Bruce Slightom
08-05-2018, 10:36 AM
First Time Boating the Klamath
I pulled my boat out of storage the other day and while getting it ready for the up coming season on the lower Klamath I got to reminiscence about the first time that I ever was in a boat going up the Klamath from the Glen.
I grew up in Woodland and a family friend was a retired rice farmer, Bill. He spent a month or more on the Klamath each fall and I had heard many stories about his fishing places that seamed magical to me. Names like Cleveland, Blue Creek, Boyd’s and Blake’s danced in my head. He gave me some of his favorite flies and told me that you just had to cast and hang on.
I moved to Humboldt County in the late 60's to go to school. I fished the Trinity and the Klamath in the Orleans area from the roads. Fished the Eel and the Mad. Took tying lessons from Larry Simpson who owned Time Flies in Arcata.
One of Bill’s daughters, Chris, got in touch with me and invited me to spend a day with her and her boy friend on the river. She had use of her dad’s boat and they welcomed me along. I met them at the appointed time and place and we drove to where the boat was docked.
When we got down to the boat it was chained up and locked. Chris swore up and down that it was her father’s boat and that she had been in it a million times. I happen to have tools in my truck and with the help of a hack saw cut the chain. And away we go heading up river.
Well, I do not know anything about the river and the boyfriend is navigating us up through a few rifles until we get to what I know now as Starwein. We hit bottom and shear off a pin. We pull over and cannot find a replacement. We spend a bit of time fishing a nice looking piece of water with no luck and head back down river. No oars in the boat so we are walking and pulling the boat and to cross we use the anchor by throwing it and pulling and throwing it again.
We get back to the dock and use a coat hanger to repair the chain and go off to meet Bill for dinner at Crivelli’s. At dinner Bill wants to know why we did not use his boat?
We were at the wrong dock and blatantly in broad day light stole some poor fellows boat!
This was the auspicious start of a life long relationship with this great river.
I pulled my boat out of storage the other day and while getting it ready for the up coming season on the lower Klamath I got to reminiscence about the first time that I ever was in a boat going up the Klamath from the Glen.
I grew up in Woodland and a family friend was a retired rice farmer, Bill. He spent a month or more on the Klamath each fall and I had heard many stories about his fishing places that seamed magical to me. Names like Cleveland, Blue Creek, Boyd’s and Blake’s danced in my head. He gave me some of his favorite flies and told me that you just had to cast and hang on.
I moved to Humboldt County in the late 60's to go to school. I fished the Trinity and the Klamath in the Orleans area from the roads. Fished the Eel and the Mad. Took tying lessons from Larry Simpson who owned Time Flies in Arcata.
One of Bill’s daughters, Chris, got in touch with me and invited me to spend a day with her and her boy friend on the river. She had use of her dad’s boat and they welcomed me along. I met them at the appointed time and place and we drove to where the boat was docked.
When we got down to the boat it was chained up and locked. Chris swore up and down that it was her father’s boat and that she had been in it a million times. I happen to have tools in my truck and with the help of a hack saw cut the chain. And away we go heading up river.
Well, I do not know anything about the river and the boyfriend is navigating us up through a few rifles until we get to what I know now as Starwein. We hit bottom and shear off a pin. We pull over and cannot find a replacement. We spend a bit of time fishing a nice looking piece of water with no luck and head back down river. No oars in the boat so we are walking and pulling the boat and to cross we use the anchor by throwing it and pulling and throwing it again.
We get back to the dock and use a coat hanger to repair the chain and go off to meet Bill for dinner at Crivelli’s. At dinner Bill wants to know why we did not use his boat?
We were at the wrong dock and blatantly in broad day light stole some poor fellows boat!
This was the auspicious start of a life long relationship with this great river.