I went camping for a few days, had to do it, I needed the vacation. But this was more than a vacation for me, I had a chance to do something I haven't done in 25 maybe 30 years before life started to take over, not that life is bad, I was just reminded that I have to take time for the important things like fishing with my old man.
You see I grew up in desert, in Las Vegas to be exact and was born on the Arizona, Kali and Mexican border on this side of course in Yuma. Growing up my weekends were spent either on the lake, out in the desert hunting, out camping on the race track or around the house cutting wood and doing yard work or working on my '65 El Camino or my '57 Chevy. The important thing about these events is that they always included my dad. Once we took a week long kayak trip
Lake Mead bringing only meager supplies and lots of beer. It was 9 years till I would be old enough to drink, but I discovered how good a Budweiser could be good for breakfast and we stayed up all night catching catfish cooking strips of steak and beans over an open fire. Some weekends we would load up the car and or truck and the we would go spend the weekend at
Willow Beach on the AZ side of the Colorado river.
So for the first time in years we embarked on a journey to catch some catfish on the
John Day River since neither one of us had tried to catch any catfish in Oregon. Living in the Willamette Valley I have grown accustomed to catching trout, salmon and stealhead for the last 20 years and forgot how much fun it can be. You can only fish for those fish during the day, you have to have a special stamp and it's a lot of work and can get expensive real quick. You gotta get up early in the morning at the but crack of dawn and fight for your place on the bank in what we call commando fishing or fight your way in your boat to find a spot in checker board of boats on the river. Don't get me wrong, it's fun and exciting and real blast, but staying up all night with some beer, a good vaporizer and a
good book (click the link, I can't put this book down) when the old man finally falls asleep. You know you got one on the line when the fish pulls the rod from out of you lap.
Our adventure started off by driving over
Mt. Hood, with this great view out of the pick up truck window in the way up.
Then we got to the spot called LePage park, luckily pops had his senior pass so the campground only ran us $15 for the 3 nights!!! This is a view from the docks...
Here is a view from the campground...
After fishing got a little slow we decided that the next day we would fish off of the John Day Dam, which is a great place to get snagged...
So we took off for greener pastures...
And found this 7 miles down stream and the old man was the first to catch a good sized channel cat. Great view though!!!
What the pics can't do is allow you to hear all of the bull frogs going crazy or that along with bull frogs come bugs!!! Lots of bugs!!!!
Even with the windmills in the view, I tried not put a downer on trip while I lamented about all of the extra tax dollars and subsidies that these windmills suck up...
Played with some of the setting of my HTC ONE camera...
Then we got a great view of Mt. Hood on the way back...
On the way back we stopped off at The Dalles Museum which has an excellent Lewis and Clark exhibit and I found this, read the description and then click then scroll down to see the pic. As good as that would have worked, you may as well shove it up your ass....
Then we headed back over the mountain.
Didn't take any pictures of the fish since it was dark and then we ate them and let me tell you that catfish and bacon grease is an excellent combination!!! Looks like we have an annual trip on our hands, so who is coming with next year???
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