Hooked!

Jan 6
Amy

I have talked before about being a nature-girl, someone who loves doing just about anything outdoors, and someone who likes adventure and trying new things.  I am usually willing to try anything at least once – as long as it doesn’t involve being precariously perched up high somewhere.  I’m scared of heights, which I am slowly getting over, but it takes time.  I’ve tried so many different activities, and I have really enjoyed most of them.  My favorites are probably hiking, fishing, and mountain biking (though I’m not very good at this one).  I like to run (short distances), too, and I really want to enter one of the extreme obstacle course races before I turn 40.

I have been fishing since I was a tiny girl – my dad used to take me.  I really only remember me going with my dad, but I’m sure Erika went, too.  I know she did get to go to Alaska with him and my grandpa fishing for Salmon once.  We did all sorts of bobber, spinner, and other bait fishing mostly in the sloughs around the Grande Ronde Valley or creeks, rivers, and lakes in the Elkhorns and Eagle Caps.  As a young adult, I started fly-fishing, and I absolutely love it!  It is my favorite kind – just out on the water by yourself, the rhythm of casting and the noise of the water creating their own special music.  I have sturgeon fished the Columbia River, and I have salmon and bottom fished the Oregon Coast.  I enjoy every bit of it.

Fishing is much more than fish.  It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.
~ Herbert Hoover

Back to trying new things.  Yesterday, I got to try something completely new to me – Steelhead Fishing!  I had an absolute blast!

I am so thankful we live in such a diverse area where so many great activities are essentially right outside our back door – we only had a few hours to fish today because we got out of town late and had to be back early.  Within one hour, we were on the river, geared up, and bait in the water.  AWESOME!  I caught this fish (about 24″) and a smaller smolt that I tossed back.  In the amount of time we were there and the two fish I caught, I became totally  hooked on steelhead.  I will say, though, that the weather was great today, somewhere in the mid-fifties, and I didn’t freeze, which might change my mind about it.  I doubt the weather will do much to deter me since I have fly-fished the Missouri River in Montana in the winter.  🙂

For now, though, I can’t wait until I  have a chance to go again, and I can’t wait to catch a really big one!