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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1882)
March, 1 88a 42 but t a man who in filing for the market, or prerving, or for his din ner, lime be-in an object there in plenty of joy and sport in throwing seventy-five to a hundred fine ones on the gravel from a tingle net cabling. The excitement in more intense lhan fly fish ing fir you are playing for biggerstakes, even though it be true you do not give the "speckled beauties" the tame chance ofetcapc. Some men like to make a labor of everything they undertake, and othert try to escape the Creator's mandate about our kind, being com pelled to earn bread by the sweat of our brown, It it the tame thing with (lulling. Our ramping place on the sand spit, reached from Garibaldi by tail-boat, confuted of a tnug house, sheltered among a grove of pine and fir trees on the land tide of the ridge that runs the entire length of the spit. In one f the two rooms of this Robinson Crusoe abode was a large bed for a Portland companion and the writer, and scattered about in bachelor confusion were rifles, thotgunt, ammunition (wet and dry), fuhing poles, Salmon nctt and clam tpadet. In the parlor (so called by cour tesy and to distinguish it from the com bined armory and sleeping apartment) was an immense fire place that devoured logs "like a thing of life," and thrown around with the same chaotic indif fcrcncc that distinguished the bed-room, were shooting tuits, a big iron pot, rub lcr Iwott, farming implements, some skint, oart, boxes, dried fith and meats, a couple of chairs, a table and a for midable array of empty beer bottles for candlesticks. The front door opened on a potato patch, and looked out up on the waters of Tillamook bav. and th Coast range of mountains beyond; the lak door lid not exist. This was our castle, and no feudal lord ever made the Gothic arches of his manor hall ring with more hilarious laughter than echoed through the timbers of thii place at we three congenial souls talked over the present, the future and our porting experiences of the past few bout. The f.n4 day't sport was devoted to claru and cockle digging, ou the flats in the bay at low tide, and to those not to the manner born, it U not the easiest ay in the world of earning a living, or securing a meal. However we had fto difficult in loading our boat (thanka to a kindly disposed Indian), and al though we gave of them to the entire . . l i ,. cnnnlv of clams nev- neiUliDoriiuw, rrv . . .. u.i!. far the entire cr ceaseu, we utns.v, month we stopped in Tillamook, wur boarding place was with an Indian wo man named Hoxhurst, who was a first- class cook and had a large mmi.y u. half-breed children and grand children around her. Eggs, chickens, new po tatoes, fresh butter, butter milk, sweet milk, strawberries, mussels, oysters, trout, clams, flounders, salmon, crabf", and home made bread, were the princi pal features of our bill of fare, and I know that the appetites we brought to bear on our landlady's table independ ent of her very low rates for boarding were ruinous to her financially, and it was no surprise to me (though it struck me with remorse) to hear since my return to Portland that she has of fered her little farm for sale. The summit of the sand spit ridge is covered with tangled under-growth and gnarled pines, and is but fifty yards from our camp, and from which point a conver sation could be easily kept up with a man standing on the ocean beach on one side and with a man on the bay beach on the other, The surf bathing here is delightful, and I experienced no signs of the un dertow that is so dangerous at Long Branch and Ilwaco. I discovered, how ever, a clover knoll on the bay side at the edge of the water that made bath ing there preferable. The beach is strewn with beautiful shells and sea mosses, and a day might be profitably and pleasantly spent in their search alone. But gathering shells, for a big strong man to exercise himself with, is poor business when there are no ladies to help him in his scientific pursuits. and in this respect Tillamook county ig not prolific. Ladies are at an immense premium. Where the sand soit begins. ... that cling to the rocks, and emit water and close up when prodded witn a suck. A short distance beyond the caves, to the westward, is a large rock, standing In the ocean, which is a favorite breed ing place for gulls and shags, and where egfs can be obtained in abund- -r . i l .L. U1..AP frt tht ance. jusi Deyunu ub iuu v south a splendid trout stream empties into the sea, and the beach is covered with all kinds of succulent shell fish. Several bears have been killed not a quarter of a mile from Mrs. Hoxhurst house, one of which fell a victim to the unerring rifle of our jovial host. Elk and deer abound in the mountains whose feet are bathed in Tillamook bay, and pheasant find a security in. the woods that clothe their sides. In n DAaenn Jnflrc frAPBA fJ II r t 1 1 swans swarm in the bay, and on moon light nights treignr, tne wontea suuness of the air with a wild screaming and quacking that becomes a perfect pandemonium. A good day's sport can be had during the summer by engaging an Indian with his canoe for the purpose of seal shooting. When the salmon begin running, seals follow them in over the bar into the bay, and for a good rifle shot who can hit a seals head at fifty yards, when they come up for air and reconnoitreing purposes, it is no diffi-1 cult thing to kill enough of the bright eyed bullet-headed fellows in a day, to supply the entire county with oil for the winter. One of my principal amusements at this place was to fill my pockets with cartridges, and after secur ing good cover on the ridge, shotgun in hand, there, to kill time, if nothing else, blazing away at the flocks of "Shags" as they flew over from the ocean rocks to their breeding grounds on the bay. It .was in this way that we obtained our bait tor crabbine and crabbing as we carried it on, was per- .1 i . . " ' I o " " is Wl, wis per- 2 f" w,""r?Ck!rb,uffl,bout S8 never surpassed in the world for three hundred feet high, down which a sparkling waterfall empties its virgin puiuy mio me roaring ocean below, and burrowing far into which are deep cavet, crowing one another in all sorts of ways. The walls of these sea cav ems are solidly lined with mussels, so compact that they look as if nature had attempted the Byzantine style of mosaic. At the base of the caves are star fish, and a peculiar creation looking not un! like roses, soraefereen and some pink, actual results. We got a carriage wheel tire and knit a net to fit it; then skinned our birds, tied them fast into the bot tom of the net, and sailed out into the stream, where we anchored and threw overboard our crab trap. People who have gone crabbing in Jersey, or even those who have seen the Chinese catch them with nets knit around small bar rel hoops, on Meiggs' Wharf in San Francisco, can form no idea of the suc cess of our scheme. We allowed our