Outdoors column by Pat Neal — “Sometimes, you just go with the best”

FEBRUARY MUST BE my favorite month.

It’s when we catch the biggest steelhead of the year.

Steelhead don’t feed when they enter fresh water, so no one knows why they bite.

We have all kinds of excuses for them not biting, such as using the wrong lure.

So we buy another and another as if whoever dies with the biggest tackle box wins.

One man’s hoarding disorder is just an average steelheader’s tackle collection.

Unfortunately, all the gear in the world won’t necessarily help you catch a steelhead.

Here is my story:

The old guy who showed me how to catch steelhead didn’t even own a tackle box.

He carried a wicker creel.

Inside it he had a few leaders tied up, some split shot and a jar of eggs cured in sugar and salt.

Once in a while Harry would get fancy.

“We started tying yarn on our leaders after the war,” he said.

That would be the big one, World War II. The rest of Harry’s gear looked like it had been through the war.

The guides on his rod and reel were held on with electrical tape.

He would strip out some line and swing his little glob of caviar out into the river, usually less than 10 feet from shore.

One morning, he caught both our limits before I got my fancy gear untangled.

“You have to feel the bite,” Harry said. That hurt.

A fishermen’s ego can be as delicate as the most fragile

eco-system.

Harry had a 35-year steelhead fishing head start on me.

I thought it would be only fair if he let me catch a fish once in a while.

My hurt feelings didn’t keep me from showing up at his house bright and early the next morning.

That was stupid.

Harry never caught a steelhead before 10, and he wasn’t going to be rushed by some kid.

We were going to have breakfast, which was fortunate.

Harry and Lena were great cooks.

They had a wood cook stove that was prone to chimney fires once it got hot enough to boil water.

Harry claimed there was nothing like a chimney fire to take the chill off in the morning, but he worried about igniting a sizeable deposit of bat guano that was up in the attic.

The house had been built by a pair of Norwegian bachelors who never once used a square, tape measure or a level.

The place had more holes in it than one of my fish stories.

The bathroom was the coldest room in the house, so it served as a cold storage.

Harry kept the steelhead in the bathtub until it was time to put them in the smokehouse.

Lena wondered just when he was going to get those fish out of the tub so she could take a bath.

But Harry wasn’t going to run the smokehouse for just four fish.

No, we were going to catch some more.

That was the old days, when fishing was all that really mattered.

It was in the high 30s and raining when we drove to the river in perfect steelhead weather.

“I think I’m having a stroke,” Harry said. I turned the truck around.

“Where are you going?” he asked. I told him: “If you’re having a stroke, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Harry said not to worry.

“It won’t hit until tomorrow,” he said. “Let’s go fishing.”

I turned the truck around again and headed back to the river.

Harry caught our four fish again that morning.

———-

Pat Neal is a North Olympic Peninsula fishing guide and humorist whose column appears every Wednesday.

Pat can be reached at 360-683-9867 or patnealwildlife@yahoo.com.

The “Pat Neal WildLife Show” is on KSQM 91.5 FM (www.scbradio.com) at 9 a.m. Saturdays, repeated at 6 p.m. Tuesdays.

More in News

Port Angeles teachers’ union votes to honor paraeducators’ picket line on April 8

Members of the Port Angeles Education Association voted overwhelmingly… Continue reading

Funding needed for Port Townsend homeless shelter

Operation at Legion Hall to close April 30

Port of Port Angeles renews lease for Composite Recycling Technology Center

Agreement covers 26,000 square feet at airport business park

Fire district volunteers lauded

Clallam County Fire District No. 3 recently recognized seven members… Continue reading

Clallam to continue providing deputy to Forks

Contract includes wages, mileage and maintenance reimbursement

Maintenance closes section of Olympic Discovery Trail

A portion of the Olympic Discovery Trail is closed… Continue reading

Hanna Paoluccu of Alexander, N.Y., and Rosie Berg of Nevada City, Calif., members of the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group and working with the Jefferson County Noxious Weed Board, remove poisonous hemlock weed from along the Larry Scott Trail in Port Townsend on Monday. (Steve Mullensky/for Peninsula Daily News)
Poison hemlock removal in Port Townsend

Hanna Paoluccu of Alexander, N.Y., and Rosie Berg of Nevada City, Calif.,… Continue reading

YMCA to build childcare facility

$1-2M still needed for $6.7M project

Port Townsend Police Department recognizes award recipients

The Port Townsend Police Department recognized officers, employees, volunteers… Continue reading

Port Angeles High School evacuated due to bomb threat

Nothing suspicious found, principal says

A tree that has grown out of its tree box and shattered a nearby curb and sidewalk in the 100 block of North Oak Street is among those targeted for removal and replacement in downtown Port Angeles. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
Port Angeles tree and sidewalk replacement to begin Monday

The Port Angeles downtown tree and sidewalk replacement project… Continue reading

Grant for Forks treatment plant to be discussed

The Clallam County Opportunity Fund Advisory Board will discuss… Continue reading