A10
SPORTS
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Baseball starts indoors
Steve Tool/Chieftain
Contact — Wallowa Valley baseball player Christopher Nobles,
smacks one in the batting cage on the pavillion in the Joseph
Charter School gym. Coach Mark Ramsden said the team has
18 players, including fi ve from Elgin. Ramsden doesn’t expect
to practice outdoors for about two more weeks due to leftover
snow, but the squad is anxious to start the season.
Spring fi shing report
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa’s Isabella Gillery (15) and Abby Straight (14) capture a rebound from Joseph’s Basey Dawson(far right) during
Wallowa’s second-game win.
Basketball season begins for the
youngsters of Wallowa County
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
After high school basketball
season and its playoffs recede into
happy memories, it’s time for the
next generation of players to take
the fl oor. In Wallowa County, kids
in grades 5 and 6 hit the hardwood,
showing off their skills and passion
for the game. Wallowa includes their
4 th graders on the teams. While the
games are fun to watch—there’s the
occasional player from the oppos-
ing team who grabs a rebound and
tosses it immediately toward the
wrong basket, or kids who sim-
ply hang ferociously onto the trea-
sured ball once it’s in their pos-
session — youngster’s basketball
also showcases remarkably skilled
players who will be future stars. It
may be fun for adults to watch, but
for the players, the game is seri-
ous stuff. It’s not so much whether
their team wins or loses, but about
ball handling, racing down-court
with a precious, stolen leather orb,
and whether for that instant, the
ball heaved skyward actually gets
into the basket that is so, so, so far
overhead.
The next games in this junior
version of March Madness pit
Enterprise against Wallowa, Tues-
day at 4:30 PM in the Enterprise
High School gym. On Wednes-
day at 4:30, Joseph and Wallowa
renew their rivalry at Wallowa High
School. In each meet, girls play the
fi rst two games, boys the second
two games.
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Thanks to the spring
weather, things are look-
ing up for Wallowa County
anglers.
Kyle Bratcher, Ore-
gon Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s Acting District
Fish Biologist, said the main
fi sheries are steelhead in the
Wallowa and Imnaha rivers,
which run until the end of
April.
According to Hatcher, the
fi sh are just now starting a
determined move toward the
hatcheries.
“Fishing for them has been
pretty good the last couple of
weeks,” he said. “It should
be good as long as the rivers
don’t blow out (run high).
Bratcher noted that spring
fi shing in the Wallowa River
can be good when water con-
ditions are right. Nice trout
can be caught in the spring
months of April and May.
Anywhere a steelhead fi sh-
ery is open, trout season is
open. Locally, this leaves the
Wallowa, Grande Ronde and
the Imnaha open. Otherwise,
the season doesn’t open until
May 22.
Bratcher said steelhead
fi shing is good on the Grande
Ronde because the water
is normally high this time
of year. He added that with
the coming warm weather,
the water will probably start
to rise and have a negative
impact on fi shing.
Wallowa
Lake
—
Bratcher said that while the
lake still has some ice, he
wasn’t sure if it was stable
enough to fi sh on, but things
are looking up.
“We had some pretty big
Kokanee last year, and based
on the cycles we’ve seen
in Kokanee populations, I
would expect this is going to
be one of the better Kokanee
years we’ve seen in the last
decade.”
He suggested starting
Kokanee fi shing as soon as
the ice comes off the lake.
Bratcher said that he’s
been grooming for a good
spring fi shery is Kinney
Lake, east of Joseph,
“It’s fi shed really well
through the ice all win-
ter,” he said. “Typically,
it’s one of the best spots in
the county to fi sh in March,
especially for kids, once the
ice comes off it.”
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