C6
OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, July 6, 2019
CAUGHT OVGARD
Catching sharks from shore a new favorite pastime
My feet found purchase in sand,
blessed sand, and I prepared for
the pictures.
Violent, lightning-fast moves to
bite my hand failed as I grabbed
it on the pectoral fin or pushed
gently on the base of the head
accordingly.
The raw strength of the fish
was impressive. It measured just
over four feet long and probably
weighed about 40 or 50 pounds,
but it was more powerful than
sturgeon I’d handled twice that
size, every inch of sandpaper skin
atop dense muscle.
Keeping its head submerged
while I maneuvered for a picture
was enough to pull muscles in my
forearms, but it was worth it.
I finally subdued the fish for a
few pictures, and I was hooked on
shark fishing.
By LUKE OVGARD
For the East Oregonian
MARATHON, Florida — The
most dangerous apex predators
like to swim. They destroy fish and
anything that crosses their path at
an alarming rate. They are the sub-
jects of classic horror films, are
responsible for the most gruesome
and grisly deaths and are capable
of unimaginable evils.
For sharks, these dangerous
apex predators, humans, pose a
major threat.
According to USA Today,
humans kill 100 million sharks
per year while just six — yes, six
— humans are killed by sharks
annually.
In the water, the most wide-
spread predators are sharks. Sure,
orcas are a threat to some sharks
where they share waters, but
sharks live from the coldest depths
of the Arctic Ocean to the warm-
est tropical seas in shallows and
depths alike. Orcas and tunas and
billfish don’t persist everywhere as
sharks do.
Despite the best efforts of the
cleaver that is humanity, there are
areas where sharks still thrive.
Earlier this week, I was fortu-
nate enough to spend some time
in one of these havens: the Florida
Keys.
The Keys
US-1 spans the entirety of the
Keys; “The Overseas Highway”
is the gateway to everything from
Key Largo to Key West.
In planning my trip there, I had
planned numerous stops at bridges
along the archipelago to chase the
dozens of exotic fishes that can be
found there.
My first stop, just outside of
Islamorada, resulted in 51 fish
representing 12 species — six
of which I’d never caught before.
Not bad for a two-hour pit stop.
I moved on in a state of ecstasy
brought on by heat and an hours-
long dose of dopamine.
Polishing off a cold brew cof-
fee, I pulled into the second loca-
tion to meet a friend I’d met on
Instagram, Casey Shanaberger (@
cjfishes). I arrived a few minutes
before him, and I began talking to
the guys fishing nearby.
“There was just a big-a** shark
here, man,” one said, obviously a
little excited.
Hooked
Photo Contributed by Luke Ovgard
The author poses with that first nurse shark. It measured just over 4 feet long and weighed about 40 or 50
pounds.
They chatted about it awhile,
and it got me thinking. Sabikis or
herring jigs tipped with bait are a
blast, but I never turn down the
chance at a big fish.
Casey showed up and began
catching fish immediately.
I rigged up the chum bag and
caught a larger grunt for bait,
sticking my finger on one of its
spines. The blood pooled slowly,
and I dipped it in the brine, add-
ing to the blood in the water before
again fishing for dinks.
A brown blur on the bottom
crept up from the dark water, and I
knew it was a shark.
At that, I got excited, too.
I checked the heavy rod I typi-
cally use for sturgeon back home,
seeing it was still wedged firmly
between two rocks, slightly pulsat-
ing as the bait wriggled to escape
the hook.
I landed another Bermuda
chub, and it projectile-crapped all
over me. Seriously. They shoot
it out of their anal vents. They’re
famous for that bad habit. They’re
also famous for having no table or
bait value. Other fish won’t even
eat them.
I was already soaked in the
unrelenting heat, and that was bad
enough, but a massive smear that
looked like it came from the diaper
of a sick baby? Hard pass.
Lamenting my now soiled shirt,
I ripped it off and continued fishing,
starting a mental sunburn timer for
my pale Nordic skin.
Moments later — my luck —
this location went from a crapshoot
to “Holy crap!”
The Take
The large rod began sinking
as something much, much larger
began to pull, throbbing and pul-
sating at once rhythmically and
violently.
Though it took a second to get it
out of the rocks, I was ready.
In a strong but metered lift, I
ensured the 5/0 circle hook was set
and began hauling in the beast.
Casey encouraged me, grabbed
pliers, got the camera app on my
phone ready and walked with me as
I battled the brute over to the sandy
boat ramp maybe 50 yards away. I
would have to land it there because
there was no way I could lift a four-
and-half-foot shark up a sea wall.
Unmistakably brown with blue-
green eyes devoid of pupils and a
long, slightly-rounder tail, I knew
at once it was a nurse shark.
Known for fighting much more
like massive catfish than other
sharks, these fish are strong, bull-
dog fighters that pull hard down
and away. They don’t jump or
make blistering runs like some
other sharks, but they pull and pull
and pull.
Minutes felt like hours in the
sun, as I baked and slicked with
sweat, but I got the shark to the
beachhead, and Casey helped me
land it.
The Handling
I kicked off my flip flops and
stood feet away from a shark in
nothing but shorts and a hat.
“Watch your toes and fingers,”
warned someone. I obeyed.
Pliers helped me pry the cir-
cle hook free from the corner of
its mouth, and I looked incredi-
bly graceful trying to balance on
the snot-slippery boat ramp while
tailing the fish and trying to find
a front handhold out of reach of its
maw.
I’d caught sharks before, but
never that big.
In three days’ time, fishing for
other fish with a large bait out, I
hooked 10 sharks from shore, rang-
ing from three to seven feet long
and landed seven of them — either
solo or with Casey. It was epic.
The largest, a 7-foot black-
tip or spinner (I never did get it
close enough to tell which), broke
my 45-pound steel leader after 10
minutes of blistering runs, jumps
and enough adrenaline-pumping
head shakes to make me smile just
thinking about it.
I released all of the sharks
unharmed, save for one three-foot
bonnethead that managed to swal-
low the entire 14-inch bait and cir-
cle hook. A shore angler quickly
adopted it and took it for dinner.
I felt a bit guilty, but at least it
wouldn’t go to waste.
Insanely enough, most of the
people around me asked why I
didn’t kill the others as I landed
them. That’s an attitude that needs
to change. Sharks are awesome.
This apex predator has a new
favorite type of fishing, and I’ll
be pushing hard to conserve the
only other truly worldwide apex
predator.
———
Order CaughtOvgard perfor-
mance fishing apparel or read
more at caughtovgard.com; Fol-
low on Instagram and Fishbrain
@lukeovgard; Contact luke.
ovgard@gmail.com.
Killamacue Lake offers more than just a unique name
Lake in the Elkhorn
Mountains with an
unusual name and a
beautiful view
IF YOU’RE GOING ....
From downtown Haines, turn
at the sign for Anthony Lakes
and drive 1.7 miles to the first
corner. Stay straight, then left
on Pocahontas Road for a few
hundred yards to a junction
with South Rock Creek Road.
Turn right (west, directly toward
the Elkhorns) on South Rock
Creek Road.
Follow this paved, two-lane
road, which turns to well-grad-
ed gravel after about 3.5 miles.
Continue west, uphill, into the
mountains. The Killamacue
trailhead is not marked, but it is
about 2 miles from where the
graded gravel ends. From there
the road is rocky and rough, and
best suited to four-wheel drive
vehicles. The trail starts as an old
roadbed that heads steeply to
the right; the location is where
the main road makes a sharp
left turn and crosses Killamacue
Creek. The old roadbed crosses
an irrigation ditch and then con-
tinues for a few hundred yards
to a flat area. The trail proper
heads uphill to the right.
By JAYSON JACOBY
EO Media Group
BAKER CITY — A lake with
the name “Killamacue” ought to
have a compelling story.
Or some sort of story, at any
rate.
To be sure, Killamacue, an
alpine jewel in the Elkhorn Moun-
tains west of Haines, needs no
intriguing etymological tale to jus-
tify a visit to its shore.
(Actually the more precise
adjective in this case is toponym-
ical, which describes the origin
of a place name, not just a regular
word.)
The view from Killamacue,
which takes in the craggy ramparts
of Chloride Ridge to the south as
well as the granitic (and rather
white, despite the name) summit of
Red Mountain to the north, seems
to me sufficient reward for the con-
siderable exertion required.
But that name can hardly be
ignored.
My favorite reference in such
matters (and, if I may be so bold,
it should be yours as well) is “Ore-
gon Geographic Names.”
To refer to this as merely a book
seems to me insufficient.
I would instead describe it as
the life’s work of a father and son
to compile the most comprehen-
sive archive of place names, and
when possible their origins, in our
great state.
Lewis A. “Tam” McArthur
started this immense effort in
1928. His son, Lewis L. McAr-
thur, took over in 1974. Tam died
in 1951.
Their seventh edition, published
in 2003, contains more than 6,200
entries sprawling across almost
1,100 pages. It’s a hefty thing even
in paperback, capable of bruising
a toe if dropped from even a mod-
est height.
EO Media Group Photo/Jayson Jacoby
Killamacue Lake, with its backdrop of Chloride Ridge, is one of the alpine
jewels of the Elkhorn Mountains.
The elder McArthur’s concept is
both simple and brilliant.
After all, what Oregonian (or
any reader, come to that) wouldn’t
be curious as to how a post office
came to be called “Legality,” or
which items might have been tal-
lied in the naming of “Five Hun-
dred Flat?”
The McArthurs, who must have
interviewed as many Oregonians
as any pair of authors ever have,
and quite likely more, endeavor to
answer those and hundreds of other
questions — although they’re not
always successful.
Legality was a short-lived post
office in Gilliam County (1884-88),
but the McArthurs were unable to
track down an explanation of its
name. Five Hundred Flat, by con-
trast, which is in Grant County,
yielded a story from Al Oard, for-
mer supervisor of both the Malheur
and Wallowa-Whitman national
forests, that the name derived from
the place being a popular site for
buckaroos to play a game called
mumbly-peg, which involves pock-
etknives and is played to a score of
500. I’m not clear if that number
includes fingers.
The McArthurs’ information
on Killamacue Lake is not exactly
encyclopedic.
The sixth edition offers no theo-
ries about the name, but in the sev-
enth the younger McArthur writes,
“E.W. Coles of Haines told the
compiler in 1973 that it was a ren-
dition of a very old Indian name.
He added he had once owned the
lake.”
The man named in the book
is Edward W. Coles, and he was
the grandfather of Roger Coles of
Baker City.
Roger Coles told me that his
grandfather indeed did own the
lake — or at least the rights to its
water for irrigation, as the land
surrounding the lake is part of the
Wallowa-Whitman National For-
est. Roger Coles said his grandfa-
ther also helped to rebuild the dam
at the lake’s outlet after it was dam-
aged by a landslide.
There is an outlet valve that
allows irrigators to withdraw
water from the lake when its level
drops. Killamacue shrinks consid-
erably by late summer. The water
flows down Killamacue Creek and
then into a ditch that starts near
the creek’s confluence with Rock
Creek.
I’ve hiked to Killamacue Lake
probably 20 times, most recently
on June 22 when I was accompa-
nied by my cousin, Ben Klecker.
The trail is in some ways the
archetypal Elkhorn Mountains
route. It is characteristic of trails in
the range in attacking the terrain
rather directly, mainly eschew-
ing the grade-easing switchbacks
that are ubiquitous on the horse-
friendly paths across the Wallowas.
You’ll ascend about 1,500 feet
in a trifle over 3 miles, which
makes for quite a challenging level
of steepness.
The trail for the most part stays
on the south side of Killamacue
Creek, crossing the stream twice
via wooden bridges. The route
presents a lesson in the sometimes
dramatic differences in vegetation
in the Elkhorns between north-fac-
ing and south-facing slopes.
The trail generally is on north
aspects, and the relatively cool,
shady location is reflected in the
trees — lots of tamaracks, which
prefer such places — and a rather
tangly undergrowth featuring a
variety of wildflowers and shrubs,
among them huckleberries which
ought to ripen by late July.
Yet in areas when the canopy
opens you can look north and see
nearby slopes studded with sage-
brush, a desert denizen that none-
theless grows in profusion in parts
of the Elkhorns up to and some-
times above 8,000 feet elevation.
Although the trail is short
enough for a day hike there is a
large area suitable for camping
near where the trail reaches the
lake at its northeast corner.
The area is, if I may indulge in a
bit of understatement, amenable to
the production of mosquitoes.
As for the name, I have posed
the question of its origin to offi-
cials from both the Umatilla and
Nez Perce tribes. As of press time
I hadn’t received a response, but I
will relate what, if anything, I find
out in a later column.
If nothing else, I would be
pleased to know how close to
proper my pronunciation has been
all these years.