice and snacks that would make their way with us to camp on the Siletz River near Lincoln City, Ore. Traveling south on I-5 and listening to the radio helped to pass the time and made me reminisce the ‘70s of my youth spent fishing at the piers around Long Beach, Calif. At the early age of 9, I would wake up around 5 or 6 in the morning to go fishing with my nextdoor neighbor. We’d proceed to ride our bikes 5 to 10 miles one way down quiet neighborhoods, across busy intersections and along the Pacific Coast Highway, where we would ride next to busy traffic to fish at Belmont or Seal Beach pier. There we would spend countless hours fishing with spoons, bait, lures and jigs, catching anything that would be foolish enough to fall for whatever we adorned our hooks with.
Don’t get me wrong, I love fishing in Oregon, and around Hood River especially, but fishing in the ocean is something that’s forever been in my blood that my dad helped to foster. The mere thought of a charter boat out to Catalina Island or San Clemente still makes my eyes gloss over. My heart pounds just thinking about the half-day or multi-day trips out of LA Harbor we used to take. The possibility of catching just about anything: a halibut, kelp bass, yellowtail or shark at any time from the ocean’s diversity of fish made us go back again and again.
When my family and I travel to the coast, we generally do the whole tourist thing: buying unhealthy amounts of saltwater taffy, visiting the outlet mall, unhurried strolls on the beach, scanning the tide pools, searching for the sea creatures inhabiting them, collecting rocks and shells. I love this time spent with my girls (though admittedly, not so much at the outlet mall). A friend of my oldest daughter would be joining us on the trip to share in this adventure, as well as my mom, who would be bring along her trailer. A few days later, my father would also come by. Why don’t the two drive together? I’m still trying to figure that one out with a little help from my psychiatrist.
We finally arrived before 7 in the evening. I immediately checked the bar conditions on the marine website, hoping that I’d be allowed to enter the ocean safely as per The U.S. Coast Guard. To my dismay, there was a small craft advisory because of the swells and a hard wind blowing out of the northwest. This would put a damper on my fishing goal for the next few days: to kayak fish out of Depoe Bay or off the tip of Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City with rockfish, cabezon or lingcod as my target fish. At the very least, I was hoping to bring home a daily limit or two of fresh Dungeness crab as I had successfully done last year. We all had quite a feast that particular evening and it spoiled us all into wanting more.
The backup plan was to fish and crab on the Siletz itself as it was open for hatchery steelhead and Chinook salmon, but after talking to several of our fellow campers, I found out that even though the fishing had been great, the catching left something to be desired. The next two days on the river were spent in the routine of waking up, fighting 20 knot winds to get to where I dropped the crab traps, pulling them up full of seaweed but no crabs, cursing in four different languages (I can’t speak two of them fluently, but I know all of the choice words) and fighting the current back to camp. I would then spend a couple of hours trolling herring against the tide, yet to no avail. After all of this, I was hoping that there would have to be some payoff.
Now, when I go fishing, I tend to bring enough fishing rods to properly outfit a Hindu God. On this trip, it included two lighter casting rods that I stowed just in case my daughters wanted to fish from the dock next to the campsite we were staying at. Because my teenage daughter brought along a friend, my 7-year-old was the third wheel in the party. Seeing her disappointment in the whole situation, I went to the camp store and bought some worms for our bait. To say she was excited to fish with me is an understatement. At 7, she has come to the realization that the majority of sushi is made with fish. To ask if she loves sushi is like asking if Godzilla loves to cha-cha through the streets of downtown Tokyo. The answer being an emphatic YES.
We both walked down to the dock and I quickly baited her hook, worried that she’d be a little squeamish with the whole process. She made her first cast well for only having had a couple of lessons with me and proceeded to catch a small bullhead. She screamed, “Dad! I got one! I think I have one!” “Rod tip high!” I yelled, “Reel! Reel!” Between proud smiles, I unhooked and released her fish, explaining to her that, because fish “go to school,” this was a part of its education; by fishing and hooking them, they would learn not to eat bait with a hook in it. She looked at me and gave me that knowing grin she gives when she’s wise to my ways. Even my oldest daughter and her classmate got in on the fishing action and we spent our last two days on the windy dock, fooling bullheads and small perch.
Sure, it would have been nice to have had a trap full of fresh crab to boil, fish and chips on the plate, photos of 5 pound rockfish and monster lingcod on a stringer that would have made everyone’s jaw drop, but let me tell you, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. There is no greater feeling than to see both of my daughters full of the same excitement and love of fishing that I first felt over 45 years ago. I hope that as we continue our lives here in the Gorge, they will continue to join me on my fishing excursions for trout, bass, salmon and all of Oregon’s native fishes and that, years from now, they will do their part and continue the cycle of teaching their children an appreciation of fishing as my father did for me.
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