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February 5, 2007
North Umpqua River
How do you adequately describe a day of fishing that ranks, if not at the top, as one of the best days on the water you have ever experienced? It’s not for the reason you may initially think. The day holds such a special place because of who I got to fish with.
Frank Moore has played no small role in the conservation and protection of the wild runs of steel head, as well as the watershed and North Umpqua river itself. It is a place I hold very dear, and the place it is has a lot to do because Frank feels the same way I do long before conservation was a reasonably held ideal. It would be an understatement to say that this man is one of the living legends of fly fishing, if not one of my heroes.
Through a friend (Thanks Bob!), we were invited to spend the night at Frank and Jeanie Moore’s home on a ridge above the river. I didn’t hold any ideas that I would in fact get to fish with Frank, but was giddy in anticipation to experience the Moore’s legendary hospitality as well as their company. But as we were enjoying breakfast Monday morning, it was decided that Frank and I would fish together. I might as well have been a six year old on Christmas morning, except I was experiencing this Christmas for the first time.
At 84, Frank would be described as anything but elderly or a senior citizen. It was work for me to keep my 36 year old hide up with Frank. Frank is a noted caster with a single handed rod(read that as 100 ft casts with ease), so that means I almost got out as far as he did with my double hander. He was a gracious host, letting me fish through each run first. The river was low, clear, and relatively cold in the high 30's. We fished some spots that I knew and some that I didn’t. Frank had stories and memories dating back decades about each place. While fishing a lower run that I had never fished before, I got what a good friend likes to call an “Underwater Umpqua Handshake.” The fish hit with vigor, stripped 30 ft of line off, went airborne, and spit the hook. All this with Frank upriver watching the whole episode. The requisite good-natured ribbing and cajoling ensued. I could have died and gone to heaven at the moment, but the fish god’s were smiling on me that day. Thirty casts later I hook into a second fish in the run, but this one was pinned tight. After a good fight, a swim as I was trying to cross back to shore, and the fish deciding it wanted to be in the next pool down, we landed a beautiful 32", 12 lb native buck. Frank claims I fell in because I tripped over a rock in 18" of water, but I maintain he pushed me in because I had hooked another fish. His story may hold a little more water than mine. In trying to give Frank a crash course in how to use my digital camera, the only picture we got was of Frank, holding the camera upside down and backwards, taking a close-up picture of himself. I have plenty of pictures of steel head, but I only have one self portrait of Frank. I like that picture better. We didn’t touch anymore fish the rest of the trip, but why would you need to. I am still on cloud nine.
Thank you to the Moore’s for such and incredible couple of days. It is a memory that will not fade anytime soon.
Good Casts and Tight Lines,
Reed Teuscher |
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