Kaylin with Pa

This is what happens when you get playdough on your feet

A Weekend With Andy, Madri and the kids

As we won't see the kids for months with our upcoming Australia/New Zealand, we have come to Portland to enjoy the family. At first we had a crisis as Sheryl (Ba-Dah) picked up little Brooklyn who commence to howling and would have nothing to do with Ba-Dah. Alas, Sheryl worked her magic and by dinner time she had won Brooks over and all was well. So her our some photos of our Portland family...

Fishing For Silvers off the Columbia River

Grant Pine called this weekend and wanted to know if I could join him, Evan and Dennis Ross in fishing for Silver Salmon off the Columbia River. It sounded good to me but the bar of the Columbia River is notorious for ship wrecks as it can get VERY nasty. I was concerned but felt we would use good judgement concerning conditions. Dennis has recently bought a 22 foot Boston Whaler which is an odd boat but it sure does go and it was just fine for this trip. The first day was very clam and we caught several nice silvers and could see them near the boat feeding on the surface which made us all crazy to have some light tackle. The next day Grant organized a light spinning outfit and some spoons while I cobbed together Grant's 6 wt and Dennis's fly reel. I think they were skeptical about that fly rod but withing 5 minutes I had hooked a wild 8 pounder that took me all over the ocean. What fun. The video is of Grant catching a nice fish on the same rod later. He had 2 hits on his spinning rod but never hooked a fish with it. Just before we came in I caught a wild silver that was the biggest silver I have ever caught. Evan and I felt it was 15/16 pounds. No photo though as we made a quick release of the tired fish.
It was a GREAT fishing trip and the bar was not too rough so all ended well.

Gold Lake

We recently went with the Pines up to Gold Lake, near Willamette Pass. Its a lovely spot but after this first day of camping/fishing we got rained out.