B
Saturday, June 6, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
RECREATION
REPORT
Free fi shing
in Oregon this
weekend
You don’t need a
license to fi sh today
or Sunday in Oregon.
The free fi shing
weekend in June usu-
ally features a variety
of fi shing derbies and
other events around
the state, but those
have been canceled
this year due to the
coronavirus pan-
demic.
Many waterbodies
have been stocked
with rainbow trout in
advance of free fi sh-
ing weekend, but the
Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife
is not announcing its
stocking schedule to
reduce the chance of
large crowds.
Although no fi shing
license is required,
all other regulations,
including limits on the
size and number of
fi sh kept, are in effect.
Some
state park
campgrounds
will reopen
Campgrounds at
Wallowa Lake and
Farewell Bend state
parks are scheduled to
reopen on June 9.
Several other state
park campgrounds
reopened on May 29
on a fi rst- come, fi rst-
served basis. They
include:
• Minam, between
La Grande and Wal-
lowa
• Hilgard Junction
west of La Grande
• Catherine Creek
near Union
• Clyde Holliday
near John Day
• Cottonwood
Canyon southeast of
The Dalles
Forest Service
campgrounds
near Baker City
opening June 8
The U.S. Forest
Service’s Union Creek
Campground, on the
north shore of Phil-
lips Reservoir about
17 miles southwest
of Baker City, will
open for the season
on Monday, June 8.
The popular camp-
ground, rare among
Forest Service camp-
grounds in offering
campsites with full
hookups for trailers,
had been closed due
to the coronavirus
pandemic.
The campground
has 74 sites, includ-
ing 20 with electrical,
water and septic
hookups and 18 with
electrical and water
only. Union Creek
also has several
bathrooms with fl ush
toilets, as well as
paved trails, a fi sh-
cleaning station and
picnic sites.
Other Forest
Service facilities at
Phillips Reservoir,
including the day-
use and boat launch
areas at Union Creek,
and the Southwest
Shore and Millers
Lane campgrounds
on the other side of
the reservoir, will
open the same day.
McCully Forks
Campground near
Sumpter will also
open June 8.
Lisa Britton / For the EO Media Group
Daffodils blooming in front of a cabin at the Fremont
Powerhouse near Granite.
Detoured,
but not
deterred
■ Lingering snow from a late storm
thwarted a planned hike in the Blue
Mountains, but other options nearby
rescue a Saturday from disappointment
I ought to have known better than to trust the Blue
Mountains a month shy of the summer solstice.
More particularly since our destination was 6,000 feet
above sea level.
But sometimes the
ON THE TRAIL
difference between
optimism and naivete
JAYSON JACOBY
is so thin as to be im-
measurable.
My idea, as ideas so often do, seemed perfectly reasonable
when plotted on paper.
It was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, the sun
was shining, and after a spring of hiking mainly on roads I
had a hankering to put in some miles on a real trail.
I suggested the Lost Creek trail on the Umatilla National
Forest near Olive Lake, about 11 miles west of Granite.
This would be our third trip in a month through the
stomach-churning curves of the highway between Sumpter
and Granite, but I laid out my bargaining chips.
I proposed lunch at the Sumpter Nugget, as my daughter,
Lisa Britton / For the EO Media Group
Snow from a late spring storm lingered on the Lost Creek trail, near Olive Lake in the
Umatilla National Forest west of Granite, on May 23.
Olivia, is partial to the hearty breakfast
burritos.
(As I am — offering lunch at the Nugget
was not precisely a selfl ess gesture on my
part.)
For my son, Max, there was the promise of
a couple of geocaches to investigate.
It had not escaped my attention that just
a few days before, a storm had doused our
region with rain.
Nor that it was no ordinary rainstorm.
This belated blast from the North Pacifi c,
where winter storms are born, pushed the
snow level down to elevations more typical of
March than May.
Naive or no, I could scarcely fail to notice,
once the clouds broke, that the Elkhorns
were starkly white about halfway down to
the valley.
But I convinced myself that even though
the storm was unusually potent for one so
late in the season, its effects would largely be
erased after a few days of more seasonable
temperatures.
We hadn’t even made it to Blue Springs
Summit, between Sumpter and Granite,
when I realized I was almost certainly
wrong.
If You Go...
FREMONT POWERHOUSE
From Granite drive west on Forest Road
10 (Grant County Road 24), following a
sign to the Fremont Powerhouse and Olive
Lake. The road is paved for the fi rst 4 miles
and well-graded gravel thereafter. The
powerhouse is on the right side of the road
about 1 mile from where the pavement
ends.
LOST CREEK TRAIL
From the Fremont Powerhouse, contin-
ue west on Road 10 for about 6 miles. The
trailhead is a pullout on the north side of
the road (the trail starts on the south side).
BEAVER MEADOWS
Where Road 10 changes from pavement
to gravel, instead of continuing up the hill
west on Road 10, turn left on gravel Road
13, following Clear Creek. Drive south on
Road 13 for about 2 1/4 miles, then turn left
on Road 19. This road follows Beaver Creek
for several miles of sprawling meadows.
Road 19 continues to Highway 7 at Whit-
ney.
See Detoured/Page 2B
Crazy about
crappie fishing
I was about to
panic. I love spring
crappie fi shing in
Oregon. And I was
stuck over in South
Dakota for 6½ weeks doing a
job that was supposed to take
two weeks and then came
down with COVID-19.
I’m probably exaggerating
a little but it was cold and
somewhat snowy up until I
fl ew back home. I got back
home and everything was
green. I felt like I’d lost 1½
months of my life. One day
it was still somewhat winter
and then suddenly I woke up
at home and we were on the
tail end of spring. If I missed
crappie fi shing, I’d die! Katy
and I had gone crappie fi sh-
ing in March before I’d left
but it had been about two
weeks too early so we’d only
caught a few.
I was afraid the crappie
had already spawned and
moved out but I had to try.
My daughter, Kolby, had just
healed up from COVID-19
BASE CAMP
TOM CLAYCOMB
so she said she wanted to go
with me. I had a few hours
of writing to take care of and
since it was Memorial Day
I told her we’d leave at noon
and hopefully the crowds
would have thinned out a
little by then and we’d fi sh
until dark. Turned out to be a
good call.
Due to minor complications
we didn’t arrive at the lake
until 3:30 p.m. Things started
off a little slow. We were
catching enough to be happy
and at this rate would end up
with a decent mess of fi sh but
we had to get things sped up
so we jumped and tried one
of my old reliable hot spots.
We pulled up to my hot
spot but no Bueno. I always
slaughtered the crappie there
but something had happened.
OK, I had other spots, we’ll go
hit them.
Submitted photo
Oregon not known for crappie fi shing? It should be.
I have a little Jon boat with
a trolling motor, and since
we weren’t moving fast we
kept fi shing as we moved to
our new location. There is
a fl at spot that I never fi sh
because it’s no good but for
some reason we hit it. We
got a decent one. In all my
articles I tell everyone if
they catch one to stop and jig
because crappie are school-
ing fi sh. Where you get one
there’s more. So I decided to
follow my own advice even
though it looked like a dead
spot.
We caught a couple of
more. Then it got hot. I don’t
know if we had found a spot
packed with crappie or they
had moved in as the sun
went down, but it was crazy.
The last hour we literally
had a hit every cast.
Usually when we start
fi shing, I’ll switch to differ-
ent colored jigs and then
we’ll go with whichever color
they’re hitting best. The last
few years we’ve been doing
good on black/white or red/
white tube jigs so that’s what
I put on Kolby’s line.
See Crappie/Page 2B