Wrapping with the Jedis

I sat down the other day at the vice with the goal of twisting up some steelhead muddlers.

Lets just say the first ones off the production line probably wont see the light of day.   You can stare at pictures online all day in the effort to get better results,  but advancing from "ugh" to "hells yes" seems to always come from super subtle hints from the jedi wrappers that I call my friends

I have to imagine these guys, and you know who you are, were at one time in the same situation I was and they had someone help them out and now they're passing the info down the line.    That's what I love about the nature of our sport and craft.  Learn and then teach.  It's the only way.

With regard to these steelhead muddlers, the difference was made in a few subtle but very key tips.  The type of hair is critical.  What I was trimming the deer hair was all wrong.  The number of clumps of hair made all the difference.  (think less than 2).  These small hints jumped my bugs from the oh hell no category into yep, I am going to fish that with confidence land.

And without confidence in the bug, you're never going to catch a thing.

So thank you my Jedi wrapping friends out there.  Thanks so much for the tips and I hope to pass the knowledge down the line in good time.

Latah Creek...

I drive across this little stream every day on my way to work.  It hides a past of extreme productivity and now bears the burden of dams and agriculture.

Latah Creek, likely named from the Nez Perce word for "fish" was once a very important natal stream for salmon and steelhead reproduction.

It's other name, Hangman Creek also denotes a past of violence as in 1854 a band of Palouse Indians were hung along the banks of the creek.  Growing up in Spokane, that's the name everyone knew it by and only recently did the official name revert to it's more PC name.

Still, I look at this little ditch with a tinge of sadness.  The Upper Columbia system was built for salmon and steelhead. 

Livingston Stone, the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, wrote in his 1885 annual report about his observations of the Spokane River fishery in 1883:

“The Spokane always has been famous as a salmon River … Indians from all quarters assemble in the fall on this river and at the mouth of the Little Spokane to get their winter’s stock of salmon.”

This little creek that I drive over now takes an onslaught of silt from the wheat fields and agricultural lands to the south where it's headwaters originate.  Huge sandbanks, and I mean HUGE sit at the termination point with the Spokane River.  Its absolute quicksand and blows out the Spokane River for miles on a hard spring rain or in runoff. 

It's easy to think about how fish jammed up the big brawling Columbia River, then into the Spokane River and finally into this little creek.  The creek was the sanctuary they needed to reproduce, along with the Little Spokane and various other streams in the system.

Now, it's a ditch with zero salmon, steelhead and very few trout.  It runs super hot in the summer and stays a variable color of brown year round. 

As we work to restore this creek and others like it, my motivation to help comes from the thought of what was.  Our efforts to get it back to what was may never fully happen but its always better than what is, right now

There are hundreds if not thousands of these little creeks across this country.  What are you doing to see they stay healthy and or are recovering to their former glory?