Being on the water everyday one season just rolls into the next and while for the most part I'm on the same river year around the way we fish it changes.
Our mornings are starting at daylight in beginners hole, casting into the same drift alongside the same people who've been fishing the same area for years. There's anglers such as Big Paul, who until this year has floated the river in his black Fishrite with the pink pinstripe, a boat that originally belonged to Guide and Fishrite rep Rick Johnson, I still remember the day in early spring of 1992 when that boat rolled of the truck at Mahaffeys bait n tackle. Last year Big Paul sold that boat again and is this year riding front seat with his fishing buddy Arlin. In mid June every year I start looking for Neil and his wife Wong who fish from the bank in the rainbow park area, they to are here fishing summer run steelhead, today was their first day back and for the next 6 week they will be part of my daily life as we fish together with in the same area where they walk the beach. Wong reminisces often and tells the story of the 31 pound steelhead she caught on the Quinault River, it was February and just the day before she had landed a 22 pounder.
Today I fished with Merle and his son Roman, it was a slow day, Merle managed a beautiful chrome steelhead to the net that took a coonshrimp under a float. Through out our day we had a few more opportunities that were missed. This year marks 30 years of rowing the Kalama, while in hindsight it seems like forever ago, it still seems like yesterday when Rick Johnsons Black Fishrite driftboat with the pink pinstripe was parked in the parking lot of Mahaffeys store and I thinking who would row such a boat, then when hearing it belonged to the Guide Rick Johnson, pink pinstripes all the sudden became cool!
