These
are the Chronicles of Famous Surf Writer Ben Marcus and his trip
into the Wilds of the Alaskan Frontier.
Latest Update: September 12, 2000
20:14
ROYAL VICTORIAN MOTOR LODGE
Hello.
Tired. Two long days, most of them dedicated to chasing fish.
I
was going to write a long, detailed account of yesterday's adventure
on the Sooes River, but now I don't feel like it, and we should
all consider ourselves lucky.
I'll
condense. Yesterday I fished the Sooes River, a really, really nice
river that runs into the ocean just south of Cape Flattery. Some
people pronounce it "Suez" others pronounce it like the start of
"Sooey!" and the end of "Sheesh!" like "Sooesh" Whatever. I had
become intrigued by the river the night before when I saw a bunch
of fish moving, and one guy catch one after sundown.
After
a long, cold night in the van at the Silver Salmon RV park, I went
to Washburn's General Store for a license, gear and advice. I got
the license there, a $10 Makah Indian Tribe license, good for one
year.
I
went to the Big Salmon Resort for gear. Bought some Blue Fox spinners
of different colors and had a good chat with the guy who works there.
We talked about England, Ireland, Belfast, Russia. I asked if the
photo of the 1200 pound halibut on the wall, supposedly dragged
by Alaskan fishermen in their nets, was for real. He didn't know.
I asked about the behavior of salmon in the Sooes, telling him about
the Klamath and the way fish behave there, getting active on the
outgoing tide. He told me the Sooes was the opposite, and that the
bit would be on the incoming tide.
It
was foggy in Neah Bay, but clear on the river. No sign of English
Steve, but as I was walking to the river's edge I saw an Oriental
guy fighting a fish. He landed a nice salmon, but it was a female
king. There are signs all along the river stating the law, that
female Chinook (silver) and coho (king) salmon have to be released.
This one got away with the yellow lure still in its mouth. I felt
bad, but realized it would be at the hatchery within a day or two,
or even an hour or two, if it hurried.
I
flogged the river with a yellow Blue Fox for a little while, then
began walking toward the van to get more split shot. I saw a salmon
roll, so I threw out one more cast, and got the bugger. It put up
a respectable fight. As always, I had no confidence in the knots
I had tied, or the strength of the line, or anything else, but I
did manage to land it, with some help from the same guy who helped
the first guy. It was a nice fish. A 12-pound silver. I gave it
to the guy who helped me land it-Dwight. Because I didn't have any
use for it. ( I have a photo, but too many people can't handle JPEGS)
So,
two fish in a half an hour. There were fish moving and the tide
was flooding in.
I
spent the rest of the day fishing that little patch of river with
Brian, Dwight, Doc and Dwight's wife. They were from Seattle, and
were settling in for a week of fishing for salmon, and drinking
beer.
Dwight
caught a fish about a half an hour later, and kept it. Doc caught
one a little after that, a good-sized hen coho, but he had to let
it go.
Four
fish between 10 and 12, on the incoming tide. There it is.
After
a while I got bored and wanted to do something stupid. I went to
the car, got out my surfboard and wetsuit and snorkel gear, and
waded into the river to look around and fish. I drifted on the surfboard
for awhile, which was fun and a good way to cover the river, but
possibly illegal. Had I caught a big-enough fish, I might have gone
for a Nantucket Sleigh Ride, getting towed up and down the river
by a 30-pound King? But, nothing happened. Just as I was pushing
out on the board, a big silver came out of the water three times,
just in front of me, close enough to shoot, even with Mr. Walther.
But that last display seemed to be the curtain call. The river went
dead after that, through high tide at one o'clock. It was a full
moon, so the tide went out in a big hurry.
I
took off upriver to check out the Makah National Fish Hatchery.
This was the end of the line for all the salmon getting past us.
There is an electric fence at the top of a small dam which diverts
all the salmon into the hatchery, which is undergoing an extensive,
$2.5 million upgrade.
I
got a good tour from Al Jensen, a fisheries biologist who runs the
place. He lives there with his wife and three daughters, and has
a very fulfilling gig: keeping the river and the ocean full of salmon.
I thought the hatchery was there to keep the Sooes full of fish
and provide a living for the Makah Indians, but there's more to
it than that. They put the hatchery on Makah land to get around
state and federal red tape, and the fish from that hatchery spread
out all up and down the Pacific coast and into the Strait of Juan
de Fuca.
We
watched kings and silvers flopping up the small dam and falling
back, always a nice thing to see. Al Jensen knows his fish, obviously.
Not by name, but he sure knows a king from a silver and a male from
a female.
I
asked a million questions and remembered some of the answers. He
said it costs $500,000 to run the hatchery, which is being upgraded
to ease a lot of the hard, physical labor the old facility demanded.
He figures it supports a salmon fishery worth $2,500,000 a year,
when everything is added up. Among the fun job hatchery personnel
have to do is hand-tag 300,000 fish, cutting off the adipose fins
and clipping nose rings. That's a lot of fish. They also spawn steelhead
there. I'm going to be back in this neck of the woods for steelhead
season.
Anyway,
after a good tour, I gave Al a copy of Year of the Drag In, because
he was familiar with Mavericks, and headed back for the mouth of
the Sooes. The tide was super low, so I went into town for a little
while, got my 10,000th mug of espresso and tried my "lost Polynesian"
theory on the kid at the Espresso stand. He could walk down the
streets of Waimanalo and not raise an eyebrow. He kind of got it. .
I
got back to the river around 18:00, at low tide. Team Seattle were
down there, and ready to kill some fish. While walking down to the
river, we saw a pod of whales spouting off some rocks, about half
a mile out. They were all staying in the same place, and through
binoculars I saw some spouts and splashes and some flukes.
The
tide was super low and starting to come up, and the sun was setting.
I saw a bunch of fish moving in the shade of the trees upriver,
and so moved up there for awhile.
The
next hour was kind of like Aliens:
"There's
movement all around us! Where? They're everywhere! I can't see them!"
They
were everywhere. You could see big fish pushing bow-wakes in front
of them like nuclear subs, rippling the river as the tide came in.
Occasionally a fish would roll or splash, but mostly it was those
awesome bow-wakes, with fish of certain size underneath.
Doc
and Brian and Dwight gave up as the sun was setting, leaving one
woman. Turns out she was the wife of the guy who caught the king
the night before. It had taken him a half an hour to land it, and
these people know what they are doing. Linda Colfax told me to stick
around until it got really dark. That was when the fish started
to bite again. We chatted as I waited to see if she was as akamai
about salmon as Joe Whaley and the guy at Big Salmon.
And
speaking of whales (bad segue) as we were talking I threw the "lost
Polynesian" theory at her, but she fouled it off. But that got us
onto the subject of whaling, and then I remembered who the Makah
were. This is the northwest tribe who have renewed their tradition
of going after whales. They're doing it traditional style, rowing
out in canoes and going after the whales with hand-held harpoons.
I
think that killing any whale these days is a waste, but if you're
going to do it, doing it with a harpoon and under muscle power is
almost a fair fight. Nantucket Sleigh Ride and all that.
"They
got a skinny one last year," she said. "Only about four tons. But
it tasted so good"
And
then she caught a fish. It was dark, the moon was up and she had
a fish on. I got out of her way as she brought it to the beach,
then took a photo as she tried to find something to club it.
And
that was the end of a long day, which you heard the short version
of.
A
long day in the sun on a nice river in a nice part of the world.
Linda said her son was a surfer, so I gave her a copy of the Fourth
Annual SURFER Magazine Surf Video Awards to give to her. She showed
off some wild cranberries and wild plums, then lead me to her house
in Neah Bay and gave me a big hunk of kippered salmon.
She
now is second to Patrick at Creekside Smokehouse in the smoked salmon
derby.
It
was already late, and I had to get up the next morning to take my
driver test. I drove the 60 miles back to Port Angeles and checked
into the first motel I could find. The Royal Victorian, where I
am now. I know, I know, another hotel. But I needed to be on my
toes somewhat for the driver test, an sleeping in that van isn't
the way to do it.
And
besides, the van doesn't have The History Channel and ESPN and soft-core
porn on the TV, like the Royal Victorian Motel.
SEPTEMBER
13, 2000 11:02 ROYAL VICTORIAN MOTEL
It's
a scary thought, me walking into a low-budget motel room with a
shotgun, but I did that this morning only to clean it in Room 37
of the Royal Victorian. I'm getting ready to cross into Canada,
so I want to the van to be ship-shape and Bristol fashion, so they'll
know I'm a nice young man and won't go rooting around for Mr. Walther.
Psyche.
No, I'm going to leave Mr. Walther in the storage locker, although
we hate to part. I don't need him (I hope) and I don't want to go
to jail. It's expensive. Worse than motels. And they might not have
the History Channel.
So
the van is nearly packed and I'm writing this before taking a shower
and getting out of here. It's a nice day today. Blue skies. The
works.
Yesterday
I took the driver test with a nice lady who laughed at my jokes
and penalized me for not making hand-signals when I pulled out of
the parallel park that I aced, believe it or not. I was docked only
eight points, and passed.
I
needed a haircut so I went and got one in Port Angeles, then went
down to mom's to see if I had mail. I did. She's worried about me.
But she always has been. Oh well.
Back
in Port Angeles I got the license, glanced at the photo and then
stuck it under my expired California license. Yuck.
While
driving around Port Angeles I saw a fly-fishing shop, which I could
hear calling to me, like the Sirens to Jason and the Argonauts.
I ended up buying a new fly reel and a line system which allows
you to use four different lines hooked to the end of a yellow floating
line. It was better than buying four new spools. I bought a bunch
of salmon flies and walked out of there $400 lighter. It's only
money. I don't have any.
Back
to the motel for an e-mail check, then down to the Elwha River,
below the single-lane trestle. I'd passed over this stretch ad number
of times and it looked like heaven. It was. The Elwha is about as
nice as a river can be, as if God the Landscape Architect had smoked
a big joint and decided to get it right. I through some flies into
the riffles and saw some black king salmon go swimming past. They
had been in fresh-water for awhile and were already falling apart.
They looked about as bad as my driver license photo.
So
I thrashed the Elwha for awhile, more interested in figuring out
my fly lines and remembering how to tie a nail knot and basics like
that.
The
Elwha is a great river. If I survive Alaska, I'm going to come back
in the winter and fish it or steelhead.
So
that's it. Another night in the Royal Victorian, and now I'm leaving
for Canada. First stop: Jordan River, a surf spot I've heard about.
In
other news, I heard that BlueTorch, the supposed contender to swell.com,
has laid off its entire staff. I don't know if that's good news
or bad news. Doom for all, or good for us.
Hope
the money holds out.
Please
send more.
Bye
bye.
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