Fishing thankful

I’ve told some people that my father, Robert Couch, started taking my older brother and I fishing at such a young age, that I can not remember the first time I went fishing. To me it seems like I have always had a great love for going fishing and sharing trips with other people. Realistically, I suspect that love for going outdoors, exploring new spots, attempting to catch fish, and sharing that experience is simply a value or lesson I learned from my dad and my brother. That lesson on an enjoyable pastime was learned and relearned over and over again in a wide variety of settings and opportunities.

I remember going trout fishing on opening day of the trout season, both in locations where everybody fished, and also in a downtown park where only young kids were allowed to fish. I would not have taken any of those trips at a young age on my own. By about 8 years of age, and sometimes with Mark, my 9 year-old brother, I or we had graduated to riding bicycles a mile or more to Yellow Hawk Creek in search of trout. By then, dad had introduced us to fly fishing, taken us to visit one of his friends who taught us how to tie flies, and had us out in the lawn after dark, in pursuit of large nightcrawler earthworms. For a long time I thought nothing worked better as bait than a nightcrawler or, “Garden Hackle,” as they are affectionately nick-named by not-so-purist fly fishermen.

I spent a considerable amount of my learning-to-read years studying each season’s new fishing regulation booklet, Herter’s and Cabelea’s outdoor gear catalogs, and fishing or hunting magazines like Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, and Sports Afield. By reading the fishing regulation booklet I learned that while the trout fishing season closed at some point in the late fall, I could continue fishing for steelhead in the same nearby creek during winter and early spring months. While not allowed to keep trout down to 6 inches during winter months, regulations allowed me to keep 10-inch trout during the steelhead season.

I never did catch a steelhead, or even a particularly large trout, during those winter months, while primality fishing on my own. My brother did not often go during winter months, as the fishing was too slow for him. I can remember hooking one particularly large fish ( perhaps even over the 20-inch length qualifying as a steelhead). I cranked and cranked on my closed face spincasting reel, but the reel made a frantic screeching noise, and I could not get the fish to the bank. That evening, after my dad got home from work, I asked him if he thought I had broken the reel. He asked what had happened, then explained that the fish must have been large enough to pull line off the reel — even while I was reeling in. That was my first lesson about a reel having a drag, that allowed a larger fish to run and take line off the reel, without breaking the line.

I remember a powerboat owner, friend of Dad’s, inviting him to go steelheading with him below one of the large dams on the Snake River. Dad asked if he could bring his two older (perhaps 9 & 10 years old) sons along. I can not remember what month we fished, but I know we got up in the dark, and it was cold on the water the entire time we fished. That particular trip there was a lot of fishing before anyone got a bite. Mark got the first two or three hookups, but it was about all he could do to hold onto the rod as the large fish made powerful runs in the large river before coming unhooked. Near the end of the trip Dad hooked, fought and boated the largest fish I had ever seen, a colorful Snake River steelhead. We took it home, and Wow! did it taste good.

We were living in Eastern Washington at that time, and my Dad would make a salmon fishing trip over to the coast near the Columbia River bar once or twice a year. He brought home some beautiful ocean-bright coho salmon, and I thought eating them was as good or better than any family holiday feast of turkey or ham. It was such an enjoyable experience, I remember thinking how wonderful it would be if we could eat salmon everyday!

During the summer of 1971 my Dad was offered a job in Alaska, and we drove up the Alcan Highway, arriving in the new state on my 10th birthday. The fishing adventures would get bigger and better. It took a few years for our family to learn where, when, and how to efficiently catch salmon in streams and rivers of the Kenai Peninsula and Mat-Su Valley. Once we learned from the school of hard knocks, we started harvesting enough salmon that our entire family decided, perhaps we really did not want to eat salmon everyday. Don’t get me wrong, I still love eating salmon, but it is also wonderful to enjoy a more varied diet. Still I am especially thankful for the abundance of salmon our family members have to enjoy — even during a much lower abundance year than normal for king and coho salmon returning to the Mat-Su Valley. While not on Thanksgiving Day, my wife and I plan to be grilling and enjoying salmon in the week ahead.

Thank You for these wonderful and tasty fish that have sustained Alaskans for generations. Thank you for friends and relatives who have taught us how to fish, care for, and enjoy salmon! Thank you to all involved in conserving and maintaining this renewable and shared resource!