Where fishing web sites go to die

Waaaay back in 2005, one of my good buddies and I decided we were going to get rich spinning fish tales. I was an aspiring outdoors writer, just breaking into some of the regional fishing magazines on the east coast. My partner Tanklin, well, he was a man of many trades, see below:

A few words about Tank: He wasn’t a Web designer, nor a writer by trade. He wasn’t even an angler, really. But he liked to eat fish and that was good enough. Tank went out and built a beautiful online fishing magazine out of Blogger tools, Photoshop and my hubris.

See, I had a vision. Think: New Yorker meets In-Fisherman. I wanted an online, literary fishing magazine full of great photos. Simple design. No crappy moving ads, no five different fonts on the page, no extraneous bullshit. Just good writing, fish and great photos. If we built it, they would come.

I didn’t see anybody coming close to this “ideal” online publication -- and I set off to fill that void. Now mind you, I’d only written a handful of fishing articles, I’d hired my goofball fishing buddies as associate editors (see below), and my man Tank was volunteering until the bucks started pouring in.

Nonetheless, I fancied myself a publisher. I landed some HUGE interviews, just calling famous people up and matter-of-factly asking for an interview for the Online Fishing Magazine, FindFish101.com. You haven’t heard of it?

I’m not sure where it all fell apart. I guess the beginning of the end was when I realized that I couldn’t make people who weren’t outdoors writers into great outdoors writers. My buddy Matt Z and my little brother turned in a good article or two over the first few months, but it got harder and harder to make them do it. They didn’t really want to write, they wanted to fish.

The nail in the coffin was when I went on Craigslist looking for writers. I put up ads in fishy towns throughout the U.S., asking for fishing-minded young journalists to please email me about a great new online fishing magazine. And then almost every one of them told me to eat shit when I mentioned that I couldn’t pay them.

So where does that leave FindFish101.com today? Tank and I tried to get the band back together about a year ago, but the magic was gone. I was jaded. We cleaned it up as best we could, took out most of the references to specific dates, and left it to rot in the Web ghetto. But I recently paid another year on my URL and hosting, just in case…

The great interviews I mentioned, I’m not letting those go. I’m going to repost a couple of them here over the next couple days.

Also, I’m looking for advice on what to do with the bandwidth and the URL. If any of you can think of a good use for the URL FindFish101.com, I’ll keep supporting the hosting and help out with it. I was kind of thinking about starting a fishing Wiki. Dumb term. I know.

Digital camera advice?

KP and I hiked Goodman Creek today when the clouds broke and we nearly stepped about 100 Oregon Rough-skinned newts. Here is a picture of one that I took last time I was there:

From MattStansberry

I would have taken a few pics today, but my digital camera is still drying out thanks to my dump in Indian Creek last week.

Speaking of cameras -- I am appealing to the peanut gallery for digital camera advice. I'm literally sitting on about $1000 in broken mid-range digital camera equipment. I have 2 Olympus cameras, one that has a broken cover that slides over the screen)and another that the auto-focus crapped out on. I probably don't have the warranties -- I'm not a paperwork guy. Are these things worth sending back to Olympus for a repair?

Winter steelhead fishing on the Siuslaw River

Winter steelhead fishing on the Siuslaw River above Whitaker Creek yesterday, Wild Bill and I again tried our luck chasing the silver monsters. The river was absolutely jammed when we got there -- tons of wade fishermen, and easily a dozen boats between Whitaker Creek and 126.

We kept going upstream, past the Whitaker Creek boat launch, and the people dropped off to nothing. Where the hell were all the people? We didn’t have our regulations in the car, but our first thought was that the river was closed above Whitaker Creek. We drove back down to the boat ramp to see if we could spot someone official looking to ask.

We found a guy walking back up the road from a pullout downriver. He was wearing all green, so we figured that was a good enough reason to trust him. He said the stream was open for several miles above the ramp. So we went for it.

Bill had rushed out that morning, forgetting his wading boots and his rain jacket, so needless to say, he wasn’t in top shape for the water. He wore his L.L. Bean duck boots over his waders and the rubber bottoms of the boots had the traction of roller skates. But undaunted, we drifted some excellent water.

I couldn’t believe we had the place to ourselves. Deep slots, lots of cover, definitely a fishy spot. Bill hooked up with a trout right away on a nymph w/ egg dropper. A good sign. I was fishing a woolybugger/egg combo under a float.

The rain was coming and going and the water looked milky blue. I thought for sure we were on to something. Or fishing illegally. Eventually I spooked two hens, and I watched them run upriver from a big riffle I was trying to fish.

We left.

Despite going 0-4 on my quest for winter steelhead this month, I have learned a few things:

Don’t fish in rubber boots.

Carry a copy of the regs in your car.

Get out earlier -- especially on the weekends. You’ve got to be in front of the mob to get these winter steelhead to bite.

Work slower. I’m spooking a lot of fish, probably right out from under me. I need to work closer and be more patient.

Wading gear review: Hodgman Wadelite Wader Support Belt

Best purchase ever: Fact, the best buy I've ever made in my fly fishing career was my Hodgman Wadelite Wader Support Belt. I picked it up a few months ago after fishing the Umpqua River with Wild Bill. I'd fallen a few times on that notoriously slippery streambed while we were annoying the summer steelhead. Bill had watched me fill my waders a few times and suggested I buy the belt he was wearing.

Since then the belt has actually helped me stay upright and has kept the river from filling my waders several times.

The wading belt cinches up tigher than the standard belts you get with your wader purchase. And the extra wide back support eases the lower back. When I first moved here I was wading every day. My back woud be kiling me. This belt actually makes it easier to wade, it doesn't hurt at all -- instant yoga.

Product specs: Features nylon coated high density foam construction, web belt with Velcro cinch, dual accessory D-rings, and PVC "no slip" dots on inside to prevent belt from sliding on waist. Cost: $27.99.

Fly fishing Indian Creek

Wild Bill and I took a road trip to Indian Creek today to find fabled winter steelhead. We passed a lot of good looking water on the Siuslaw River on the way there, but we were determined to check out this wader-friendly tributary.

The water has been really low, not good for feisty fish, but it makes fly fishing a little easier. I floated a chenille and chain-bead egg pattern on a Palsa indicator. Wild Bill was throwing a black woolybugger.

I was drifting over some good looking runs, but nothing happening. The water was really clear, tough going for sneaking on the fish. We probably spooked a bunch. But we eventually saw one of the fish we spooked.

It looked about 30 inches from what I saw of it. Wild Bill had a better view. He spooked it from where it was holding at the top of a riffle. It ran down to the sandy bottom of a deep pool, and then he lost track of it.

He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get it coming back around, but no luck. Spooking a steelhead is a lot like pissing off your girlfriend. No amount of flailing is going to make things go your way. Best to let things calm down and come back later.

There were some really tiny nymphs in the water. I had them all over my hand after climbing over some rocks. I was taking a picture of the nymphs when something popped up in the river in front of me. At first I thought it was a seal. Turned out to be an otter, which was really cool to see. And then I slipped and dunked my camera.

We’ll see if it comes back. I’d like to try to identify those nymphs.

We saw a bald eagle flying over Lake Creek on the way back. It might have been Stephen Jr.

Trout politics: Hard hitting research from Teh Wind Knot

Most of us outdoors bloggers are limited to posting pictures, stories about our weekends, pointing to other peoples' links. But some bloggers out there are publishing actual research. Specifically, two posts on Teh Wind Knot caught my attention this week.

First, if you've been following the public flogging that river-grubbing Spring Ridge Club has been taking the past month, you might be interested to know what kind of people are included in its members ranks. Through some creative search engine tactics, TWK managed to pull together a list that has since been removed from the site.

From TWK: You never know; you might want to switch cardiologists or move your 401(k) to a firm that does not try to steal trout waters from you.

The slimebags at the Spring Ridge Club are a pretty easy target. But what about my beloved Trout Unlimited? I pretty much give that group carte blanche. TWK pulled from his finance know-how to analyze how TU is spending my money and he was less than impressed.

TWK: I can't convince anyone that TU is an efficient organization, since with the most favorable look, only about 20% of annual revenues are spent on fish stuff. It is pretty clear that TU could do more in grassroots habitat work if they cut down on the glossy magazines, direct mail and boondoggles for staffers.

Serious work.

Coastal Cutthroat bonanza on the fly

I headed west this afternoon to fish a coastal stream (which will remain unnamed), looking for steelhead. It's a river I've been scouting for a little while, waiting to get my license.

I was using my standby, black, size 10 beadhead woolybugger. It wasn't doing much, so I put on a tiny orange nymph float. Soon after, I figured it out -- fish were hitting my orange float.

From MattStansberry

I switched out to an egg pattern and started catching cuttrhoats on an egg and indicator rig. The first few were tiny, but as I worked upstream to bigger pools I started catching bigger fish in the 14" range.

As it got dark I switched back to my woolybugger so the fish could see it. They started getting more aggressive and taking it on the swing.

They weren't giant winter steelhead, but you know, after catching about 15 of them I lost count.

Oregon hunting and fishing dangers

Hunting and fishing in Oregon can be a risky endeavor. Just look at these two recent news stories.

Lead tainted deer
From the Corvallis Gazzette Times, outdoors columnist Bill Barker tells the story of a hunting partner getting sick from eating environmentally tainted deer. A buck his partner had shot had been carrying around many times the normal amount of lead found in animal tissues.

From the article: "It was definitely causing his sickness. Needless to say, he decided to empty his freezer. It took quite a while for him to start feeling better. It’s hard to rid the body of lead."

Barker's party found a lead-polluted stream near their camp site and the vegetation around the area was storing mineral traces. That buck had an appetite for lead-tainted browse.

Rogue waves near Chetco River bar
A story in today's Mail Tribune points out that a new shallow shoal spanning most of Sporthaven Beach is responsible for creating "sneaker" waves that have capsized small boats crabbing 100-200 yards from the beach. Last week 12-foot rogue wave capsized a small craft, drowning one man. It was the second capsize incident in less than a week.

It looks like the Port of Brookings is going to have to change the tagline on its Web site: "The safest bar on the Oregon Coast".

Goodman Creek hike

Looking for a hike nearby Eugene yesterday I headed south on Willamette Highway 58 to a trailhead near Hardesty Mt. The 2 mile hike back to the waterfall on Goodman Creek Trail would leave me enough time to get back before dark, so I headed out.

From MattStansberry

I wasn’t expecting much. Looking at Goodman Creek from the road it’s kind of a wasteland, a dirty stump-filled gulley leading to Lookout Reservoir. Plus, starting out on the trail I realized how busy Rte 58 really is. You could hear the traffic for at least the first mile and a half.

Huge trees were down across the trails and it was pretty slow going at first. Which is lucky because I found an Oregon rough-skinned newt.

From MattStansberry

I spotted more wildlife at the end of the line at the falls. There was a little charcoal-black water ouzel singing. It would look at me, sing a few lines, and dips under the water. It sounded like a medley of songs from different birds.

The sound of the bird, the falls, the little grotto -- it reminded me of some sort of cheesy waterfall you’d buy at a landscaping store. The overhanging ferns and moss, the glassy pool in no way seems related to the dusty trickle running to the highway.

First fish of 2007 -- McKenzie River

Wild Bill and I went on the move today to try to find some active trout. I had to stop in Walterville, OR at the McKenzie Angler where they told us upriver was too cold, better off heading back toward town.

We headed downriver to Armitage, parked under the bridge and headed out in the rain. I had a size 10, black beadhead wooly bugger on my four-weight. Not the best choice of rod -- short for the size of the water and a little flimsy for the weight of the fly -- but it’s new and I wanted to use it.

Light drizzle, about 50 degrees, it felt good to be fishing. But I wanted more structure. This run of river was pretty smooth, no pockets or breaks to speak of. Plus, I’d left my polarized glasses at home. Eventually I did find some structure, a drop off along the channel.

I’d like to say I planned on catching the fish on that drop, but I actually hadn’t caught anything and was turning around to talk some smack to Wild Bill when the thing hit my line. It was nothing to brag about -- little wild cutthroat about 10 inches.

Wild Bill got a few hits from fish in the same scale, had one on for a minute. Eventually the little guys started rising. Pretty cool first day back.