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The INDEPENDENT, November 6,1996
INDEPENDENT
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Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published
twice monthly on the first and third Wednesdays of each
month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge
Street, Vernonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper.
Editors and Publishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen, (503)
429-9410.
Opinion
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Election’s over, now
it’s time to get busy
A lot of activity is going on in Vernonia that will have
considerable impact on the future. One very important
element in that activity is education.
A new superintendent of schools will be selected to
replace Ellis Mason and, for the first time in recent
memory, the community is being asked what charac
teristics they feel are important in the chief adminis
trator for the school district.
To make your feelings known, be sure to attend the
public meeting Nov. 14, 5-6 p.m. in the Vernonia High
School library. As a plus, you’ll also have an opportu
nity to see the bright new look at the high school.
Another education-related opportunity would be to
volunteer your services on the Site Council for either
the high school or the elementary schools. It is not
necessary to have children enrolled in school in order
to be eligible.
Site Councils are legal entities under Oregon law
and are, in fact, a requirement of state law. Their pur
pose is to facilitate and coordinate improvement ef
forts in order to better serve all students.
The move toward site-based decision making was
made by the Legislative Assembly, based on the belief
that those most closely affected by decisions ought to
play a major role in making those decisions. Site
councils are comprised of teachers, classified employ
ees, administrators, parents and others.
There are several components of an effective site
council. They may incorporate team building, problem
solving and conflict resolution as part of staff develop
ment, or explore the roles of school boards, adminis
trators, teachers, classified personnel and parents in
order to achieve the goal of improved educational op
portunities for all students.
For more information and meeting dates, call Wash
ington Grade School, 429-7941, or Vernonia High
School, 429-3521. Community members are needed
and this may be just the right opportunity to get in
volved.
Early election returns are
neither complete nor final
The early election returns on page five were re
ceived at 4:30 a.m. this morning, Nov. 6th, after Co
lumbia County elections workers spent the night
counting votes. Nevertheless, the returns aren’t com
plete because there are still approximately 6,800 ab
sentee ballots remaining to be counted for county
wide races.
Ballot counting resumed this morning at about 10
a.m. and will continue through Friday, or until the job is
completed. Oregon’s liberal regulations regarding ab
sentee ballots are wonderful for the voters, but they
can certainly make the work of elections officials a lot
more complicated.
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By David Michael Jones, member
Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter
The take was violent and the fish made
three runs all the way into my backing before I
was able to bring her to hand. It was appropri
ate that the first fish of the trip was taken on
Macks Canyon, since that was where Uncle
Dick and I were staying while we fished the
Deschutes summer run steelhead. The fly that
was very firmly lodged in the corner of the little
hatchery hen’s mouth was a dubbed bodied fly
with a squirreltail wing using Macks Canyon
colors, that was given to me by a neighbor in
camp the night before. After trying to get the
fly out with forceps, I decided to let the hen
keep it when I released her. I quickly snipped
the leader with sissors that I keep on a pull-
chain on my vest. Gently cradling the rainbow
colored fish, I let the current wash the cool,
life-giving, oxygenated water over her gills un
til she exhibited good strength, then released
the hand that held her at the wrist of the tail,
and the other under her belly. She quickly
swam out of sight. One of the trip’s highlights
was the way my uncle’s face lit up when I told
him of the fish later that evening, as we were
down lower on the drift.
We got up early the next morning to assure
being the first ones on the drift my uncle want
ed us to fish. We had tried for this run one
evening earlier in the trip, but some drift boat
fishermen had already claimed it. The way
this works is, a fisherman claims a run by
starting to fish at the upper end of it, and you
never fish the water below another fisher. It is
a cast and step type of fishing until the whole
run is systematically covered with the classic
downstream quartering cast. We were fortu
nate to get the run we wanted and my Uncle
Dick again gave me the best water and let me
fish through the run in front of him. I used
Dicks Hans “Ol Purp” (red tail, purple chenille
body with a few wraps of silver mylar and a
white calf tail wing on a #4 Jim Teeny hook)
and was fortunate to hook three fish on that fly
until the third took off downstream and my reel
drag failed so I was frantically palming the
spool as the pole surged in my hand. Then ev
erything felt funny. There was tension on the
line but no “fishy” feel to it. I hit the butt of the
pole to try to activate the fish and gave some
side pulls, when my line finally came in with
out the tippet section and no fly. There is cer
tainly a lesson to be learned there about rety
ing tippits and flys. The fourth fish in that run
came to a fly created by Gordon Nash of
Kaufmann’s and it was another purple fly with
Flashabou for a wing, which Gordon tells me
is the secret to its success.
This is a good opportunity to thank my Un
cle Dick for one of my more memorable and
enjoyable fishing trips and for sharing his
memories and experiences on one of Ore
gon’s great rivers, the Deschutes. Passing in
formation down through the generations and
sharing knowledge is one of the greatest gifts
that one person can give to another. Thank
you very much!
Another good point about this trip was that
my favorite fishing rod held up very well after
being repaired by Ole Damons in Portland. I
was fishing for summer steelhead down on
the Nestucca earlier in the year and had bro
ken the top foot off of my rod by reaching up
and yanking down some slack. Ole Damons
repaired it by putting a graphite dowel inside
the hollow sections and sealing the whole
splint. It was good enough to fight and land a
number of fish and that is good enough for
me.
My brother, Keith, and I went down to fish
the North Fork of the Nehalem near the hatch
ery the other day and I would like to pass on
the fishing information number for the hatch
ery. The number to call for fishing information
on the North Fork of the Nehalem is (503)
368-5670. The information is updated every
day at 8:15 a.m.
Izaak Walton League meetings are on
the third Wednesday of each month,
7:00 p.m. at the Vernonia Public Library.
The public is welcome.