600 
FOREST AND STREAM 
December, 1917 
WITH ROD AND GUN ON AN OREGON RIVER 
DOWN THE UMPQUA, ONE OF OREGON’S SWIFTEST STREAMS, WHERE DEER, DUCKS 
AND GROUSE ABOUND, AND MAMMOTH SALMON ARE CAUGHT ON HOOK AND LINE 
L ET the Umpqua River, Oregon, stand 
for the Colorado; and in this parallel 
of adventurous navigation, let the 
Pearson Brothers, of Winchester Oregon, 
take the place of the Kolb Brothers. 
The Umpqua from Winchester to Scotts- 
burg, at the head of tide-water, is in its 
rip-snorting qualities, a little brother—not 
such a very little brother, either—to the 
Colorado. This cataract-filled segment, 
about 200 miles in its tortuous length, is 
the part of the river traversed by Steve and 
Hugh Pearson in two rowboats each only 
fifteen feet long and lightly constructed. 
The descent of the river is only a part 
of the experiences of 
these two men. They 
fished with hook and 
line near Scottsburg 
for 48 days and dur¬ 
ing those seven weeks 
of commercial an¬ 
gling they caught 
1,602 salmon, which 
they sold for only a 
little less than a 
thousand dollars. 
Their economic ad¬ 
ventures were there¬ 
fore quite as excit¬ 
ing as their nautical 
adventures. 
Steve Pearson’s ac¬ 
count, here given, de¬ 
scribes in detail their 
trip down one of 
Oregon’s swiftest 
streams—rapids, port¬ 
ages, ducks falling 
all around, and men 
disappearing into the fog on the disheveled 
current of a river hurrying to the sea; and 
it tells of two men catching 79 salmon in 
a single day with hook and line, of crisp 
November mornings, lines frozen in the 
guides, and hands too cold and numb to 
pull in the mammoth fish that struggled 
like a lassoed calf. Steve Pearson’s nar¬ 
rative of this interesting trip follows: 
D URING the summer my brother Hugh 
and I planned to go down the Ump¬ 
qua River on a fishing trip. We had 
often been told about the great salmon 
fishing to be had down near the head of 
tidewater during the months of October 
and November. Hugh and I had had a 
great deal of experience in trolling for 
salmon at Winchester. As salmon were 
higher than usual, we thought we could 
have some good sport, make our expenses 
and probably wages by going on a trip to 
the mouth of the river. 
About 4 years ago we made the trip 
from Winchester to the coast in a row¬ 
boat. We decided to make this trip in 
boats. I had a 15-foot boat at Winchester 
and Hugh had a boat of the same size 25 
miles down the river. As my boat would 
not hold all our outfit, we took a quantity 
By ALFRED POWERS 
of our supplies by auto to the mouth of 
Little Canyon, on the river, and left it at 
a house where we could get it when we 
came by with the boats. 
We started on our voyage at 8 A. M., 
on the fifth of October. We had with us 
two Winchester shotguns, one .22 caliber 
Winchester rifle, plenty of ammunition and 
grub enough for three or four meals. We 
took these guns along, as we expected to 
have some great sport shooting fish ducks 
and shags, which are numerous along the 
river and which feed on young fish and 
ought to be killed. 
It was a beautiful day to travel—the fog 
had just lifted from the river and the warm 
October sun was shining. Shortly we saw 
our first game—three fish ducks sitting on 
the shore. I kept the boat behind some 
willow bushes. Hugh was to do the shoot¬ 
ing. He took his 12-gauge Winchester, 
stood up so as to do more effective shoot¬ 
ing, and blazed away as the ducks started 
up the river. Only one duck fell, which 
dove and was never seen again. The shoot¬ 
ing was simply wretched, as the shot hit 
behind. I told Hugh what I thought of 
such shooting. 
We soon came within sight of the Brown 
bridge. Here we had about a mile of stiff 
water, with some bad rapids at the end of 
it. We landed and took a look at the rap¬ 
ids and decided to run them. We got 
through without any trouble. A quarter of 
a mile below, without bothering to examine 
it, we took another rapid. We went over 
all right, but it was worse than we ex¬ 
pected. As the river was low, quite a bit 
of water came over the boat, making it 
necessary to stop and bail out. 
We now came to the forks of the river, 
where the South Umpqua joins the North. 
Here we had about three miles of still 
water and I killed a couple of ducks. We 
came to some shallow rapids, where the 
river is wide and very shallow during low* 
water. We had to do a great deal of dodg¬ 
ing and twisting to get through, as there 
were only certain channels deep enough to 
float a boat. We next came to the Crow 
rapids. I never liked these rapids, as they 
are almost a sheer fall at low water and 
very rough. The waves roll so high that 
a person cannot handle the oars to any ad¬ 
vantage while going through. One just has 
to start the boat straight, “let ’er go,” 
and trust to luck. 
For a long way now we had good going. 
We traveled quietly along, flushing ducks 
and firing at them whenever they came 
within range. We 
killed a large number, 
but we also missed 
several, as they are 
hard to hit from a 
moving and rocking 
boat in swift water. 
We saw we were 
not making very good 
time. It was getting 
late in the afternoon 
and we realized it 
would be impossible 
for us to reach the 
mouth of Little Can¬ 
yon, where we had 
left our beds and pro¬ 
visions. So it was up 
to us to sleep out 
without any bedding 
the first night, but 
that didn’t worry us 
to any extent. 
At the mouth of 
Bottle Creek the 
water was so shallow exur boat stuck in 
the gravel and we had a hard time getting 
through. We arrived at Ed. Mosier’s 
place about 5 P. M. Hugh’s boat was 
here, so from this on we each had a boat. 
Just after passing the mouth of Cougar 
creek we had some good shooting. Large 
numbers of ducks and shags flew up the 
river past us and we made it warm for 
them, both turning loose on them with our 
shotguns, and fish ducks and shags were 
falling all around us. 
We traveled an hour after dark, but 
this soon became too risky a business, 
especially running the rapids, so we tied 
up our boats. We found a suitable place, 
built a fire and prepared to spend the 
night. I counted our game and found we 
had killed 27 fish ducks, 2 bluebills, 3 
shags, one pheasant, and 3 ruffed grouse. 
We sat up till late cooking bluebill and 
ruffed grouse on sticks over the fire. The 
night seemed long; it was cold; and we 
had no blankets. We lay by the fire, one 
side roasting while the other froze. I 
looked at my watch many a time that 
night. We got our boats and started al¬ 
most before we could see to travel, for 
the dangers of the river seemed prefer¬ 
able to the discomfort of camp. 
