Fishing Season is Here!

Wake up anglers! Fishing season is upon us. Big Fish in the form of white sturgeon that run up to 14 feet can satisfy even the most picky angler. An hour on the end of a stout Tuna rod hooked to a 12-foot fish is enough to “rubber-arm” anyone.

Springer season is starting in the mid-Columbia and will run through early May. Anyone can tell you that the spring salmon are the tastiest fish caught in Oregon. 

But at the same time the Walleye are on the bite so that makes for some combo fishing trips.  There are still some Walleye wall-hangers in those deep pools that would make your tongue hang out. The Columbia is still one of the few places anglers can take 10-pound or better Walleyes.

Next on the agenda are Channel Cat Fish in June up the lower John Day River. Those Cats run from 3 to 25-pounds and are blast on light rods.  And then it’s back to Walleye again until the summer-run steelhead and fall salmon show in July. That fishing adventure will last until late November on the Big Columbia River with a lot of action on trolled crankbaits and spinners.

For more information visit my website www.RiversBendOutfitters.com or give me a call here in The Dalles at 541-296-5949.

The Golden Days of Fall; Fishing and Hunting

If you hunt or fish the golden days of fall are upon us. It won't last long; get out there amongst 'em and get your share!

September, October and November are the golden days of fall in the Mid-Columbia and eastern Oregon/Washington. The "gold" is not only the golden days with comfortably cool weather and long days of sunshine, but also the "gold" of the wild bounty that awaits the angler or hunter. The hunting seasons have started and the fish runs have begun. Steel head and salmon are passing Bonneville, The Dalles Dam and the John Day Dam by the thousands and congregating off the mouths of the Klickitat and the Deschutes as they rest to complete their spawning journey. Those great game fish also run up those two rivers as they search their way up the mighty Columbia for their own special waters and spawning grounds.

There are multitudes of favored sport fishing areas where one can view the armadas of sport and guide boats collected while traveling the highways along the shores of the Columbia. Collections of boats can be seen off the mouth of the Klickitat, in the waters just below and above The Dalles Dam, further upriver a horde of boats gathers off the mouth of the Deschutes, then below the John Day Dam as well as above the Dam and again off the mouth of the John Day River.

All of these boats are manned by hopeful fishermen plying the waters with their favored lures; spinners, crank baits, jigs and cured baits hoping to latch onto a 50 pound salmon or a 25 pound steel head.

In the hills and plains of the Mid-Columbia some lucky hunters are looking for bighorn sheep or pronghorn antelope. Grouse hunters are slinking through the woods and bird hunters are chasing upland birds over excited bird dogs. Shotgunners are seeking to collect a limit of those gray jet propelled doves and archers are afoot looking for deer and elk.

It is the Golden Days of Fall in the Mid-Columbia. It won't last long; join the gold rush! Book a trip with Rivers Bend Outfitters today.

There is a Wolf at the door #4

Actually there are wolves at the door. More than anyone really knows for sure. Exactly how many are in Oregon and Washington is up for grabs. These wolves have dribbled over from Idaho and Montana and will continue to do so until the social levels of wolf populations in Oregon and Washington become high enough to discourage further encroachment.

If and when Oregon's ODF&W develop rules and regulations for management of wolves that the USF&W (for the U.S. Government) find acceptable and can defend from endless lawsuits by various animal rights and other preservationists will any real management begin. Whew! Seems long and complicated, huh. It is more than that. Just think, it took a Congressional action to create what wolf hunter that is now allowed. Once Oregon's population attains the required level of breeding pairs of wolves and other esoteric rules there is still the animals rights groups to satisfy or defeat in the courts of the land before any real management controls can begin.

Most hunters believe that just opening a hunting season on wolves will hold wolf numbers in check. Just won't happen! British Columbia and Alaska have found that this is a management plan that won't work. It is a start, nonetheless. Alaska knows that hunters are generally not as smart as the wolves they pursue and the only real answer for overall control of excess wolf populations is by aerial shooting, trapping and poisoning. And that is fact, not supposition. Not animal right's advocates theories and not hunter's hopes or wants...just plain facts. Most of today's urban populations are out of touch with reality in the wild outdoors. As a result, many, if not most of them will find those control efforts distasteful, if not downright disgusting. But necessary to really control the wolf population.

The ever expanding wolf population must be managed and part of that management will be population control. If we are to maintain the overall deer, antelope and elk populations that we have worked so hard to re-establish over the past century, then a rational attitude must prevail. Fact: wolves are voracious and are seriously depleting wild herds. Fact: they also pose a danger to wild grazers (and possibly to domestic grazing animals as well) by passing biological infections.

Somewhere in this long blog I said that wolves are romantic creatures and appeal to the general public. The answers to solving the problem of too many wolves will be long in resolution. Lets hope that the animal rights and wildlife preservationist groups will not "cut their nose off to spite their face." If they persist in stopping any wolf management long enough that the elk, deer, antelope and other prey species populations are so depleted that hunting is eradicated we will all suffer. For the wild populations of prey species will become so sparse that the only place the public can view them will be in a wildlife park not in the wilds where they once were abundant. Wouldn't that be a shame?

There IS a Wolf at the Door #3

The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is considered to be the most successful conservation model in the world. With the near extinction of many American species by the mid-1800's (i.e. the Bison), hunter-conservation groups like the Boone & Crockett Club began to advocate game management and regulation. There are two major principles to the American Model; fish and wildlife are for the non-commercial use of citizens and will be managed to remain at optimum levels forever.

And this is the rub. At the Wolf Symposium held 12 May in Albany, Oregon there were more than 250 concerned citizens. Their concerns were varied but mainly concerned with the lack of management of restored wolf population in Western America. As noted some parties agreeing to initial numbers of wolves required to meet ESA have not been honest. Environmentalist (preservationist) groups keep litigating for more and more wolves. The USFWS protects the wolves but does little else. The initially agreed upon required numbers of wolves have long been surpassed in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. The result of the huge numbers of unmanaged wolves now roaming the West has been devastation of healthy elk and deer herds.

David Allen, President of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation offered the following;
the Lolo Pass elk herd is down 80% of population prior to wolf introduction. The North Yellowstone elk herd was 20,000 strong prior to wolf introduction. It now stands at 4,000. The Bitter Root elk herd has lost 80% of its population. My wife and I have witnessed the changes in the Yellowstone wildlife over the 'wolf' years. This year we saw no calf elk in herds, no coyotes, no moose and only one deer. And those kinds of problems exist outside of Wyoming and Idaho.

This IS a lot of information on one issue. But the issue is BIG. Dr. Val Geist, the leading ungulate biologist in North America had this to say. Wolves kill animals and people by infection, too. Wolves pass cysts of Echinococcus granulosis, a predatory tapeworm through their feces to the ground, thus into grazing animals wherein it enters the lungs and organs and passes on to others that come in contact. Cattle, elk, deer, people and other animals are susceptible. You see that wolves may be killing wildlife, livestock and perhaps people without even attacking them. He says the Disney concept of the wolf denies the honest historical background and why they were eradicated. Wolves still take people as witnessed by a fatal attack on a human last year in Alaska.

In my next and last wolf blog I will offer up some professional solutions for the wolf problem.

There IS a Wolf at the Door #2

The wolves now running through western America came about from directives to meet the ESA (Endangered Species Act) requirements to replace an endangered species. Chosen as a substitute was the Canadian Grey Wolf. The initial objective was to create a required (and arbitrary) number of breeding pairs in each western State to attain surety that wolf species would continue to survive. The original concept was lopsided in that it avoided the biological absolute truth. Only the western States would be infused with "new" wolves, there were no plans to restore wolves in New York, Iowa, Ohio, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas or any other former eastern wolf habitats. Only the relatively unpopulated wide open spaces, forests and prairies of the western States would receive the "new" wolves. Kindly note that these locales are far from the urban armchair-biologists and anti-hunting preservationists that championed the restoration of the wolf populations. And no, none were released in Los Angeles, either.

But the restoration has been done. Depending on the source of information there are now at least 1700 wolves in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana alone. This far exceeds the originally agreed upon restoration numbers. Many biologists suspect there are probably about 3000 wolves in those States along with a trickle now spreading into Washington, Oregon, Utah and possibly Colorado. The real numbers required for sustaining the wolf population in those States are on the ground. They exist. Yet the preservationist/environmentalist groups continue to litigate for more wolves and total protection for those wolves. Those uncontrolled, unmanaged wolves have ravaged existing mammals and ungulate herds. Keep in mind that the litigant groups are the most fervent anti-hunting organizations in America. Idaho's moose, elk and deer herds have been decimated and wolves are the primary cause. The north Yellowstone elk herd numbered about 16,000 animals six short years ago; it numbers less than 4000 animals now with virtually no calves for recruitment. During a week's stay last September in Yellowstone my wife and I saw no coyote tracks, 1 doe deer, no elk calves with any of the few herds we saw and no moose. Numbers of bison seen were fewer and far between. There were few game trails one could put a foot to that did not display wolf tracks. As I go forward with this keep in mind that it takes about 35 elk a year to sustain each wolf. You do the math.

And in the middle of this controversy is a conservationist group that believes in the North American Model of Conservation. Never heard of it? Stay tuned.