December, 1917 
FOREST AND STREAM 
601 
I T was cold and foggy that morning. A 
person could see only a short distance 
ahead. It was a dandy morning for duck 
shooting, as they could not see us very 
far. My first chance was at a large 
bunch of hooded mergansers, small fish 
ducks we call them. They came out of 
the fog and up the river past me like a 
streak of lightning. They fairly whizzed, 
they had up such speed. I grabbed my 
gun and fired two shots, but no ducks came 
down. I had shot behind. Hugh had bet¬ 
ter luck. He fired one shot and killed two 
ducks. He said he was making up for the 
poor shooting he did the day before. 
We soon came to Timber Island, at the 
upper end of which was a big rapid. It 
sounded big, but it was so foggy we could 
not see much of it. Hugh was ahead, so 
he started over and soon disappeared in 
the fog. I waited till I thought he had 
time to get out of my way. Then I started. 
It was much rougher than I expected. I 
had to dodge to miss the rocks, my boat 
took water pretty fast, but it was soon 
over. I found Hugh at the bank bailing 
water out of his boat. 
About 9 A. M. we arrived at the mouth 
of Little Canyon, where we loaded our 
bedding, fishing tackle and provisions, and 
started on. The river was very shallow 
here. There were several small islands with 
shallow channels between, making it hard 
to tell which one to take. Hugh started 
down a channel near the middle of the 
river and I took one near shore. It ap¬ 
peared to be deep enough to take a boat, 
but I was soon disappointed, for the chan¬ 
nel forked in several places. The water 
was swift, making it hard to turn back, so 
I went ahead. I had to wade and drag my 
boat, which was no easy job. After a half 
hour’s hard work I got back into the main 
river again. At noon we stopped on an 
island and cooked our dinner—our first 
square meal. We were about starved. 
We passed Kellogg about 5 P. M. Dark¬ 
ness came on before 
we reached the place 
where we intended to 
camp for the night. 
But we kept going 
and after traveling 
about an hour and a 
half, we came to the 
place, landed on a 
gravel bar, unloaded 
our boats, built a fire 
out of drift wood and 
soon had supper 
ready. We went to 
bed early. Making 
beds on this trip was 
an easy job, as we 
had folding cots. 
While setting up 
my cot on the gravel 
I saw something 
splashing in the water 
just below me. It 
was a bright moon¬ 
light night. I took a 
shotgun and went stumbling as quietly as 
I could over the gravel towards it. It was 
a large otter. He came up the river within 
a few yards of our fire. I made no at¬ 
tempt to shoot it, as its -fur was not good 
at that time of year. 
The sun rose before we did the next 
morning. There were lots of otter and 
mink signs along the river. I think this 
would be a good place to hunt and trap, 
as but few people lived along the river. 
On one side was some fine looking deer 
country, and many deer tracks. We heard 
a shot a mile or so down the river. It 
sounded like a cannon, it made such a roar. 
We came to some bad rapids. From the 
shore we could see no possible way of get¬ 
ting a boat through without hitting the 
rocks, so we led our boats down along 
the bank. It was rocky and so rough that 
our boats were almost filled before we got 
them past the falls. 
T WO fellows were coming up the river 
bank with guns. They caught sight 
of us, took to the brush and we never 
saw them again. Across the river, near 
the mouth of a little creek, another fellow 
was sitting on a rock with a gun in his 
hands. We decided to have a talk with 
the fellow on the other side, if we could 
reach him. We rowed over and found 
him bolder than the other two, for he did 
not run. He had an old-style 10-gauge 
Winchester shotgun. I concluded he was 
the one who had fired the shot we had 
heard. By his shooting only once, I sur¬ 
mised that he had killed a deer. I was 
rather curious to know about it, so we 
talked about hunting deer, and I asked if 
there weren’t lots of them around and if 
this wasn’t a good place to run them in 
the river with dogs. We talked a long 
time, thinking perhaps his dogs would run 
another deer and we would see if he 
would kill it. 
I went to the mouth of the little creek 
a few yards from where he was sitting to 
get a drink. I picked up some shotgun 
wads and noticed the prints of buckshot 
on one of them. Farther on I saw blood 
spattered over the rocks, and where some¬ 
thing had been dragged up the bank into 
the brush. Deer hairs were scattered 
along. The fellow looked rather funny 
when he saw me examining the spot, but 
said nothing. I didn’t either, but we got 
into our boats and went on. I think he 
felt relieved that we asked no questions. 
S EVERAL miles below we came to some 
bad rapids, with a channel so narrow 
in places that there was hardly room 
to use the oars. We decided it was too 
rough to ride and let one boat down with 
a rope. Hugh rode his boat through. 
We arrived at Scottsburg about 4 P. M. 
the fourth day and camped on Brandy 
Bar, about 6 miles below the town. We 
could hear the salmon jumping all the time 
around us. The next morning the wind 
was blowing hard, the water was rough 
and roily—just right for good fishing. Be¬ 
fore breakfast Hugh caught one of the 
finest salmon I have ever seen. 
I will describe the tackle we used for 
salmon fishing. We had split bamboo troll¬ 
ing rods, about six and a half feet long, 
weighing about 16 ounces each. We had 
large double multiplying reels, made to 
hold 250 yards 0/ line and used 200 yards 
of number 18 cuttyhunk line and G guitar 
string for leader. Our spoons varied from 
number 1/0 to number 7. We had the 
best success with a number i/o.half gold 
spoon, lower outside gold, upper outside 
nickel-plated, the inside painted red. 
The cannery was running a boat and 
buying fish. They paid 20 cents each for 
silversides and 3 cents a pound for chinook. 
The cold storage plan 
at Gardiner paid 3 
cents a pound for all 
salmon but they did 
not run a boat. So 
at first we had to sell 
our fish to the neigh¬ 
boring cannery. 
About noon of the 
first day we began 
fishing in earnest. We 
caught a fish every 
few minutes. I soon 
hooked one that I 
thought must be a 
whale. He was very 
game and stayed deep 
in the water. It was 
almost a half an hour 
before I got him to 
the surface, and when 
he did come up I was 
sure surprised, for in¬ 
stead of being a silver 
salmon he was a 30- 
pound chinook. I finally shot him in the 
head with my .22 rifle. By night we had 
ri silversides and 4 chinooks, making 15 
for the first day. 
A man in a motorboat trolling near us 
offered to buy our fish, paying 25 cents 
apiece for silversides and 3 cents a pound 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 632) 
