It was another fun-filled weekend in Oregon!
The week was pretty typical with the exception of AC’s run-in with a yellow jacket nest as she was cutting down blackberry bushes. She got stung on the finger and one arm before she made out of the berry patch. Then, when she got to the yurt, one got her on the other arm. As she was heading to the main house for ointment, one got in her pants and she stripped down to her skivvies as fast as she could in the middle of the backyard, but not before that one stung her in the thigh. She’s ok, just suffering from a little PTSD anytime she hears something buzz near her.
On Saturday, we went fishing! Since before we started this adventure, AC has been saying she wants to do more fishing and learn how to fly fish. And Oregon is prime fly fishing territory with all of its rivers. So I booked us a guided fly fishing trip as an early anniversary present.
Our guide, Ron, was wonderful! He’s a small, cherry guy who loves people–he reminded us of an older version of my dad. He used to be a laser engineer, then became a cop (but he’s acutely aware of the bad press cops have earned recently). He was police for 12 years before he left to run his rafting and fishing guide service full time. He has such a positive outlook on life and enjoys the river so much that we couldn’t NOT have enjoyed our time with him.
We joined up with Ron at a meeting spot, then jumped in his truck and rode to our launch point. He rode in his simple, but sturdy metal boat. He supplied all the rods and tackle so all we had to bring was lunch. We jumped in the boat and took off.
We started with plugs. For those of you unfamiliar with fishing (as I was), these are basically reusable bait that you just drop into the water, like “traditional” fishing. I learned that, when deciding what bait to use, the goal is to imitate the fish’s actual food source (duh!). In this case, trout eat bugs so we needed our bait to imitate bugs. We started with plugs because, that early in the morning, the water was too cold for bugs to start emerging so we needed our bait to sink under the water a bit.
I caught the first fish! As I reeled it in, Ron readied his net and scooped the fishy up. Ron also did the rest of the dirty work, bless him. First, he checked to make sure the fish was from the hatchery because you can only keep hatchery fish–you have to throw wild fish back. We could tell mine was from the hatchery because the hatchery cuts off the small, extraneous fin from the rear of the fish. Next, Ron removed the hook from the fish’s mouth, then gave it a good bonk to put it out of its misery quickly. Then, into the cooler it went!
AC caught a BIG one (as trout go), but it unhooked itself. She’s still bitter. It will forever be the one that got away.
The fish were light biters for most of the day. By the time we stopped for lunch, we only had three of the ten we were allowed to catch. We chatted with Ron over sammiches, chips, and apples, then switched over to fly reels because it had warmed up a bit. In the bait world, flies mimic bugs closer to the surface of the water (or on top of a shallow rock). As the water warms up, baby bugs will hatch and take off out of the water. Trout like to eat these baby bugs. Unfortunately, the trout were not fooled today; outside of another big one that got away from AC, we didn’t catch anything on our fly reels for a good hour so we switch back to plugs.
Around 1:30pm, Ron was starting to sweat a bit because we still hadn’t caught any new fish, even in his favorite spot. But he was saved by Mother Nature in our last stop, which turned out to be a hot spot! I caught one and AC answered with a catch of her own. I caught another and AC matched. I caught another one and we headed to one last spot where we ended with a double–we both caught fish at the same time! As we were reeling in all these fish, Ron was astounded by their size. Apparently, we caught some big one, likely left over from last year’s hatch.
On the way in, Ron let AC row the boat! It took her a minute to get both oars coordinated, but she figured it out and even maneuvered us through some small rapids.
After we pulled the boat out of the water, Ron showed us how to clean the fish (then cleaned all 10 for us–thanks, Ron!). We headed home with a cooler full of beautiful Rainbow Trout.
When we got back to the farm, we watched a couple Youtube videos and attempted to filet our catch. Ours came out more mutilated than filleted. Luckily, our host, Ruthann, said she usually cooks them whole so we stopped the carnage and I cooked 4 trout (with heads and tails removed) for our dinner with Ruthann’s recipe:
- Wash the fish. They start our real slimy.
- Coat the outsides in cornmeal.
- Sprinkle the insides with salt, pepper, and herbs (we used tarragon from the garden).
- Fry the fish up in hot oil until they are crispy and brown on the outside, and white and flakey on the inside.
- Nom nom nom!
Until next time,
Charli
RON is 82!? Goals! What a fun experience, and great anniversary gift!