THE TROUT LINE

October 1, 2018

Welcome to The Trout Line Newsletter! This is our Tualatin Valley Trout Unlimited Chapter newsletter that will be coming out twice a month on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month.

  Come Join Us on the Board! 

Your Tualatin Valley TU Chapter could use a couple of additional Board members.  The job description is pretty simple.  The Board meets monthly at 6 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of each month (some months with no meeting needed) in the downstairs meeting room at the American Legion Hall in Tigard.  Meetings usually last an hour or a bit more.  TVTU has been quite successful in recent years, with projects such as the Christmas for Coho efforts and with good attendance at effective and entertaining Chapter meetings held most months at the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village.  But we can always use fresh energy and fresh ideas.  If you are interested and would like to come to one of the Board meetings to test the water (barbless hook only), please contact Mike Gentry at  michaelgentry04@comcast.net or (503) 636-0061.  This is a feel-good volunteer opportunity.
  
Tualatin Valley Riverkeepers Summer Camp

Written by Peter Gray

TVTU volunteers, Jon Pampush, Erle Norman, Jim Fenner, and Peter Gray provided casting instruction for 13 campers (10-13 years old) in Cook Park as part of the Tualatin Riverkeepers summer camp titled Living Waters. Demonstration flies were provided by Mike Gentry. The campers thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the TU volunteers and were very appreciative of their support.  We had a few campers that have been coming for more than 1 year and it was great to see how their skills advanced from year to year.

In addition, using TU Stream Explorer materials Peter Gray led a very lively classroom session for the Living Waters campers. The session provided information on the Salmon Story, Salmon of the Pacific, and the Life Story of the Salmon. Also the campers created a booklet on the Salmon Life Cycle and played the Salmon Survival Game. Stream Explorer materials also covered "What’s a Watershed?" and "How to Follow the Water’s Path". This part of the lesson included a chutes and ladders type board game called, "Upstream Adventure". Finally, the Stream Explorer materials provided information about "Amazing Trout", the "Trout Life Cycle" and "How Lateral Lines work". This session ended with the game, "Which side are you on?" that helped the campers learn how the trout hear. They also were provided with a picture of a trout that they could color. The campers took home all of the TU Stream Explorer materials to share with their family. It was a fun and educational experience!  
  Fly Fishing Arts and Conservation Society (FFACS) presents the Fly Tyers Rendezvous on Saturday, November 10, 2018

TVTU is a member of FFACS and for the last 19 years has assisted in the Fly Tyers Rendezvous.  The mission of FFACS is to further education and conservation related to fly fishing in the area by sharing the proceeds from this event among the 5 fly fishing clubs that are members of the organization.  In the past these funds have gone to many great projects including scholarships for graduate students at Oregon State University, the Deschutes River Alliance, Lewis River restoration projects among many other very important education and conservation efforts.

Please mark your calendar and plan on attending the event at the Jackson Armory, 6255 NE Cornfoot Rd; Portland, Oregon 97218.  The event opens at 9:00 AM and closes at 4:00 PM.  There will be 40 or more fly tyers exhibiting their skills along with fundraisers in the form of bucket raffles, silent auctions and great barbeque.

You many want to consider going through that closet full of great fly fishing gear that you can seem to use.  Items of value would be greatly appreciated as opportunities to raffle or auction to someone who can put it to good use.  The funds go to a great cause.  

 Drowning Ducks at Goose Lake, WA

Written by Andy Andrews

It was a Sunday Morning when I packed up for a one day outing to Goose Lake.  The weather forecast for Portland was cool, with intermittent showers.  Goose Lake is located at about 3500 feet and north of Carson in the gorge.  It’s location led me to believe that the weather conditions would be cooler and wetter than that of Portland so I prepared well with extra clothing and rain gear.  I’ve put Goose on the fishing schedule two times before due to request from other members who wanted to fish this remote, somewhat prehistoric looking lake with tree trunks protruding from the near - middle of the lake.  And two times I’ve made the trip to find that I was the only member on the outing.  I saw no reason to believe that this trip would be different from the other times I’ve journey to Goose.  But as some members would suggest, I can be an odd and stubborn cuss who doesn’t like to give up on a trip I have planned, regardless of weather, fire, plague or transportation problems.  I put Goose on the schedule and I was going to attend the outing come hell or high water.  Period.
 
Goose is about 2 - hours away from my home in the west hills and I’d say about 80 miles or so.  It’s only the last 15 miles that makes you wonder if your ever going to find the lake.  After driving north of Carson, you’ll find the road to Goose is not signed, its just a road that you recognize by having been there before.  It starts out as a one - lane paved, twisty sucker that takes you breath away when meeting oncoming traffic because the road is narrow and there are few places to safely pass other traffic.  There are places on the road that indicate that the pavement is slipping away into the canyon below.  You find these places when your vehicle suddenly drops 4 - 6 inches knocking your filings loose.  Now comes the fun part.  The road turns to washboard gravel and I switch to 4 - wheel drive to help stabilize the truck on nasty turns on the loose gravel.  Finally you reach a four way intersection and a sign indicating you have only seven — more miles to Goose Lake, the only sign you’ll see indicating that the lake lays somewhere up ahead.  When I reach the lake I find that I’m the only car in the day parking lot.  I gear up, drop the tube in the lake and see only three bank fisherman on the entire lake.  The lake is mine, mine, mine, all mine.  That’s when the rain kicks in and the wind starts to blow.  Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!  I start by using a two fly system, a number 16 Prince nymph and a number 14, bead head pheasant tail.  I’ve chosen wisely.   A number of brook trout are falling for my ruse.  Some of them run up to six inches in length.  I switch flies, even go from an intermediate sink line to a floating line and I’m fishing the deepest water in the lake, and still the brook trout come.  I did hook one twelve - inch rainbow that threw the hook after a number of jumps and I had few strong strikes, but no hook ups.  After a few hours I began to figure that if I had a way to squish all the brook trout I had caught into one big fish, I’d have a thirty - inch brook.  That is when I started to believe that hypothermia maybe starting to kick in, and I headed for the boat ramp and my truck. 
 
That’s when the second heavy, and I mean heavy, rainfall started falling.  When I figured Chicken Little was right and the sky was falling and as I was kicking along toward the boat ramp I wondered how the ducks could fair in this rain?  They could drown.  No, think about it.  Their little nostrils are facing upward, right on top of their bills, sure as hell, they would drown!  How could I save the ducks?  That’s when I was realized that I was way colder than I should be and how far away was that boat ramp?  The the boat ramp I couldn’t see because the rain was falling hard enough that I couldn’t even see which way I was heading.  I did make the boat ramp, and managed to get my gear off and shove it in the truck in some form, any form was ok at this point.
 
Now it would be easy to make up a story about the beautiful drive to Goose, warm weather with just a hint of fall in the air, large fighting fish breaking the surface of the water and ripping up your gear.  No one was there to witness the event, so who would ever know the truth?  But generally, it’s just best to tell it like it is and clear your conscience by telling the truth.   As fisherman, we don’t have to catch the most, or the biggest, and we don’t have to be wise in all things about fishing.  Sometimes we go fishing and all we come back with are the memories of the experience and that’s enough for me.  I just hope to continue to enjoy what I do and continue to learn more about fly fishing.  However, I think it will be some time before you see me putting Goose Lake back on the schedule.   

 Upcoming Outing!

October 12-14 at the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River at the Kiahanie Campground.  Our outings are a great place to meet other members and learn or share fishing techniques.  Contact Andy Andrews (andrewsclga@gmail.com) for additional information and directions if needed.  Please join us! 

Meetings Location and Dates

Regular chapter meetings are held at the Lucky Labrador Public House 7675 SW Capitol Hwy. Portland, OR 97219 (503) 244-2537.  Food and beverage available.  Social get together starts at 6:30 pm and formal meeting starts at 7:00 pm unless otherwise noted in the newsletter or website.

September Meeting: Sept. 12 - Kaitlin Lovell - Salmon Sanctuaries in Portland
 

In 2017, the City of Portland created an effort to recognize successful habitat restoration in urban environments. Every year, on the Salmon in Our City Day, City Council will designate the best salmon habitats in Portland as Salmon Sanctuaries.  A Salmon Sanctuary can be achieved when the certain criteria, developed by Environmental Services scientists, are met. These criteria reflect the best salmon habitats in Portland. These locations represent the future success of salmon in the city and demonstrate that is possible to create urban sanctuaries for these threatened species.  To date, only one stream qualifies: Crystal Springs Creek.  But the city has identified a number of potential candidates. For a Salmon Sanctuary, the local stewardship group will receive a one-time grant to invest in continuing restoration in the watershed.

October Meeting: Oct. 10 - Michael Gorman "All Things Nymphing"

November Meeting Nov. 14 - Kyle Smith - TU Sportsmen's Conservation Project Campaigns in Oregon

More Information:

TVTU Website: https://tualatinvalley.tu.org/

Current Board Members and Contact:https://tualatinvalley.tu.org/tualatinvalley/about

TVTUBlog: http://tvtroutunlimited.blogspot.com/

TVTU Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/tualatinvalleyTU/

C4C Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/christmasforcoho/