WATCHDOG
POINTLESS...
OR POINTLESS
An Oregon steelhead season on the brink
By Chris Santella
Beginning in March— when the frustration and frostbite of winter steelhead fishing’ s scarce rewards have driven me away from the rivers around Portland, Oregon— I begin to think about summer steelhead fishing at the mouth of the Deschutes River. Trips to the mouth have many attractive qualities: the invigorating contrast of warm, dry air and cool running water; proximity( I can be wadering up— or lacing up my boots to wet wade— within 90 minutes of leaving my driveway); an excellent dinner stop on the way home( in the shape of Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River); and some of the best swinging water, all within a three-mile walk, anywhere on the Deschutes.
Make that anywhere, period.
On a year of average returns, I visit the mouth fully expecting to hook up every other session.( A few years ago, a friend and I hooked 19 fish from one spot less than a mile from the parking area!) Come September, there’ s the added bonus of a shot at big B-run fish nosing into the Deschutes for a cold-water infusion before heading east to Idaho’ s Clearwater River.
But 2017 was not an average year. Forecasts for summer wild fish returns( de-termined in the spring by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife) were 34,100— for the entire Columbia Basin. Of these, only 750 wild B-run fish were projected to make it past the Lower Granite Dam, near the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers.
There are many threats facing the fish as they make their way up the Columbia: commercial gill nets, tribal gill nets, and high water temperatures among them. Given such meager returns, recreational anglers also pose a danger. After all, even fishing with a barbless hook, steelhead that are caught-and-released have a mortality rate of 10 percent, based on limited data. By fishing on Columbia Basin rivers like the Deschutes, one could be contributing to the final demise of an already endangered species.
So for July I forsook steelhead fishing on the Deschutes altogether.
And for the first week in August. And for the second.
By the third week, my resolve began to waver. It was about this time that my friend Dave Moskowitz, a passionate wild fish advocate, emailed. His subject line read“ Pointless … or Pointless?” The body of the email proposed an outing on the lower Deschutes with the points clipped off our flies. All the thrill of the hunt( and the take) without any chance of harming the fish.
But also without the wild clacking of my reel as a fish bolts downstream, and without any admiration of the quarry’ s streamlined beauty.
I emailed back and said I’ d have to think about it.
I know of at least one angler who fishes pointless— Lee Spencer, the caretaker of the Big Bend Pool on Steamboat Creek, a major spawning tributary of Oregon’ s North Umpqua. Lee, who’ s dedicated so much of his life to protecting steelhead from poach-ers, is loath to prick a fish. But when afforded a respite from Big Bend, he’ s been known to swing a small Muddler Minnow across the slots and pools above Mott Bridge. For Lee, there’ s a quiet pleasure in raising a fish or two.
It’ s worth noting that Lee is a man of great depth and patience and a practicing Buddhist. I