Summer Steelhead and Tiger Lily

10 pound Summer Steelhead

Tiger Lily or Lilium Columbianum named after the mighty Columbia River

Here's a summer steelhead I caught two days ago on a 2/3 ounce Red-dotted Calf Tail Teardrop High Mountain Blaze-spoon with yellow hook feathers.  It's a limited edition lure from Arkansas circa 1950, and that day it was the only thing in the entire universe steelhead shadows would bite.  I was just lucky I found the lure at a yard sale near the river for a fish story and a quarter.

Salmon vs Shad

Spring Chinook I caught yesterday.

"Columbia River Tarpon" also known as shad.  These guys are fun to catch in the afternoon.  They are used for halibut bait and crab bait, and some brave souls can them with garlic or jalapeno, or pickle them. OPB has a story in which the writer noted "My family prefers shad to salmon." I'm glad the writer's family likes shad, but I'll take the salmon every time.

It's great to be on the river with 70-year-old men who maybe haven't figured out life but accept it in hard times and celebrate it the rest of the time.  Clay art is fun but nothing like the real thing.  I recall a quote from the film Waking Life: “Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories [ . . .]" Anyway, yesterday I hooked five chinook and landed three.  The big one was wild so I let him go. In the photo is another springer from Hidden River in Unnamed County.

My fishing buddy Slim told me a story about his friend who was late to his own wedding due to fishing so I guess there may be a few souls even more serious about fishing than I am.

I know Rumi wrote, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." but sometimes it's just a fishhook.

[Sperm Whale] by Archibald Thorburn, 1860–1935 | Public domain in United States, via Wikimedia Commons

I know Rumi wrote, "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." but sometimes it's just a fishhook.  I'm chasing spring salmon this week in Oregon from coast to mountains. I visited a library to see Amsterdam Quarterly published a book review of The Other History . . . along with my new eco-poem,"Of Whales and the Hinckley Hunt on Christmas Eve, 1818" when in one Ohio night "nearly 600 men [ . . . ] bagged 21 bears, 17 wolves, 300 deer, and untold numbers of turkeys, foxes, and raccoons."  I judged this harshly until I thought how my ancestors, the Starbuck clan of Nantucket, Massachusetts, "800 miles east, shipped out to kill sperm whales" for oil lamps and candles.  The difference is that sometimes the whales won as when the Essex, a Nantucket whaler, was sunk by a sperm whale in 1820 off South America, and the escaping crew had to survive by cannibalism.  Scholars note this sinking inspired Melville's novel Moby Dick.  But I digress . . . Now, back to the river to catch more salmon.

Fishing Essay and New Poem

Many thanks to the powerful Alaskan writer Marybeth Holleman for reposting my fishing essay from August 2013 along with a new poem from yesterday, June 1, 2014, called "Water Cave Near Mogollon Rim" about a place I visited in Arizona.

Art and Nature: Metabolism of Stars: A Guest Post by Scott T. Starbuck

artandnatureand.blogspot.com