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News
Article 1:
Trout Bums: Doing the Deschutes again and again
By Mark Littleton
Special to The Seattle Times
I've found that in life there are lessons that need to be
learned over and over again. You know what I'm talking about.
The kind of thing you do and say, "I'll never do that again,"
then the next time you run into that situation, you make the
same mistake again, as though you'd never done it before. For
me, the Deschutes River is one of those. I'm never going back
there again — until next time.
The salmonfly hatch on the Deschutes is legendary. This is a
prolific hatch of giant bugs that are said to make the fish feed
like Anna Nicole Smith coming off of a diet — stupidly gorging.
Stories abound of fisherman who try to be there for this hatch
(in late May or early June), and never make it at exactly the
right time. I have never hit it exactly right.
Last year, Randal Sumner, his cousin Chris Bolm, Jim Hill,
the fly tycoon, and I decided to once more try to be there at
the right time.
I've been to the Deschutes quite a bit and have a somewhat
jaded view of it. I have never had what I would consider to be
great fishing there. Until recently I told myself that I wasn't
there at the right time or that I just hadn't figured it out
yet.
My theory is that the Deschutes is just plain overrated.
These days I go to the Deschutes once or twice a year. I don't
go more often because it takes me at least three months to
forget what an awful place it is. But no matter how miserable
the trip is, I always come back for more — eventually. The
lessons that never make it from short-term to long-term memory
are:
• This is a windy, hot, desolate, snaky, hot, God-forsaken,
windy, nasty, snaky, hot, rotten, windy, miserable, hot place.
Beautiful, but did I say hot, windy and snaky?
• The fishing is as good or better near the road as anywhere
that you have to hike to. This is one I keep learning the hard
way. Even though I knew this last year, Randal, Chris and I took
a hike this year to the undisturbed water far from any vehicle
access (Jim wisely stayed and fished near camp). Our little
outing started out pleasantly enough, a late-morning hike along
the railroad tracks.
Then we started to find ways down to the water, usually
through ideal rattlesnake habitat. We were fighting about who
had to lead the way since the guy in front is the most likely to
step on a rattler and get bitten. Randal, who hates
rattlesnakes, tried the old "you know it's always the second guy
who gets bit" trick. Chris and I didn't fall for that one and
kept maneuvering to be last in line.
After a fairly unproductive late morning/early afternoon we
headed back to the truck in the midday heat. This turned into a
grim, waterless death march. Back at camp, the smarter and
better-hydrated Jim seemed content with his day, triggering the
urge to kill.
• What do you do all afternoon? The best fishing is usually
in the late evening. The days are hot and miserable, and the
campgrounds offer little shade. This leaves a big chunk of your
day with nothing to do but swelter and whine. One day we tried
drinking to see if it would make the day pass more pleasantly.
It didn't.
They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting a different result. This
pretty much sums up my relationship with the Deschutes River. |
Article 2:
Fly-fishing as cancer therapy
How it can help women avoid a common side effect of treatment
By JULIE DAVIDOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Bent slightly forward at the waist, Elna Prothero stares intently ahead.
Strands of gray hair fall around her face as she guides the fishing line
first behind her and then back over her head onto the lawn at Northwest
Hospital and Medical Center.
On Saturday, Prothero and seven other women will take a fly-fishing trip
down the Yakima River.
The women have all had breast cancer. Dr. Sandra Vermeulen, a radiation
oncologist at Northwest and avid fly fisher for 13 years, recruited them for
the outing.
Dan DeLong / P-I
On the lawn at Northwest Hospital, breast cancer survivor Hannah Albert,
front, receives help with her casting technique from Dr. Sandra Vermeulen.
Vermeulen and her husband have fished rivers and streams in Spain, England,
Washington and Idaho.
The activity is engrossing, the scenery beautiful, she says.
But Vermeulen has a more specific goal in mind.
Fly-fishing, with its emphasis on arm and shoulder motions that guide the
fly to rest gently on the surface of the water, can help women who've had
breast cancer avoid a common side effect of treatment.
Lymphedema causes painful swelling in the arms and upper body and can lead
to permanent loss of mobility. About 1 in 5 women who've had breast cancer
will get lymphedema, and exercise is one way to prevent it.
"It really isn't about catching a fish or about the float trip on the
river," Vermeulen said. "A lot of them are still traumatized by their whole
cancer ordeal. It's the idea of taking these women out of the hospital, out
of their community, back to a more basic look at life. And, at the same
time, you can give them a skill that's good for promoting their arm health."
On Tuesday, before practicing their casting on the lawn, the women learned
about waders, rods and reels. They passed around a kit packed with flies.
"They look like earrings," one woman remarked.
Prothero doesn't burst out laughing like the other novices in her group when
she talks about fly-fishing.
She speaks reverently about a sport she watched her uncles perform on the
rivers of Washington and Montana, awestruck by their mastery.
"That was for grown-ups," said Prothero. "I just didn't think I could do
that. That's a real art."
Now, at 65, Prothero is preparing for her first attempt at luring fish to a
fly.
"My uncle always said, 'I'm going to take fish on flies or I'm not going to
take them at all,'" she said.
Her husband, never a fan of fly-fishing, told her that if she caught a fish
in the river, he'd use it for bait on his deep-sea expeditions.
"What a toad," Prothero joked.
Eleanor Stallcop-Horrox finished her radiation treatments a week ago. Two
years ago in October, her husband died of lymphoma, a cancer that invades
the lymph nodes.
When Vermeulen heard that Stallcop-Horrox also lost her mother this year,
she suggested the fly-fishing trip.
"She said, 'Oh my gosh, you need a break.'"
A member of the Seattle Opera Chorus, she had never contemplated
fly-fishing.
"It's not exactly something you long to do, but (Vermeulen) is pretty
enthusiastic," Stallcop-Horrox said. "I am looking for positive steps
forward, so I thought what the heck."
A floating trip down the Yakima also means paying off a debt owed to her
alma mater.
"I went to Central (Washington University) and floating was kind of a rite
of passage when I was there. If you had not floated the Yakima, they would
call you an RV, a river virgin.
"I'm 51 years old, and I'm finally losing my virginity."
MORE INFORMATION
The Northwest Hospital and Medical Center's fly-fishing trips are not open
to the public, but guided tours are available through Tight Lines Angling.
For information, go to www.tightlinesangling.com.
Casting for Recovery, a national organization based in Vermont, also offers
fly-fishing trips around the country for women with breast cancer. For
information, go to www.castingforrecovery.org.
P-I reporter Julie Davidow can be reached at 206-448-8180 or juliedavidow@seattlepi.com.Any of our visitors are welcome to  submit
articles. Send the to:
Ken@WashingtonOnTheFly.com
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