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The INDEPENDENT, July 5, 2001
Tho
INDEPENDENT
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. Edi
tors and Publishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen. Phone/Fax:
503-429-9410, e-mail: noni@vernonia.com
Opinion
The best July 4th
parade was here
No, we didn’t have any fancy floats, we didn’t have
any queen’s court, we didn’t have a 100 member
marching band, we didn’t even have music and the
parade certainly didn’t take an hour to pass by.
So what was so great about Vernonia’s parade?
The people.
Life in Vernonia tends to be family-oriented and in
formal. The July 4th parade was family-oriented and
informal. Dressed in red, white and blue, kids and
dogs composed about two-thirds of the participants.
They walked or rode bikes, or were in wagons. They
waved and threw candy (No, not the dogs!) They were
in a parade and they were proud.
The other half of the parade’s success came from
the people lining the sidewalks - the spectators. They
came to watch family and friends, many arrived before
the parade and visited with others who were waiting.
They cheered the Scout color guard, they laughed at
the jokes, they had fun. It was a great parade!
Vernonia Pride deserves
thanks for both the parade
and the fireworks. The organi
zation is appropriately named.
They take pride in their work.
Ike Says.. .
By Dale Webb, member
Nehalem Valley Chapter Izaak Walton League
In May, Dad and I traveled over to the Snake
River for our annual spring fishing trip. The
weather was a bit on the cool side, but the fish
ing was good, except for the size of the crappie.
We did very well with catfish, as usual, catching
between 30 to 40 fish in a couple of hours. Our
largest was around seven pounds and we didn’t
keep anything under two pounds. The only
drawback was that we don't care as much for
catfish as we do crappie. Most years, we end up
giving most of our catch away to neighbors. This
year, we again ran into those two old geezers
from Idaho who say they love to eat catfish. We
told them we didn’t really care for the taste of the
fish. They inquired how we cooked it, told us,
again, how they do it and even offered their
recipe to us.
First they combine three parts corn meal, one
part flour and a good dash of lemon pepper. Salt
and pepper the cleaned, damp fillets to your
taste, then shake in the coating to cover. Make
sure to remove all the dark meat from the fillets,
since this is where the strong taste comes from.
The key is in the cooking, they told us. Use corn
oil heated to a very hot temperature. Place at
least an inch of oil in a cast iron frying pan and
heat until, when you throw a strike-anywhere
wood match in the oil, it ignites. Dad and I
thought they were crazy and that the oil would
catch on fire, but it doesn’t. Once the match
flares off, place the fillets in the oil gently, so as
not to splash oil all over. The oil doesn’t splatter
too badly and the fillets cook very quickly,
around three minutes. Cook till the coating is
golden brown. Thicker pieces may require cook
ing to a darker brown.
Dad and I enjoyed the first really good tasting
catfish fillets we had ever had. I think our neigh
bors will be seeing less catfish this year.
June is an exciting time for hunters. No, there
isn’t much hunting to be had except varmints,
but it is when we find out what tags have been
drawn for this fall’s hunting season. This year
posed more problems for local elk hunters be
cause of the decline in the number of Saddle
Mountain tags for bull elk. Hunters this year had
to decide whether or not they wanted to gamble
and take the risk of putting in for an East side tag
and not getting a Saddle Mountain tag as their
second choice. Some local hunters took the risk
and lost, but most got their local tags.
This year is the first time ever to get a second
elk tag for the regular price. In their infinite wis
dom, the state legislature got into the wildlife
management business and decided that the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife could
make more money by selling these left-over tags
at a price not to exceed four times the regular
price. Unfortunately, in looking at the hunts that
had left-over tags, it is apparent that these are
hunts that most hunters don’t want to participate
in...Spike only hunts in Eastern Oregon.
The exception, though, is the Tioga and Pow
ers units in Southern Oregon, where hunters
would hunt if a second tag was granted. The dis
trict biologist for that area realized that his tag al
lotments were too high to handle that much
hunting pressure on his herds. He did the sensi
ble thing and sent a mailer to past tag holders,
giving them the option to remedy this problem. I
read the correspondence to him and it was
unanimous. They wanted to limit the tag allot
ments so that most everybody who applied for
those two units in the drawing would get a tag.
The goal was to have very few left-over tags. It
appears to have worked in the Tioga unit, which
has around 25 tags left over, but the Powers unit
ended up with over 100 left over tags. Most of
the correspondence contained comments that
the additional second tag sales are ridiculous. I
agree. Nobody needs two elk tags in one year.
We have enough hunter crowding as it is. To al
low even more will only add to the problem.
When most biologists are already screaming
that we are harvesting too many bulls, are we
going to allow more harvest? It seems to me that
the district biologist in Southern Oregon was not
in favor of this second tag scheme and did the
right thing.
Did you hear about the proposal to add a late
season any deer hunt for archers in the Saddle
Mountain Unit next year? Well, you are not
alone. I didn’t catch wind of it either, until a week
before it was scheduled to be adopted by the
ODF&W Commissioners at the June 8-9 meet
ing in Portland. The Portland office of ODF&W
sent me a copy of the Commission packet the
weekend before this meeting. I always scan this
thoroughly and, tucked away in the middle of
this packet in one paragraph, was this proposal
endorsed by staff. In addition to being aston
ished that they would even consider having any
additional harvest of deer, the starting date for
the season was unbelievable. It was scheduled
to start on the same morning as opening day of
the second rifle bull elk season!!! Bow hunters
and rifle hunters hunting side by side!!!
I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I
called Portland and confirmed it with Dan Ed
wards, ODF&W staff. I gave Dan an earful, but
Please see page 3