and then there are free boats. I’m mostly kidding and still enjoying the process. There has been a lot of work to go into this boat and a lot yet to do. I guess that groundscoring a boat for restoration has saved me some expense and time, it just doesn’t seem that way. Like any restoration project you dig into one thing and you discover another problem and before you know it . . . . Anyway, I’ve removed the ceilings on both the starboard and port sides:
I’ve also removed half of the bow decking:
I’m really close to having her to a point that I can actually begin replacing the frames. I think I powered through the no-end in sight doldrums by fantasizing about big ling cod and halibut pulled off the bottom of the Pacific and ocean bright coho trolled near the top and the big chinook lurking deep, crashing the injured baitfish the coho send twirling towards the bottom . . . excuse me, I have some work to do.
Last weekend I was in Portland for the conservation cause, hence I have no recent fishing reports. Friday was dedicated to a meeting of the full working group for the Carmen-Smith hydroproject. I’ve written about Carmen-Smith before but I’ll give you a quick primer.
Carmen is the highest dam in the Mckenzie watershed. It blocks 100% of the flow of the river and diverts it all to the neigboring watershed, the Smith River drainage. Smith River is also dammed. In that reservoir is a tunnel that diverts some of the flow through a penstock generating electricity and then into Trailbridge regulating reservoir formed by Trailbridge dam. The Smith Dam outfall also flows into Trailbridge reservoir. At that point (Traibridge dam) the river is reregulated, ie. inflow in balanced with outfall. Meanwhile, the mainstem Mckenzie also reemerges upstream of Trailbridge dam fed by springs at Tamolitch dry falls and the mainstem Mckenzie also flows into Trailbridge reservoir. Clear as mud? Here’s a drawing. Study it for a couple minutes and reread my explanation over and it might make sense:
Some good things will be coming from the new license. Foremost among these is a fish ladder at the lowest dam in the project, Traibridge. This will allow spring chinook to utilize additional habitat above that dam and fragmented bull trout populations to reconnect.
There will be woody debris and gravel enhancements as well as guaranteed minimum flows in all reaches. Traibridge will be left at a pool level that allows bull trout unimpeded access through the culvert at Sweetwater Creek during their spawing season. There is also potential for a ladder at Carmen if brook trout can be controlled. There is no need to build a ladder for these invaders otherwise.
So that is about what to expect from the new license once FERC issues it. So, what is holding the license up? The Bi-op needs to be completed by the feds and the 401 certification needs to be completed by the DEQ. The 401 is complicated by the fact that the Mckenzie goes undergound for a time. So, where is the water temerature to be measured? No matter really, it is damn cold everywhere up there and will certainly pass muster.
I also discussed implications of the drawdown of Trailbridge reservoir during construction and I was assured that we will not see a repeat of the gawdawful sediment issues that took place during the Cougar dam project. EWEB also indicated that they are going to try to avoid drawing the reservoir down at all during construction.
Expet to see a new license issued sometime in the fall of this year or early next year. The sooner the better. If it’s issued sooner we may not miss the instream work period for next year. That’d be nice.
Can you really call this progress? Apparently, you can. I have been continuing to work on removing all trim so that I can access and assess the structural members of the boat. Actually, looking back at my last update, I have done quite a bit.
I probably already complained about the ringshank nails but indulge me– they are still are massive pain but I have at the very least developed a technique for torquing their heads off. Drill with a 5/64″ titanimum bit. Follow up with a 7/64″ bit. Repeat endlessly. It works best with two corded drills:
When I last updated, I had basically finished removing the fiberglass sheathing from the upper sections of the hull:
To jog your memory, this is what the interior of the boat looked like before I began disassembling it:
I removed all of the mahagony trim and started removing the the cockpit planking beginning at the aft area of the starboard side:
I worked my way forward. I removed the flotation and have been breaking off the remaining nail shanks flush with the wood and then sanding the inwales, for my sanity as much as anything else:
I’ll try to reuse whatever pieces I can salvage both to save some money and to pad my green credentials. Here is what the starboard side looked like once I finished with it:
Since this photo was taken I have also completed this process on the port side. Now all that is left is to remove the forward deck, complete opening up the rear bulkhead and remove the sheathing below the waterline, at least where the frames are located so I can access the nails holding in the frames. That way I can begin replacing all of the frames. I figure I might as well since I have the boat apart.
Soon, I’ll be at a point where I am starting to put things back together again. I can’t wait to turn that corner . . . .
I should explain . . . I’ve been fishing more than usual. Because of Oregon’s dismal chinook returns this past fall, I took the salmon season off. Somehow, I fought off the salmon cravings though the tremors were hard to take. So, I’m resolved to steelhead as much as possible and more than is prudent this winter. Hey, a man can have worse vices . . . .
Matt and I set anchor in a good hole and started working it–Matt with my fly rod, which always brings him luck. He fished the soft water out in front of the boat that tailed out over a ledge that kept pulling his indicator under. I saw the indicator again plunge beneath the surface of the river and said, “ledge again, huh?”
“That’s a fish!” The chrome hen gave Matt about all he wanted on my 8 weight:
As Matt bled the hen steelhead, a fish grabbed my spinner. I reared back to set the hook and instead ended up in a sword fight with the fly rod, lines tangled and the fish was gone. We moved a bit further down and as my spinner thumped in a tailout, I felt a fish attack my lure, the rod surged down twice and then inexplicably it was gone. Oh well.
We didn’t scrape any steelhead the rest of the day. We did see a old, spawned out coho, ravaged by fungus, sweep down a rapid with us and then stubbornly, beautifully turn around and nose toward the rapid again. I took meaning from that and if I was more eloquent, I’d explain.
“Today is the day, I’m checking the graphs. It is going to be blown out Thursday.” I navigated to the graph and he was right. It was forecast to be blown out on Thursday.
It was with a heavy heart I said, “I can’t.” I hung up the phone, deliberated for a couple minutes, my entire though process consisted of me thinking, yes I can, and I will. I called back, “I’m in.”
We dropped his boat in the river and began fishing down. Strangely, we didn’t hook any fish in the sweet spot. We anchored up above some rapids and I cast my spinner towards the opposite bank and worked the tailout before the next rapid. “Fish on!” A feisty buck steelhead had crunched my spinner. I pool was full of bedrock shelves and ledges and during his repeated runs I kept my rod tip high to keep from breaking off:
The buck tailwalked and thrashed impressively but was eventually exhausted:
Even though there was some condensation on the lens, I love this shot. Oregon in winter is a cool, liquid world and this photo seems to capture the essence of that. Mist shrouded hills cloaked with dripping douglas fir, a watery artery making it’s way through the Coast Range to the sea and a drenched angler holding a sea run rainbow trout. Condensation is the scene.
After confirming the coastal rivers had finally fallen into shape, I checked the weather forecast. “Rain with a 60% chance of freezing rain.” Sounds like winter steelheading to me and besides with one very special week off between Xmas and New Year’s it was no time to be a fair weather fisherman. So with only passing thoughts of how nasty crossing Mary’s Peak could be, (sounds like a job for the Ram and a bit of engine braking, right?) I threw the rest of my gear in the truck.
I picked up my friend Rob who despite being a stellar steelhead fisherman and guide hadn’t spent too much time on the Alsea. “How do you think the water is going to be?”
“Perfect, of course I always think it’s going to be perfect.” Anglers reading this know what I’m talking about, hope is what drives us out of bed at o’dark thirty to go stand out in the rain and cold making cast after cast, always ready for the tug. We reached the river, geared up and soon enough had slipped the boat into the waters of the Alsea River. The water level was perfect, the color almost a thrilling shade of steelhead green but just ever so slightly on the slate side of the color spectrum. I was convinced we would find our quarry:
Soon we anchored in a productive area and at the bottom end of a run Rob’s float slipped under. “Fish on.” Rob leapt out of the boat having a strong preference, for reasons he could better explain, for fighting fish from the bank. His light tackle rod was bent in a sweeping arc as he put the wood to a smallish chrome steelhead that leaped and tailwalked across the surface of the pool. “You want the net?” I asked.
“Nope, don’t use ‘em.” Ok, whatever you want.
“Should I throw you the fish whacker?”
“No.” Rob pulled the exhasted steelhead near and tailed it. “Native,” I heard him yell and with a quick twist of the hook shank the fish was freed, hopefully to father many more of his kind. We were both kind of surprised to see a wild fish in the river this early. We slapped five’s and switched positions, Rob moving to the sticks to free me up to fish, I grabbed my fly rod and went to work hitting all the current breaks I could reach. Soon enough my indicator plunged under, I set the hook and felt the familiar headshakes of a steelhead. The hen made a downriver run, thrashing about the surface and then reversed course, running upriver. I struggled to mantain tension and get her on the reel, which I did:
The fish was soon exhausted and came to hand:
Being a hatchery fish, we gave her the Ty Cobb handshake, bled her and into the bag she went. We scooted on downriver convinced we would come across a school of fish but it wasn’t to be. For some reason it seemed there were a few fish around but instead of being bunched up, they were scattered randomly thoughout the river. No matter, we caught a couple and besides any day you come back alive in those conditions, it’s a good day.
The plan had been to fish one of the many great steelhead rivers that pour out of Oregon’s Coast Range mountains and spill into the sea. A cold, clear, dry December had kept the first big push of sea-run rainbows from entering the rivers. I had been watching the western sky doing a rain dance. But, as so often happens, once the rain came it just kept on coming relentlessly, pushing the coastal rivers past the point of productive fishing.
Instead, Gregg Hatten and I decided to use Hills Creek dam to our advantage and fish a Cascade river for trout. On flies. In December no less. While much of the country was digging out from the blizzard of 2009, we were drifting lazily down the Middle Fork Willamette. Now, by no means was the fishing off the charts but we did eke out a couple of healthy wild rainbows. Not bad at all bad for the second shortest day of the year.
Recently, Shea and I took a charmed trip on the Oregon Coast, she caught her first salmon, we saw a western spotted skunk and as we rounded a corner talking about how nether of us had ever seen a bobcat what else should be in the road . . . .
The weather hadn’t been cooperating. The fall rain had petered out and the winter rains were stalled somewhere out over the Pacific. We were getting blasted by a cold front and every morning I would check the western sky for signs of rain that wasn’t coming.
I decided to get out fishing with Shea anyway, the urgency of the trip spurred on by the realization that she won’t be a kid forever and probably won’t want to spend any time with me very soon. A few steelhead probably had moved in despite the low water, I’ve hooked bright salmon this time of year in that river and worse case scenario, I fiured we’d wrestle some darker salmon. Hey, at least it wasn’t blown out.
On the drive through the Coast Range mountains, I thought Shea’s silence meant boredom but she was just checking things out and it was really pretty out here. So far, so good.
We reached the river, geared up and started fishing the first hole, a confluence of a creek and the mainstem river. AA perfect bucket and a spot that produces fish for me more often than not. Nothing. The cold weather must’ve had any fish in the hole feeling sluggish. We hurried on down to the next spot, a hole that produces fish probably 8 times out of 10. Not too shabby.
I breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled up and I saw that we were alone. We should get something here. I showed Shea where to cast but I realzed the best thing would be to show her how I wanted her to fish. What I doidn’t think was that I’d get a fish on my first cast, a little tomato of a coho that I tried to hand off and Shea wouldn’t take. I let her fish alone for a while before starting to work the poo.l myself again. Soon, the thumpity-thumpity of my lure was stopped by a familiar chompity-compity surge! This time Shea did take the hand-off.
Almost immeditely the rod tip went limp. “Is he still there . . . Give me that . . . yeah, . .. he’s still there.” I handed the rod back to Shea but the fish came unbuttoned. No big deal, I was sure there were more where those came from. We worked our way upstream, fishing everywhere we had passed over before ending up at the first hole. There I hooked a dark coho that I handed off to Shea and coached her through battle. I tailed the salmon and we unhooked the fish and watched her swim off.
I figured we should make our last stand where I had hooked the prvious two fish and that was when it happened. Thinking she was snagged, Shea really laid it to the poor salmon that had eaten her lure. Let’s just say it was solidly hooked. She brought the fish to hand. I tailed the fish and lifted it out of the water briefly to show it to her. It was well hooked and I told her Iwas putting it back in the water to get the stil camera. Well, as I did that, she slipped and the fish went one way, the rod another and with a loud snap. It was all over.
As we packed up the last of everything into the truck I said, “Well, we lost a few lures today.”
“How many?”
“About sixty dollars worth.”
“Do you think it was worth it? Sixty dollars?” I smiled to myself. It was worth a lot more than that.
Lately, what slowed my Bartender restoration progress down was the Swine Flu. It is tough to get work done laying on your back on your sofa. I haven’t been stuck at home during the week for years. Wow, ESPN can really drive something into the ground. I got better and borrowed a heat gun from a friend to aid in removing the fiberglass sheathing on the hull of the boat. The right tool definitely makes a difference:
