I grew up in a household with four brothers and a father who loved fishing (primarily fly fishing in the rivers throughout Oregon and Washington). My sisters and I were not usually included on those angling trips, but we practiced casting along with the boys from the top of our backyard hill, and we contributed occasional bits of yarn from our craft projects to the boys’ fly-tying endeavors. My father-in-law was in no way an outdoorsman (I think he had his fill of living in the rough during his World War II days in the OSS, tramping through the mountains of Greece and Yugoslavia wreaking havoc on the German army.), so my husband and his brother never hunted, fished or camped, although opportunities here in the Northwest for many are practically right out their back doors.

Harry has always wanted to get out there and land some impressive salmon, and now that he’s retired, he’s got the time to pursue that dream. Last spring and fall he was skunked on two excursions on Southern Oregon’s Rogue River, just a few miles from our home, so he was feeling a bit discouraged about the whole fishing thing. Last week,  an outing with my brother Jim and guide Lee Freeman on the Willamette River made up for last year’s disappointment, big time.

Lee provided all of the gear and his boat, and the three launched about 6 a.m., pretty much right in downtown Portland. By 2 p.m. Harry had landed two beautiful spring Chinook salmon, each weighing between 8 and 10 pounds, and had to return this estimated 25-pound monster because it had an improperly clipped adipose fin (wild salmon must be released, and this one wasn’t clearly marked as a hatchery-raised fish). 

I’m pretty sure there are very few major metropolitan areas in the United States — or the world — where one can catch such trophies within sight of downtown skyscrapers. Certainly there was a time when, if one could have found such a fish in the Willamette, the river was too polluted to have made it safe to eat it. Thankfully, in the late ’60s, Oregon’s then-governor Tom McCall called for sweeping efforts to stop industries and municipalities from using the river as a sewer, and the restored river today is a jewel for all manner of recreational activities in and on its waters.

We’ve already enjoyed one meal of Harry’s delectable catch, and we’re looking forward to sharing more of it in the next few months with friends and family. He just might get hooked on this fishing business, after all!

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor