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Clackamas by Scott Richmond They roar up and down the river wearing sunglasses, hard grins, and camouflage jackets. Camouflage— what a joke. The only place they could blend in would be a drag strip. Click to read Essay Profile of Author Bio of Author from ETG Essay, Late-breaking Developments Author's Comment on the ETG Experience Updated Bio Click to Purchase Send email to the author (The copyright on this essay is held by the author.  For permission to duplicate: copyright@cunepress.com)

Clackamas
I haven’t been arrested yet, but I’m sure some day soon there’ll be a county sheriff waiting for me at the Carver boat ramp. He’ll tell me to put my big rod down—"real slow now"—cuff my hands behind my back, and push me into his patrol car.

It’s the guys in jet boats, the ones who fish the Clackamas in winter. They want me off their river. They’ve probably already told their legislator to draft a new felony law: "Fishing from an inferior watercraft."

The Clackamas runs through Portland’s east metro area. Although the salmon and steelhead runs have declined, there’s no shortage of moneyed fishermen. Since it’s hard to impress anyone with your catch, some anglers buy fancy boats instead. There used to be a lot of McKenzie-style drift boats on the river, but these days nobody fishes it without a motor—except me.

I don’t have anything against jet boats. Some decent folks own them, including one of my best friends. But the Clack attracts the worst of the bunch, real power anglers who think nothing of paying $25,000 for a boat with a brand name like "Predator" or "Intruder." They roar up and down the river wearing sunglasses, hard grins, and camouflage jackets. Camouflage—what a joke. The only place they could blend in would be a drag strip.

Then there’s me, a recalcitrant reactionary in patched waders and a Barbour sweater making quiet one-way drifts in my McKenzie boat and doggedly arranging shuttles for my car and trailer. You still see a few drift boats on the Clackamas, but mine seems to be the only one without an eight-horse outboard on the transom. I once met a guy who claims to fish the river from a twelve-foot cataraft, a small, twin-tubed affair, but I’ve never seen him there. I think he fishes the Sandy now, on a section where jet boats are banned.

And there’s the matter of my tackle: I fish for winter steelhead with a fly rod. Steelheading is tough enough, even pulling plugs behind a jet boat, but fly fishing for them in winter is a low-percentage game. I’ve never seen anyone else do it on the Clackamas.

To top it, I use an English-style spey rod, a fifteen foot, two-handed stick with a big Hardy reel. This makes me an oddity among eccentrics, a dangerous nut case according to the jet boat crowd.

One day last March I was searching for new runs to fish. The river was a bit high, but it was dropping and had that rich emerald color favored by steelheaders. Bright green buds dotted the willow stems, and flocks of Canada geese flew past. Geese honk a lot when they fly. They’re like the jet boat guys: they can’t go anywhere without making noise. I like the geese better.

I stopped at one spot, parking my boat along the bank upstream from the run. I walked down and checked it out. It looked too fast, but I figured that if the river dropped a foot it would be fishable. I waded in and took a few casts anyway, just to feel what the current was like.

I was into my fourth cast when a big jet boat came around the bend like thunder across the prairie. The guy throttled back as he went by me. He looked at my rod and smiled (he’d already passed my boat). Then he pointed at the water and said, "Ya think that’s going to hold the big one today?" He had that tone of voice people use when they describe their neighbor’s religion.

After he passed me, he revved up the engine—a few rpm more than necessary, I thought—and accelerated around the next bend. The noise faded until all I could hear was the river hissing against my legs. I knew what that jet boater was saying to himself: "Har, har, har. Couldn’t afford a real boat."

Two runs later I was alone and fishing a good stretch of water. My fly hung up in mid-river. Rock or fish? I swung the rod toward shore and felt a throbbing resistance. In the river, I saw a broad flash of silver. Ten minutes later I had the steelhead on the bank, a wild hen of about seven pounds. Not big, as winter fish go, but respectable. And caught my way.

Before releasing the fish, my ears sifted the sounds of the river. They found nothing but wind and an occasional goose. I strained for what I longed to hear. The fish will be OK; she’s in the water, resting, and if I held her up for a few seconds to show her off, it wouldn’t hurt. But the air was empty of unnatural sounds.

There’s never a jet boat around when you want one.

Profile
Scott Richmond stood in the casting stanchions of my drift boat, settling a bass bug to the water against the bank as gently as a well-chosen word lands in the bed of its sentence. We were half-way through the first day of a long float down Oregon’s desert John Day River. The weather shifted from sunshine to pelting rain. The water shifted from quiescent to nearly violent. Rowing became taxing. My cranky shoulder went out and I had to coax Scott down off his platform to take over the oars.

There is something at once reassuring and unsettling about turning over the oars of your drift boat to someone who then handles it more gracefully, shepherds it through rapids more safely than you’re able to do yourself.

Scott traded success in the computer business for the doubtful renown of an outdoor writer. He and I often share rivers and the enjoyment of quiet along them.

—David Hughes

Bio
Scott Richmond
Place of residence: Oregon.
Education: B.S.E.E., University of Washington. M.S.E.E., Stanford.
Books: The Pocket Gillie. Fishing in Oregon’s Deschutes River. Fishing in Oregon’s Endless Season.
Award: First in fourth grade class to memorize multiplication tables.
Current project: River Journal: Rogue River—collection of short fiction.
Favorite book: Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich.
Favorite Flies: Size 10 Olive Woolly Bugger. Size 14 Tan Elk Hair Caddis.

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