C6
OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, February 23, 2019
CAUGHT OVGARD
A record of a new discovery
By LUKE OVGARD
For the East Oregonian
BROOKINGS — I first started
writing about fishing
in paper journals as a
13-year-old kid.
After about five
years, those paper jour-
nals progressed to short-
ened, digital records in a
spreadsheet.
Roughly five years
after that, my blog, www.
caughtovgard.com, and
this column were born.
While my early writ-
ing was certainly nar-
rative, it was far from
entertaining. It was typ-
ically just a rote account-
ing of facts and events, focused
more on the details of where, when,
why and how I caught fish than on
telling a story. Quite frankly, this
early writing was blasé at best.
Fortunately, I’ve progressed
to the point where only some of
my stories are blasé and then only
when referencing my love life.
Despite humble beginnings as a
writer, there were some gems early
on; I just had to dig to find them.
One such gem was the story of
a fish I described four years before
popular science.
It happened to be the last “new
species” I’d record in my paper
journals before going paperless,
which made it even more valuable.
Paperless
I noted this was the last “new
species” I’d recorded in my paper
fishing journals, but as of the time
that final journal entry was written
in 2011, that wasn’t true.
It took more than five years and
a lot of taxonomic discussion, but
on August 27, 2015, the day after
my 25th birthday, I received a sur-
prise gift in the form of science
validating a new species I’d first
caught four years earlier.
The deacon rockfish, Sebastes
diaconus, had officially been
described.
I smirked quietly as I read the
Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife press release because I
knew it. Then I yelled “I knew it!”
over and over again, this time not
so quietly.
For good measure, I went back
to the journal entry and read it one
more time.
Flashback
I knew something was up. This
fish was different.
Though my first instinct was
“blue rockfish,” it didn’t add up.
I’d learned to tell the difference
between black and blue rockfish,
but this one featured characteris-
tics of both fish.
I began keeping score mentally
in my head.
First, the color was wrong. The
body was neither blue nor slightly
mottled as in all of the blues I’d pre-
viously caught. Its coloration was
dark brown-gray, just like a black
rockfish.
Black 1, Blue 0.
Second, the head was wrong for
a black. It was striped like a blue’s,
only the stripes were very faint.
Black 1, Blue 1.
Third, the fins were blue — at
Photo contributed by Luke Ovgard
The three common species you might mistake for one another in Oregon waters (black, blue and deacon) are not found in equal numbers. You’ll catch
roughly three blacks (pictured) for every blue and three blues for every deacon. INSET: The deacon rockfish, Sebastes diaconus, is Oregon’s newest
saltwater fish.
least, the ends of the pelvic and
pectoral fins were.
Blue 2, Black 1.
Fourth, with the mouth closed, a
blue’s jaws should be even, and the
bottom jaw of this fish was a victim
of the underbite found in blacks.
Black 2, Blue 2.
It was tied, but the deckhand
told me it was just a variant of
blue rockfish. I wasn’t convinced
and recorded it as a “Black/Blue
Rockfish Hybrid” in my journals.
I caught three more in the time it
took for them to be identified as
their own, unique species, record-
ing each one as “Black/Blue Rock-
fish Hybrid” in my increasingly
digital records.
That wasn’t the first time my
identification had been corrected,
resulting in a new species, but it
remains the only time a species I’d
already caught became a species
new to science after the fact.
Records
In the Fall of 2017, I got another
deacon, this one much larger
though still not huge.
Captain Levi Schlect of Tide-
winds Sportfishing helped me
catch what would’ve been a world
record had I submitted it. I saved
the line sample, had multiple pic-
tures and witnesses, but I just
didn’t know if a deacon of that size
was worth the hassle for a record.
My decision was made for me
because I lost the line sample. I’d
set it aside with some old fishing
gear and threw it away.
Missing out on a world record
might bother some people, but not
me. I just sit and smugly appreciate
my handwritten journals, another
type of record that only I can hold.
———
Read more at caughtovgard.
com; Follow on Insta and Fish-
brain @LukeOvgard; Contact
luke.ovgard@gmail.com.
Oregon reports boom in camping, longer season
The Associated Press
Oregon set a record for the
number of campers at state parks
last year, and the number of day-
use visitors was the second-high-
est ever, according to a report by
the state’s Parks and Recreation
Department.
The report said 2.9 million peo-
ple camped at a state park in 2018
and 54 million people in total
visited a park, the second-high-
est number ever after a block-
buster summer season in 2016 that
attracted 54.5 million visitors, The
Oregonian/OregonLive reported
Wednesday.
Coastal parks saw the biggest
gain in campers. Fort Stevens,
South Beach and Bullards Beach
— all along the Pacific Ocean —
together accounted for more than
half of the growth in overnight
visits. They collectively attracted
59,300 campers last year, the
newspaper said.
The camping season is also
spreading beyond the traditional
busy summer months. Crowds
have begun to come to camp in the
The Daily Astorian/Joshua Bessex, File
A cabin at Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton. Fort Stevens is one of three state parks that collectively ac-
counted for more than half of the increase in overnight camping stays at Oregon’s parks.
spring and well into the fall, fill-
ing yurts and cabins on rainy days,
and taking advantage of months
with unseasonably warm weather.
“The camping season is stretch-
ing itself,” state parks spokesman
Chris Havel said. “The peak time
is getting longer and longer.”
Smaller state park camp-
grounds also saw big growth, from
Viento in the Columbia River
Gorge to Lake Owyhee in Eastern
Oregon. Tiny Jackson F. Kimball
State Recreation Site in southern
Oregon saw the highest percent
increase, with an additional 557
campers that added up to a 64 per-
cent increase.
Those increases at smaller
campgrounds are exactly what
the parks department is look-
ing for. Last year, the department
launched an initiative to decrease
camping fees at less-popular state
parks, hoping to spread out the
growing crowds.
Havel said it seems to have
worked, so in 2019 the department
will implement a one-month trial
of increased camping fees at a few
of the more popular parks, which
could offset the discounts if made
permanent.
As more people move to Ore-
gon, the agency is working hard to
accommodate increased demand.
The department’s budget is
funded by fees it collects, as well
as slices of state lottery earnings
and RV registrations.
Ninety percent of state park
sites are currently free of charge
— but Havel told the newspaper
that park officials aren’t consider-
ing adding fees in those locations.
Part of the ethos of Oregon state
parks is ensuring that these natu-
ral public spaces are accessible for
everybody.