116 



THE OREGON SPORTSMAN 



TROLLING FOR NEHALEM CHINOOKS 



How a Pair of Amateur Anglers Exploded the Theory of the 



Oldest Resident and Caught Salmon 



On a Running Tide 



By 

 BLAINE HALLOCK 



HE dawn climbed quietly up above the 

 ragged spruces and bathed the many- 

 colored slopes of old Neah-kah-nie and 

 the long white lines of surf at its base 

 with the tints of an Indian summer 

 morning. I thought of Browning's im- 

 mortal lines: 

 "Day! 



Faster and more fast 

 O'er earth's brim, cla}^ boils at last." 

 It was September. The early violets which, in 

 June, painted the whole mountain-side and the lower 

 rolling meadows above the sea a delicate lavender, 

 and the myriads of purple irises of July, had given 

 way to the brilliant fireweed or Indian paint brush 

 , of late summer. 



As we trudged clown the slope, Jim and I, on 

 that quiet morning, bent on a day's angling at the 

 bay some three miles distant, I glanced back at the majestic pile. 

 The sun was just tipping its rocky apex. There it stood, the moun- 

 tain of Neah-kah-nie. frowning down upon the wrinkled sea below. 

 And I meditated the mystery of that mountain and of the sea 

 beach stretching to the south. Jutting out from an impenetrable 

 forest of spruce, fir and hemlock, the mountain presents a south 

 slope absolutely devoid of trees, save for a few clusters of young- 

 growth here and there in the deep ravines, and a bold stand of 

 birches clinging to the sheer walls of the cliff far down the rough 

 incline. 



The soil is intensely fertile, yet produces only meadow grass, 

 salal, ferns and wild flowers. Did some mighty cataclysm, ages 



