The Sandy River and I

So I have lived close to the Sandy River for the better part of my life. Many, many times throughout my years I have fished various locations and the only thing I have ever been able to hook was an old boot. Yes it sounds cheesy but that’s the only thing I have ever caught in that river. Now I have never been excellent fishermen, and I probably don’t even rate as mediocre, but I like to go fishing because it’s relaxing, and catching fish is a thrill (at least I think so from watching it on TV). Well I had to retire from fishing once I entered the military a few years back but decided to pick things back up once I returned. It started out just by going to all of the old places I knew I could catch at least some stocker fish. So off to Roslyn lake, Benson lake, and a few others all of which I returned empty handed. Well as time went on and I kept at it, I made some changes and finally started to land some fish.

During this time I have still been making infrequent trips to the Sandy with no luck of finding anything but trash along the banks, so I decided to do some research and find out where people go. Every time I looked up fishing on the Sandy River, everyone would talk about the hatchery at Cedar Creek. So with great interest sparked, my fishing partner and I made the trip this morning.

Upon reaching the parking lot of the hatchery and wondering where we go from there, we saw a lone fishermen in the distance walking to his car. As he approached I rolled down the window and he said it was a waste of a walk because there’s nothing but chocolate milk down there. Well being the inexperienced fishermen that we are, we didn’t have an idea of what that meant. We assumed it meant the water was a little messed up but since we had never been there and are desperately trying to find a decent spot to fish we decided to give it a shot anyway.

So off we went. It started out as an nice walk, next to the cow pastures and then into the woods. But then we came upon a giant cliff. Now when reading about Cedar Creek many people mention that it’s a nice hike to the water, and even one or two mention that incline can be a little much, but in no posts did it ever mention that I would be holding on to tree roots for dear life. And just to make things worse if you haven’t noticed the weather lately we were getting dumped on pretty good, which didn’t make the trek any easier. Well after much root swinging and tree grabbing and clawing at anything poking out of the dirt for some grip we made it to the bottom. After that trek I kind of felt like Sylvester Stone in Cliff Hanger, but we made it and felt good about it.

Another few minutes later we made it to the water, and it was a beast. That fishermen earlier was right, this place was a genuine chocolate factory.

( I guess this is what Chocolate Milk looks like)

So we walked around and found some water where we thought would be a good spot, and we just started to practice casing a bit since we were already there. After a few minutes went by and the rain filled my boots with water, we decided that we had found a fishing spot to return to and started out trip back.

We spent the next hour and a half of us trying to navigate our way back up the treacherous cliff. We might have been defeated once again, but we are still determined to catch something sooner or later (even if I have to buy the damn fish myself at Wal-Mart and throw in the water and pretend)…