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Wine, food and fly-fishing

Fishing and hunting

There was a time when I could not walk or drive past a stretch of river (or creek) without wondering if there were trout to be caught there and wishing I had a fly-rod in my hand to find out. When the opportunity presented itself, I could spend all day, every available day, casting to real and imagined fish, embracing my obsession with “trouty-looking” waters, forgoing food, drink and other diversions so I could keep on fishing.

Today, that youthful monomania has evolved into an appreciation for a more eclectic approach to a fishing adventure – a meander that includes the excitement of planning a trip, enjoying the drive, the beauty of the area, and stopping to enjoy good food and wine along the way with my best friend and spouse, Dottie.

Dottie enjoys fly-fishing in small doses and loves catching trout (which she prefers to eat rather than release), and over the years, I've learned that if I want her company on my fishing adventures, I must enrich them with other pleasures, including a decent place to stay (with indoor plumbing), fine food, good wine, and preferably some little shops nearby, in which she can spend time while I'm still fishing.

Oh, and one more thing – we travel with our blonde Lab, Annie, so our destinations must be pet friendly.

It is in this context that Dottie, Annie and I just completed an eight-day meander into Oregon that included a night in Ashland to see a play, stops to taste wine at various wineries in the Umpqua Valley, and a delightful stay at the Riverplace Hotel in Portland to visit with our son and daughter-in-law, Ryan and Rachel Lynch, and old friends Priscilla and Jim Maugham.

The Riverplace Hotel is right on the Willamette River. I wondered if there were any trout there, but my fly-rod stayed in the room while we enjoyed our visits in Portland, which has become our favorite West Coast city. We took Annie for long walks along the city's incredible riverside park, shared by many Portlanders and huge flocks of Canada geese. If you are planning a trip to Portland, we highly recommend the Riverplace and two excellent nearby restaurants – Veritable Quandary and East India Company Bar and Grill. The Riverplace is very dog friendly and provides special hotel dog dishes and dog sitting services.

The next stage of our meander was north and east to the scenic Columbia River Gorge, which has sort of a Yosemite type of grandeur, and through which the mighty Columbia drains virtually the entire Pacific Northwest, including seven states and one Canadian province. In places it looks as wild as it probably did when Lewis and Clark passed through in 1805.

We took scenic byways and stopped to enjoy several beautiful waterfalls dropping hundreds of feet over wooded and fern-lined cliffs. We also visited a fish hatchery where tens of thousands of salmon fry are being raised for later release into what was once a seemingly limitless wild salmon river. Today, anglers still fish for salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and its tributaries, but truly wild fish are precious and aggressively protected.

We spent a couple of nights at the historic Columbia Gorge Hotel near the town of Hood River, and fished for steelhead on the Klickitat River, which empties into the Columbia from the Washington state side.

I'll write more about Hood River and the fishing next week.

Locally, the striped bass fishing in San Pablo Bay and San Francisco Bay has been outstanding this week. Keith Fraser, at Loch Lomond Bait Shop, said the best action has been from drifting shiners to trolling along the Marin shoreline. Stronger tides come into play this weekend, and the best fishing will be from anchored boats using live shrimp and bullheads.

The tides are also good for sturgeon, but this may be a little early for them.  There are a few halibut and salmon also being caught in the usual bay spots. Call Keith at 415-456-0321 to book a bay party boat trip.

Stripers are also biting in the Napa River and in the Petaluma River at Port Sonoma.

Lingcod and rocked fishing off the Sonoma coast is outstanding and Capt. Rick Powers, of Bodega Bay Sportfishing, is consistently finding full limits for his clients. Dungeness crab season opens Nov. 5 and Rick will be hosting crab and rockfish combo trips for $100 an angler. Call him at 875-3344.

Bass fishing at Clear Lake, Berryessa and Lake Sonoma slowed this week, but the Fish and Game Department planted trout in Santa Rosa’s Lake Ralphine this week and will add another load next week. This is a good place to take kids and grandkids trout fishing close to Sonoma.

Fly-fishing on the upper Sacramento River and the McCloud River is good, said Bob Grace, at the Ted Fay Fly Shop in Dunsmuir. Great water conditions and a big caddis hatch are making things interesting.