Nature – Page 20

August 15, 2021August 14, 2021

More Heat and Smoke of Summer

This week we were, again, dealing with smoke from an increasing number of wildfires, as well as record high temperatures.

The week started out with an air quality level at a breathable ‘moderate’.

We headed up to the Crooked River and with a little searching found a quiet, shady spot to set up our chairs, break out cold drinks, and open the lunch boxes. Mid-day temps pushed 90º but a light breeze through the shade of ancient junipers made for a pleasant day.

Fishing wasn’t great but Tip and I covered a lot of stream to to be sure. We spent most of that time wading. The reparian is still pretty lush as the river level remains high. A few more weeks of this and the resevoir will be all but dried up and we’ll see a dramatic shift in stream levels.

The wildfire smoke settled onto us for the remainder of the week and we’ve been living with “unhealthy and hazardous” air quality conditions. Hoping for some relief next week.

July 25, 2021July 24, 2021

Relief from summer’s heat

In the high desert, even during a normal summer, the grasses have dried by mid-June. This year the forests and saged plains are tinder dry.

But on a river’s edge there is still an abundance of lush green growth.

This summer the heat of the day hits mid-morning and we’ve been fortunate to avoid most of the smoke and haze. So this week we headed to the river and the shade along its edge.

Now typically I’m focused on the insect life when wading a stream.

However, Jacqueline turned her attention, and camera, to the grasses lining the stream. It turns out there is a trove of tiny winged critters tucked into the leaves and stems.

We spotted wasps of different shapes and sizes, as well as some less lethal insects among the plants.

There were purple blossoms on nearly every stem which might have been the main attraction.

Tip didn’t seem to notice as he made numerous trips to the water from our shaded seating area.

Of course I concentrated on the bugs skipping across the water’s surface … trying to blend in and lure a fish to strike. The day’s heat is always degrees cooler along a river. Not sure how much longer the wildfire’s haze will be directed away from us, so we take advantage of any clear day.

June 27, 2021June 26, 2021

The Hatch

Our fishing adventures are not season dependent. We’re on the stream all times of the year. However, there are some aspects of fishing early summer that add to the enjoyment. Prolific bug hatches bring dry fly fishing and that is the best.

Now there are aquatic insects constantly crawling, or swimming, regardless of season, weather, or temperature.

As temperatures rise, insect activity increases. In summer the hatches are more frequent often bigger bugs and peak dry fly season is here.

Sometimes all it takes it one size smaller.

The zenith, in our area, is the Salmon Fly a large stone fly hatch on the Deschutes river. Closer to home is the “mother’s day caddis” a prolific hatch at the end of May (thus the name).

This event brings the Crooked River out of winter’s quiet crowd-less days and into a near fishing derby atmosphere. Venture up there on a weekend to find every pull-out and camp site is filled with rod vault festooned trucks. The river is littered with wader covered bodies thrashing flylines on the water.

We share the stream with osprey, though it seems they are the better fisher.

We manage to avoid most of this nonsense by hitting the stream mid-week, though there are still above average crowds. In a few weeks the Crooked’s banks will quiet down, but for most of June it’s game on.

Wading staff waits on the next move upstream.

There is clearly sport found in swinging nymphs and cold weather isn’t the limiting factor. Fish are always feeding and fisherman find success in sub-surface presentations. The biggest catches are typically taken on nymphs or streamers drifted through feeding lanes.

Tip has become a “river dog.” He is quite adept at reading the water and finding just the right spot to wade in for a drink.

That said, there is nothing that compares to fishing over a hatch. Floating an imitation along the top of the water, waiting on a flash of silver, the reaction to hook set, and the rod bending to the fight. It’s just more exciting to take fish on a dry fly. Thus we are here, sharing the river with too many hatch seekers and shrieking with joy even at the strikes we miss.

June 20, 2021June 17, 2021

A Car Trip to Wilderness

A lone tree marks the trailhead into the Spring Basin Wilderness. Numerous side canyons provide opportunities for solitude. On this particular day we had the place to ourselves.

This week’s adventure focused on the Spring Basin Wilderness Study Area and our continued search for desert blooms. Cacti generally, more specifically Hedgehog Cactus, hopefully in bloom. Oregon’s high desert doesn’t support cactus like the southwest desert, however, there are prickly pear and hedgehog cacti and Spring Basin is known to have both.

The adventure starts with a drive north out of Madras and in a few miles we turn east toward Fossil. The route winds through high desert pine forests presenting an abundance of spring blossoms right along the highway. Spring Basin’s trailhead is reached by gravel road off Shaniko-Fossil Hwy just after you cross the John Day River.

A weathered sign board in a dusty parking area with a single flat metal post designates the trailhead. There is only a bit of shade offered by a single pine tree. A gentle incline, covered in sage and native grasses, sits below basalt cliffs marking the wilderness areas outer edges. The cacti we’re looking for may be scattered along this hillside and we assume, after the trail crests the cliff, though we’ve not hiked that far up.

JQ hoped to get a shot of a hedghog cactus in bloom, a rare find, but was just as pleased to discover a prickly pear cactus blossom.

After Spring Basin we continue the drive east to Fossil, then turn south eventually crossing back over the John Day River and connecting with Twickenham Road. At this junction we are on the eastern edge of Sutton Mountain Wilderness study area.

Sutton Mountain’s West border runs up against the Painted Hills Unit. That side of the wilderness study area looks somewhat innocuous, just a series of sage and grass covered hills that aren’t all that mountainous.

We’ve driven the gravel road from Painted Hills to the John Day River and Burnt River Ranch. The journey on this side of Sutton Mountain offers a totally different geology.

Emerald-green lichen covers the rock walls of Girds Creek Canyon

A gravel road cuts through a canyon lined with amazing cliffs of basalt. It then drops into the John Day river valley where the deep green of irrigated fields contrasts with hillsides colored in shades of brown.

A narrow single track gravel road hugs the boundary’s now more mountain-like slopes twisting around ridges and into ravines. Eventually it flattens back out onto grazing land and connects with the Burnt Ranch Road.

Here we turn south, pass the Painted Hills unit onto Highway 26 and home.

June 13, 2021June 13, 2021

Rock Hounds

Many years ago we took a weeklong camping trip to explore rockhounding sites in Oregon. This trip involved lots of dirt roads, a few flat tires and hours of digging holes in the ground.

It also turned us into full on rockhounds. Which means we’re not just picking up the occasional colored stone, we do that too … however, we also drive down remote dirt tracks specifically just to pick up rocks.

Oregon has an abundance of unique rocky sites many of which are just hours from our front door. This week’s adventure was a scouting trip of sorts to checkout some sites with Limb Casts, Petrified Wood, and Agates. BLM’s “Central Oregon Rockhounding Map” and Rockhounding Oregon by Lars Johnson are our guides through this mostly gravel and dirt road journey.

First stop is Fischer Canyon, a few miles south of our frequented Crooked River. You’re supposed to be able to find calcite, agate, quartz, jasper and petrified wood, with calcite being the most common. We found the place and a few small pieces of calcite like rock. Did not do a lot of heavy digging as this was only the first stop.

Next we headed to Bear Creek and here you are able to find petrified wood. It’s interesting to note that the rockhounding book often warns of road conditions with passages like “Road is impassable when wet. Don’t even try.” Often these roads are little more than a couple of ruts in the desert sand. JQ did locate a nice piece of petrfied wood in our short wander around Bear Creek … right next to the spot where we parked the car.

The final destination was Hampton Butte with limb casts of Jasper and Agate, as well as petrified wood. This is also a more productive site with lots of active “digs”. Here we broke out the shovel and managed to scrape up some small greenish rocks that we hope are Jasper. They will eventually make it into the tumbler and either polish or disolve. Hampton Butte’s road was much better than the guide book lead us to believe and there are plenty of shaded parking sites. Though on this day there were also a couple of RV rigs already set up.

There are more rock hunting adventures planned. We have only just begun to explore all the sites on BLM’s map. Plus, I acquired a gold pan for my birthday and there are some Umqua and Mckenzie River sites with promise of fine gold. As always we’ll keep you updated on our journeys.