As soon as I was old enough, Dad started taking me fishing in the big river. I’d have to say this was in the late 70’s. My favorite place to be, was with my dad in his boat; right in the big middle of the Columbia River, anchored with his fishing chums, who were in THEIR boats and all of us anchored in a “Hog Line”. A “Hog Line” is a group of boats anchored next to each other forming a line perpendicular to the current in the river during salmon runs (seasons). Salmon are sometimes called hogs due to the large sizes they can grow. If you caught a fish over 30 pounds or so, it would be referred to as a “Hog”. I remember my mom saying, “The fall hogs are makin’ their way up the river.” This meant the fall Chinook Salmon season was going to start soon.
My favorite fishing season was fall, and the fall chinook run was the most fun as far as I was concerned. It seemed like the fish were bigger and there were more of them. I had a love-hate relationship with the month of August. It meant summer was over and school would start and like any other kid, I hated going back to school. But it also meant I was out on the river in the hog line with my dad fishing for Chinook. Oh! I would get SO excited about going out on Dad’s old Larson Boat. It was only 16’ long and wouldn’t really be safe to take out in the mouth of the river due to it being too small to handle the water conditions of the Bar. It was fiberglass blue and white and it had a canvas cover with see through plastic windows sewn into the canvas top. The blue part looked like it had been dusted with talcum powder because of the oxidation from sitting in the sun. It was comfy and decked out with anything dad my needed while fishing. Some of my best memories as a kid were of spending time with my dad in that old boat.
Dad’s boat was my happy place when I was a kid. It had a top on it, so we wouldn’t get soaked in the rain or sunburnt in the bright sunshine. The Columbia River Gorge has a way of almost making its own weather. We usually fished out of the Camas/Washougal port. It used to be called the “Dolphin Marina”, which I always thought was kind of a dumb name because there were never any dolphins that far up the river and certainly no ocean water to keep them alive even if they did manage to make it. The boat launch is located at the mouth of the gorge. On overcast days, it seemed like it was always “choppy”, which meant there were a lot of little waves and swells in the water that would rock the boat around quite a bit.
On some of those cloudy days, the temperature would drop a little, a sort of mist would form a wall off in the distance toward the west telling us a storm was coming. We would hunker down, zip our jackets and wait for the approaching Squall to hit us. “Squalls” were what everyone living on or near the river called these little storms. You could see the wall of weather coming at you. It would get darker and seem to change shape as though it was alive. The closer it got to us, the more defined the curtain of rain and wind would get. We watched the shoreline slowly disappear as the squall got closer and it was a little scary.
Right before it reached our boats, the wind would pick up. It would really start rocking us around in the water. I would reach for the edge of the boat and hang on. The tips of our fishing poles would dip with the swells of the water, but the sinkers holding our lures in place on the bottom of the river held fast.
Dad would holler, “Here she comes!” as the pounding rain would hit suddenly and fiercely. The raindrops were huge and almost felt as if they were coming at us sideways. The boats would start to rock a little bit harder. After a few minutes, I would look up from my boat seat and just start to see a bit of blue sky through the clouds. As the squall went over us, the temperature would start to rise, and the rain would start to slow down. Finally, the hard rain turned to a mist and the air got warmer. After the storm had gone by, our boat would start to steam as the warmth of the sun would hit it and evaporate the wetness the rain had left behind. The waves created by the wind that we call “chop” would settle down and we would continue fishing. Sometimes, you’d want to grab your fishing pole and check your gear to make sure everything was ok and not tangled up. Then back in the water you’d go, pulling up on the pole so the tip was up, and you could get the butt of it into the pole holders which were attached to the sides of the boat. This is the way our days went when we were Salmon fishing in the fall.
Dad always anchored with the same bunch of guys in our hog line. The boats were just feet apart in steady current. You had to anchor in a place on the river where the flow of the river was strong enough to make the spinners on your fishing lures spin. The regular guys who anchored with us were Wilson Kennedy, Eugene; the Indian (which is what they all called him with no disrespect in any way, shape or form intended) and a funny man by the name of Joe Schneider.
The place they anchored was in a very special “secret” spot. You NEVER gave away where your fishing hole was located. If you were asked by a friend or if you asked a friend where they fished at, it was almost considered rude. When I was asked where dad fished, I always fibbed and told them a totally different spot somewhere on the river. My mom had a wise ass streak a mile wide, (guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree) and she would tell people when asked where my dad went fishing, “Oh, he goes somewhere North of Corbett.” Most people didn’t understand this was a joke and would look at her with a confused expression. What she was really saying was, the state of Washington is north of Corbett, Oregon and he could be fishing anywhere in Washington and to hell with you for trying to get it out of her!
As an adult, I’ve been known to lie through my teeth about fishing holes and even what to use for bait; “Oh, I use camel turds and Baklava on the end of a ‘wedding ring’”. How DARE you ask me a question like that! What would make a person think I would EVER randomly give fishing advice to acquaintances?! Of course, my fishing buddies always get the straight truth and we share information between ourselves.
Anyway, on the days we went fishing, Dad always had to get up and go way before daylight. This meant getting up around 4 in the morning. He’d get the boat and gear ready to go while my mom and I would get breakfast cooked and our lunch packed up. She knew our favorite sandwiches were Liverwurst with mayo. She’d throw a couple of cans of pop, a bag of her Snickerdoodles and some sort of fruit into a little old aluminum cooler along with those yummy Liverwurst sandwiches. She also made sure dad’s old beat up stainless steel thermos was filled with hot coffee and she would make another thermos of Cambric Tea with milk and sugar for me. We’d wolf down our breakfast and head out.
Getting dad’s boat in the water and anchored was sometimes kind of stressful for me. After launching, I would have to stand on the dock and hang onto the rope that was attached to the bow cleat to make sure it wouldn’t float away while he parked the truck and trailer. When he came back down to the dock
where I was waiting for him, he’d get in the boat, start the motor and as soon as it got warmed up, I’d throw the rope into the boat and climb in. Sometimes this was a little tricky as the boat would drift out a little and I’d damn near do the splits climbing in but I never fell in the water, it did get close a couple times though.
After getting out into the river where he would find the exact spot he wanted; dad would shift the boat into neutral and heave up the heavy anchor onto the bow of the boat and get ready to drop it down into
the water. His boat didn’t have an “Open bow” like many others but there was a little door in the windshield that allowed him access to the bow of his boat. To protect the bow from getting chipped up by the anchor, dad had cut a piece of old paper machine felt that he had pilfered off one of his millwright jobs at the local papermill, to fit the top of the bow. The felt was heavy and did a good job of not only protecting the surface of the bow but kept the anchor and buoy from sliding off the slick fiberglass when the boat rocked.
After he got to his special fishing spot, he was always the first one to anchor. Once in a while, he would be the second boat to anchor, but this didn’t happen very damn often! I made sure my feet were well out of the way of the coiled anchor rope that lay on the floor of the boat. In my over-active-kid-mind, I was terrified of getting hung up in that length of rope when the anchor went to the bottom of the river. I imagined myself with it tangled around one of my ankles and being dragged out the little door in the windshield, over the bow and watching myself drown as the heavy anchor pulled me to the bottom of the river. Of course, this never happened and I was always very aware of it. I also made sure to keep my mouth shut and stay out of the way until he had the boat anchored and secured just where he wanted it.
He always anchored the same way. He’d slowly let the anchor slip off the end of the bow and into the water; holding on to the rope as he let it sink down into the water. As soon as he felt it hit the bottom and could feel a little slack in the rope, he tied it off to the bow cleat and attached his buoy to it. He’d stand and see if the anchor was holding and look at the position of the boat and see how fast the current was running. He then attached his home-made buoy he’d made from a small cardboard barrel and expanding foam to the anchor line. If we had to drift down river after a fish, this buoy would not only allow us to get our anchor back, but keep our place in the hog line.
As soon as he got us situated, we would check our fishing poles and get them into the water and set to start fishing. Most of the time, dad would fish with lures he had made himself. He had an old beat up metal coffee can which held all of the spinners, swivels, wire and pliers he needed to construct his lures right there in the boat if he needed to. He had differently colored spoons, beads and swivels from either the “Herter’s” catalog or from the old GI Joes store across the river in Portland. I remember his buddies who were in the hog line with us asking him, very quietly across the boats, what color the salmon were hitting on. Dad would cup his hand over the side of his mouth doing his best to be stealthy and give them their answer.
This is still a really popular way of fishing for salmon. The theory is; when salmon are spawning, they don’t bite on bait because they’re hungry. They bite on it because they’re MAD! It seemed like every run hit on a different colored spoon or lure. The last year I went with my dad was the fall chinook run of 1987. That fall, they were hitting on half copper and half silver spoons. He made sure to have plenty of lures that were copper and silver. He was so particular with his gear too. I had watched him for years tending to his fishing tackle. The hooks had to be sharpened regularly and your spinners better shine like a new penny. There was always a little tube of this pasty, semi gritty polish in his tackle box. You’d smear a little dab of that onto both sides of your spoon and rub it around between your thumb and index finger to clean and polish it. Then you either used a rag or if you were me, the end of your t-shirt, to wipe off the paste and finish polishing it to a mirror shine.
When you got your lure ready to go, you’d have to attach an 8-ounce lead sinker (fishing weight) below the lure on a piece of leader. When you were finally geared up correctly, You held onto your pole, put your thumb on top of the line on the spool and pushed the button on the old Penn baitcaster fishing reel with your opposite hand and slowly let the line drop into the water. I never remember him or the other guys casting our lines out when we were in a Hog Line. You had to hold your thumb onto the spool as the line stripped slowly off the reel. If you didn’t let it out slowly, you’d get a big old “Birds Nest” as my dad used to call them. This is where the spool goes faster than the line can go out so your fishing line just kind of explodes and makes a looping mess that takes hours to untangle. It’s also embarrassing as hell if it happens to you. Even today; if I get a bird’s nest on a bait caster, I look around and see if anyone is watching me; to see if someone has that knowing grin on their face that says “good one Dumbass!”. It happens to the best of us from time to time!
As your line fed out, you waited to “feel” the bottom of the river. There would be a bit of a “thump” from the sinker hitting the river bottom and the line from your pole would go slack. Dad’s way of doing it was to hold your thumb firm on the spool of the reel and lift the tip of the pole up so the sinker and lure would drift down a little further. He wanted those lures out far enough from the back of the boat so they’d be less apt to tangle with another fishermen’s gear. When he thought we were out far enough, we would set the butts of our poles into “pole holders” that were attached onto the rails on either side of the boat. When the poles were securely placed into the pole holders, you reeled up a bit to tighten the line and make sure the sinker was going to hold your lure in place. And you were fishing!
We settled in for the duration; in whatever kind of weather, waiting for a fish to hit. As a pre-teen tomboy, the anticipation and daydreams of catching the biggest fish for the day was almost too much for me to bear. I could already see that slight flick of the tip of the pole and then the fish sending the rod bouncing in little spasms as it realized it was hooked. Nope. We sat there watching the water, our rods, the rods in the other boats and drank hot drinks that my mom had fixed for us.
I always tried not to drink too much as it brought the fishing trip to the inevitable point where you had to pee. We weren’t on the water for an hour or so, we were on the water for HOURS! Dropping the buoy and going to the shore just for dad to let me out to pee was a cardinal sin when you were tied up in a hog line. The men had no issues peeing when they were on their boats. I would hear one of the other fishermen anchored up in the hog line with us holler at me “Hey Sarah! What’s that out on the island?” and knew this was my clue to turn my head until the all clear “Oh! Guess it was nothing” answer come back. They could all stand and pee off the side of the boat or into a coffee can very easily; and without making a mess.
Not me. I would wait until I was about to burst with my belly aching so bad I thought I would die before telling my dad I had to go. He’d look at me with that knowing eyebrow raised; a doubting expression on his face. Then, throwing his fist in the air with a thumbs up over his shoulder, he’d motion toward the bow of the boat and say “you know where the coffee can is”.
With my poor little pudgy legs crossed as tight as I could get them, I’d do my “potty walk” to the bow and grab my 3lb coffee can. I’d drop my drawers and try to squat while hanging on and aiming myself into the can. I got pretty good at that part. As most ladies know, we’re not quite “plumbed” right to
aim when we pee. Oh, that wonderful relief of an empty bladder! At that point I would always remember where I am; in the water where the boat is gently rocking with the current.
I’d stand part way up and very carefully start to pull my britches up with one hand while hanging onto a seat with the other. I could not bear the thought of one of those men seeing my business and the whole time I’m being very mindful of where the coffee can is in relation to my feet. I zip up, stand up completely and I hear the can move. “Oh God NO!” I think in my head. I try to catch it before it goes completely over and see out of the corner of my eye as my dad shifts in his seat. “Not again!” I’m pleading with myself thinking, “I was so careful this time!”
My dad sees what I’ve done and bellows “God Dammit Sarah!” and I swear it just boomed across the water. His voice seemed to echo off the other side of the river. I just knew that there was a deckhand somewhere on a barge, asking his buddy, “Did you hear that?”
This is when the men in the other boats would roar with laughter at the situation. I have no idea how I would manage to dump that coffee can over. To this day, I believe there was an invisible hand that would hit it and tip it just enough so the rocking of the boat would send it and its contents completely over. I would stand motionless, terrified to move. Dad would look at the stream of pee running down the deck of his boat, shake his head and tell me to rinse it down with a can of water. At the same time the other fishermen, who had been through this experience with me before, started offering their jovial words of encouragement; “There’s always next time!”, “We’ve all done it too.” Always chuckling and knowing as well as I and my dad knew, that sure as shit, I would do it again.
On the off chance I DIDN’T knock my coffee can over, dad would look at me sideways and grin teasingly from ear to ear. The guys in the other boats would see me leaning over the side of the boat, rinsing the can out and offer their congratulations for a job well done. They’d laugh and make their comments, all in fun of course, and then the quiet of waiting and watching for that “hit” on our poles settled back over the boats in our hog line. The sound of the water lapping up against the hulls, the feeling of bobbing up and down as a barge would head up river sending the wake into the hog line of boats; I would look over and see a few of the guys nodding off while the peacefulness of waiting for that bite seemed to mesmerize all of us.
When a salmon hit, I instantly got a lump in my throat. My knees went weak and dad’s pole started to bounce. Immediately he grabbed his pole from its holder, pulled up and felt the fish start to fight on the end of the line. As soon as I saw him start to reel, I grabbed my pole and started to reel in my gear as quickly as I could. This was no easy task. The weight of the lead sinker and the fishing rig made retrieving your gear against the river current with the lure spinning like crazy took some doin’, even for a tough TomBoy like me. I looked over and saw the tip of dad’s pole dip way down toward the water; his teeth were grit together with a determined smile as the fish started to run and strip the line off the fishing reel. He turned the teeth on the drag to tighten the line a bit so the salmon wouldn’t strip out as much line when running.
I was starting to shake from excitement and my heart pounding out of my chest. Finally, I saw my gear break the surface of the water, the weight accidently slammed against the side of the boat as I pulled it up and out of the river. Dad gave me a sideways look and I blurted out “Oops!”. I laid my pole with its gear between my seat and the side of the boat so it would be out of the way. Everything was a blur; I knew exactly what I had to do next; get up on the bow of the boat, drop the buoy with the anchor tied off to it into the water as fast as I could. As soon as I saw it hit the water, I headed back to my seat and sat down, out of the way.
The boat started to drift slowly down river from the hog line. I glanced at the deck, making sure there was nothing which would cause my dad to trip while he fought the fish. He was reeling in at a decent clip and then his pole dipped down and away went the fish ripping line off the spool. He was running so hard, you could hear the line as it was torn off the reel and down into the water of the Columbia River. I could hear dad say under his breath, “You son-of-a-bitch!”. The line stopped stripping off the reel and my dad pulled up on the rod slowly, but firmly, it bent low from the current and the weight of the fish. As he leaned the pole forward toward the water, he reeled in quickly. As he started to pull the pole up to bring the fish in closer, the tip seemed to flick a bit before it dipped down hard and the fish took off for another run. It didn’t go as far this time. Dad was able to start gaining on it and he got it reeled in closer to the boat.
He called out to me to “Get the Gaff”. A gaff hook was used years ago to bring bigger fish into a boat instead of using a net. They didn’t take up as much room and were easier for some fishermen to use. (Sport fishermen don’t use them currently; I think they’re just used by commercial fishermen.) I got the gaff and held it carefully off to the side, over the water and out of his way. As soon as he was sure he had the fish played out, I handed him the gaff hook and in one arching sweep the handle went out of sight, into the water and into the head of the salmon. Dad handed me his pole and used both hands to pull the fish on board the boat.
It was a beautiful hen (female) chinook salmon. I reached and grabbed the Billy Club for dad as she flopped around on the deck. Still fighting to get away, dad cracked her a good one in the head and she stopped flopping around. Oh! She was a beautiful chrome color, so bright and shiny! He said she looked to be 25 or maybe 30 lbs. She was a little on the thick side, so I squeezed her belly checking for eggs. A few very pale eggs popped out which was a good sign. This meant she wasn’t quite ripe, or ready to spawn. If they had been brighter reddish/orange and had come flowing easily out of her they wouldn’t have made as good of fish bait as they would at this stage. Her eggs would hold together very well like they were and those skeins of green eggs would be carefully laid aside, cut up into 1” pieces, mixed with “20 mule team borax” and stored in the freezer for Steelhead and trout bait.
We had drifted quite a way down river from our hog line. Dad always had a gunny sack in his boat for keeping his fish in. This kept them from drying out. Before heading back up to anchor in our space, dad dipped the gunny sack in the water and shook it out a little. He picked the big hen up by her gill plate and put her head first into the gunny sack. The end of her tail was sticking out of the burlap sack a bit. She was a beautiful big fall Chinook hen!
As he fired up the boat motor and headed back up river to take his place in the hog line, my heart beat started to slow, and I relaxed in my seat. Dad would look back every once in a while, to make sure everything was secured. He would carefully guide the boat back into his slot. When he got to our buoy, he’d climb up on the bow and snag the line with his gaff hook, tying it once again to the bow cleat of the boat. After checking his lure to make sure the hook wasn’t bent or needed to be sharpened, we got our gear in the water and set again. Both of us would settle back into our seats, beginning to relax and wait for the next fish to hit.
Our little celebration of catching a fish was to dive into those liverwurst sandwiches my mom had made for our lunch. Dad had a little propane heater in the boat for use on the chillier days and it had a grill on top of the heating element. He would fire it up and turn the flame way down low. Very carefully, he would put our sandwiches on that grill to toast them. When they were warmed through, we would sit there, rocking on the water, eating our warm liverwurst sandwiches and waiting for another fish to hit one of the poles.
Most weekends in the fall and spring of my childhood were spent on the Columbia River, just out from the Dolphin Marina in a hog line fishing for salmon with my dad. I don’t have to try too hard to go back to those times in my mind. I can still smell the river, hear the waves lap up on the sides of the boat and smell that good fresh fish smell on my hands. I was the only girl out there in that hog line. Those men always made me feel like I was one of them; welcomed me and visited with me just like they did my dad.
The old ways they fished back then are gone. Modern salmon fishermen don’t seem to anchor in hog lines anymore. Now they use nets to bring their fish on board their boats and technology helps them to find where the fish are in the river. Those old days when I was a Tom Boy just coming into my teens are probably the most cherished memories I have of my youth. These stories of fishing with my dad have been told time and time again and I’ll gladly share them with anyone who is interested in hearing them.
Miss Sarah Etc. 