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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2016)
Page 10C OUTSIDE East Oregonian Saturday, January 16, 2016 Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Fishing guide Drake Radditz, left, and Tim Trainor, right, fi sh while standing in a shallow part of the North Fork Nehalem River. S LET IT FI H A good day on the North Fork Nehalem dependent. But I cast upstream of conditions were the waterfall — as prime in early instructed — and January on the North watch my Eait À oat Fork Nehalem. The down through the river had dropped braided green water noticeably since of the North Fork Christmas, leaving Nehalem River. ¿ sh stacked up Guide Drake Tim Radditz had spent Trainor mid-river in deep holes. On the day of the previous night Comment our scheduled À oat, curing the steelhead the temperature had eggs now gobbed onto the hook, treating them reached 0 degrees by ¿ rst light and the fog was lifting. with salt and borax and It was a perfect day to cast food coloring so they hold together and look appetizing a line. The best place to ¿ sh to a ¿ sh. for winter steelhead on the At the tail end of the North Fork is the canyon drift, there it is: the silver section downstream from the À ash of an underwater hatchery. It is also the most steelhead, the bend of the scenic. Waterfalls tumble rod, the tenuous connection and thunder off both sides to a strong and wild thing. of the canyon, bald eagles Fish on. glide overhead, tufted ducks Angling coastal and common mergansers Oregon rivers is always À oat nervously downstream. unpredictable and weather Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Drake Radditz baits a hook with cured steelhead eggs. Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian The results of a productive day of fi shing. On other trips, Radditz has seen plenty of elk and once a bobcat. The river À ows elegantly over bedrock, and the lack of a graveled bottom is rare for a watershed in the region. From the raft, it is hard to believe that a state highway is no more than a short climb and walk away. The usual guided day À oat begins at the ODFW ¿ sh hatchery and ventures over three dangerous rapids — known colloquially as Jack, Queen and King — and ¿ nishes at a tidally affected, brackish takeout roughly eight river miles downstream. Through the canyon, bank access is dif¿ cult and the serious rapids keep away all but the most experienced river runners. We fell into a day of shockingly simple catching. That was mostly because of Radditz’s knowledge of the river, his varied equipment and his recommendation of where and how to ¿ sh. It required good casting and constant line mending, but when the bait swung naturally in front of a steelhead, there was a strike more often than not. On casts that were less than perfect, Radditz would often whisper ³/et it ¿ sh,´ which meant not to panic and abandon hope, but to let the bait À oat downstream and see what happened. Sometimes that worked, too. I was well aware that it is rarely that easy. Steelhead are not hungry in January in the Nehalem. They eat eggs of their own species because those may have been fertilized by a competitor. Removing them from the ecosystem means less competition for their Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Tim Trainor holds up one of his catches. own offspring, should they be lucky enough to spawn successfully. Anglers have similar concerns, though thankfully we don’t resort to cannibalism. But escaping from the crowds and cutting down on competition is a way to increase the odds of success. The North Fork Nehalem is harder to get to by car than more well-known North Coast rivers, its best holes are dif¿ cult to access by foot and hard to ¿ sh from shore, and rafting it can be dangerous and sometimes deadly. If you make it to this spectacular stretch of water, you will be rewarded — whether the bite is on or not. Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian Fog is seen through the trees at daybreak along North Fork Nehalem River. Guide Drake Radditz navigates the raft through one of the rapids along the North Fork Nehalem River. The rapids can be dangerous, and sometimes deadly, and should only be navigated by experienced rafters. +DYH\RXURZQDGYHQWXUHVWRU\\RX¶GOLNHWRWHOORUSKRWRVRI\RXUWURSK\KXQWRU¿VK" Email editor Tim Trainor at ttrainor@eastoregonian.com, or call him at 541-966-0835.
