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Iner, I think I found some fish (whisper). A few springs ago, I helped an old guy who ran out of weights so he gave me his best November spot in eastern Oregon.  I caught 4 steelhead and lost one.  On the way home, I found more coho under a rainbow sky.

A half-blind Korean War vet, Ross, took me trolling on the Willamette Channel to catch my first salmon there.  He was a platoon leader, and I later found out one of two men in his platoon to survive combat.  Ross never mentioned war, that he had been in combat most of the time, fighting at…

An October rainbow road means good luck fishin’, and it was. The missing piece of my boot appears in the next photo. Silvers left in the river eventually turn to colors of leaves. I keep trying to get to the Portland, Oregon, Airport, but the fish say no.  The rivers on the way are too…

3 Clackamas steelies I caught in 1979. A coastal fall chinook I caught yesterday. Where did I leave that hat? Living vs Existing Too dark to keep but pretty fall colors. Speaking of the Clackamas River, here are three I caught in 1979 before the crowds.  Suz netted my fall chinook yesterday.  The only thing…

My Winter Steelhead Ritual above Carver Boat Launch donated to White Wolf Sanctuary in Tidewater, OR. Seeing Rivers of a Lost Coast made me reflect on my home river, the Clackamas, named after an Indian tribe in Oregon which researchers note had been in the area about 10,000 years.  It had memorable fishers, memorable fish,…

Rivers of a Lost Coast Trailer I watched Rivers of a Lost Coast tonight.  It was about the legendary salmon and steelhead runs in northern California, and rare men who sacrificed “the narcotic of civilzation” to be with them right to the bitter end, even, in the case of Bill Schaadt, giving one’s entire daily…

Here is a big guy I caught on an Oregon coastal river.  When I was a kid fishing in the same spot, a giant one, maybe 60 or 70 pounds, knocked me on my butt as I guided him to shore, then charged with his hooked toothy jaw, swerving at the last instant as his…

I had a good 6 mile walk along the sea today remembering my Starfisher days in Oregon.  Very soon, I will be back there eight months a year, and here in San Diego four months a year.  Last week I was delighted to join writers Peggy Shumaker and David Romtvedt at Clerestory: Poems of the…

On my daily walks along the sea in San Diego, young ones sport neon-bright tattoos and hair streaks like they crashed into a giant snow cone stand that morphed into beautiful art such as eagles, roses, haiku, etc.  I want to ask, “Yeah, but why not put all those colors on your soul too, instead…

Thanks to Larry Kerschner, editor of Pacific Call, and Ellen Finkelstein, organizer for the Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation (WWFOR),  for publishing my “Five Seabeck Poems” I wrote July 3 through July 6 as a Friends of William Stafford Scholar at the “Speak Truth to Power” Fellowship of Reconciliation Seabeck Conference on Hood Canal in…