Fish Hack at the Fish Wrap: Southern Oregon Outdoor Blog

e back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is back in the Fish Wrap to relax and recoupe from a Sunday full of justifiable herbicide.

Didn’t turn any Rogue River chinook eyes into X’s. But put the ass-wup to the testosterone-suckers in front of the Fish Shack — rose bushes..

Hack whacked his roses/Adding a Y chromosome/To Hack’s Fishing Shack.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever else comes to mind.

Like roses.

There are the many non-sequiturs that make up Fish Hack’s existence, and fewer have less curb-side appeal than the many fancy rose bushes that line the lot.

Unlike grass, you can’t just kill them by ignoring them. They grow to 8 feet and bulge onto the sidewalk in truly unneighborly fashion.

So Hack’s neighbor mentions the out-of-control rosebushes Saturday.

Blame the deed and not the breed, bro.

When roses attack:/How one flowery bush kills/Tranquil neighborhood.

But then it turns out one attacked his 2-year-old grandson, so it was time to put the hurt to the offending bush.

Four hours later and with much help from Tax Deduction No. 1, the rose carcass filled a borrowed trailer, with only the faint dripping of petals from the trailer door offering any hint of the herbal carnage that took place.

Now the neighbor kid can run blood-free down the street and the Fish Shack looks much more manly despite no chinook carcasses stinking up the garbage.

Gotta whack a ’nook/So the Fish Shack smells like Dude/And not fresh ester.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is poised to get the stink out of the boat by catching his first Rogue River spring Chinook salmon of the season.

First springer of year./Easier to say than catch./Wednesday is the day.

For you lingering Haiku Monday virgins out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever with some bad versions of old Japanese poetry sprinkled in.

It’s the schtick that keeps on schticking.

Gotta have a schtick./To stand out in blogosphere./Even if it sucks.

Fish Hack normally doesn’t start springer fishing until mid-May, but gave it a short run Wednesday with no luck.

The Wednesday Springer Club reconvenes this week, and conditions are looking much better than a week ago.

Flows out of Lost Creek Lake jumped to 2,650 cfs today. That little bump will stabilize Tuesday and likely start some movement, and that bodes well for Fish Hack.

Remember, dudes, you’re trying to catch hatchery springers because those are the only ones whose eyes can get turned into X’s this month. That means fishing over moving fish instead of holding fish.

Migration lanes, not holes.

Six feet of water, on the inside turns of gravel bars. Kwikfish or roe, whatever.

Whack a springer,/Go to Fish Wrap smiling./Can’t ruin that day.

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is faking it through what passes as a Fish Wrap work day after spending the morning trying to catch that first upper Rogue River spring chinook salmon of the year.

Unfortunately, the skunk is still in the boat.

Saw one springer roll, no bites. And that, my friends, bites.

Bites. Mouth-breathers. Porn.

Getting that first springer of the year is always a thrill, plus it gets the barbecue and smoker rolling. Tastiest fish in Oregon, no matter what you mouth-breathers on the Columbia think.

Fish Hack fishing buds Jess and Nate Barnard came along during this season’s first of many Wednesday Springer Sessions, when we’ll go try to turn the eyes into X’s of a couple chinook before heading off to do what we very loosely call work.

Glad it’s not Thursdays because the Naked Rain Dance outlined in Haiku Monday apparently worked too well.

This weeks post-dance storms have upped the in-flow to Lost Creek Lake. So the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bumped the out-flows Wednesday afternoon from the lake by 300 cfs, thereby putting off whatever bite there is in the upper Rogue for a day or two.

Hopefully, we’ll see a drop in flows for the next session so what bites next week is the chinook.

Hope for some fresh fish porn for next week’s Three-Word Thursday..

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack says it’s time to get serious about finding a way to put more water in the Rogue River, Hack’s home waters, to jump-start the spring Chinook run.

River is too low and clear for good Chinook movement, even though the lower Rogue is awash in springers right now.

Get them on the move/Need Hack’s naked rain dance now/To get ‘nooks swimming.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever the hell comes to mind. It’s Hack’s schtick, and he’s schticking with it.

So now it’s time to bare with me so you can get bare with me.

The serious lack of rain has the Rogue at fall levels, and that’s hurt early springer fishing.

Flows out of Lost Creek Lake increased 100 cfs today, but it’s still under 2,000 cfs out of the hole.

The big problem, however, is tributary flows. Streams like Evans Creek are one-third the volume they were this week last year.

These trib flows are very rain-dependent, so it’s time for the naked rain dance to get things going.

Naked rain dances:/Sure, they probably don’t work./But good nude excuse.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is heading into Day 3 of Oregon’s traditional trout-fishing season the same way he started.

At home.

Hack doesn’t fish Opening Day for much the same reason seasoned drunks stay home New Year’s Eve.

You gotta leave one day to the amateurs.

Trout opener rule./Hack stays home, cuts lawn, trims trees./Only time this year.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins still out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever the hell comes to mind, with some bad forms of Japanese poetry sprinkled in the schtick that keeps you lemmings coming back.

Bad schtick’s still a schtick./Need one to hang your shingle/In funky blog world.

Hyatt and Howard Prairie both had fab openers, with no ice and good water temperatures helping Da Boys turn a lot of trout eyes into X’s over the weekend. Diamond weighed in with ice-free mania as well, so those who went to the water found their rainbows.

Should continue for the next two weeks, minimum. With 90-degree weather forecast for Medford this Saturday, look for Da Boys to be taking refuge again in their mountainous haunts.

Hot temps? Cascades call./Mountain lakes cool, no skeeters./May trout days rock.

Saturday marks the start of the trout-fishing season in Oregon, but only suckers will wait that long.

The ice has melted from Diamond Lake, where you can launch a boat today onto the Pacific Northwest’s best trout lake and get your mess of rainbows while the rest of Southern Oregon waits for Hyatt or Howard Prairie to open.

Suckers. Bulimic. Fantastic.

Since its 2006 poisoning to rid it of tui chubs, Diamond Lake has been such a top-drawer fishery that the limit is eight a day. Catches have been high enough not only to up the limit but change it to year-round fishing.
Ice fishing was hot there until the first part of April, when the ice got so soft  not even the bulimic could venture out there.

The ice this week melted, and we’re back in business.

The North Ramp is open and the PowerBait is served.

Right after ice-out, the trout bite can be fantastic. Especially two days before the rest of the world casts.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is lying in wait for the start of the spring Chinook season on the upper Rogue River, Hack’s home waters.

Can’t wait to get pissed off at springers.

Spring Chinook don’t bite./Drive Hack nuts in search of them./Only get wild ones.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever, with some bad versions of old Japanese poetry sprinkled in.

It’s the schtick, Baby!

Gotta have a schtick/To rise above cyber-crap./Hack’s crap bests the field.

The thing about springer fishing on the Rogue is, well, they drive everybody crazy.

They are the best-eating fish in Oregon freshwater, but they are so frustrating to catch because they are such finicky biters.

And most of the upper Rogue is open only to keeping hatchery Chinook, which can be problematic. Last year, Hack released 12 wild Chinook that totaled more than 200 pounds of potential fillets.

Note the word…potential.

Find hatchery ‘nooks?/Hack can’t find the fin-clipped dudes./Drive a dude batty.

Best way to catch hatchery fish is to work migration lanes, not holding holes. Kwikfish over bait, too.

Inside turns on gravel bars and staying away from water deeper than 8 feet.

Catch ‘em and kill ‘em./Got to catch hatchery ‘nooks/Or just get pissed off.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is putting away the flip-flops for the time being and breaking out the boat boots until this little piece of February disappears from April.

Damn cold. And more snow on the mountains today then any of the first 60 days of the year.

Flip-flops trumped by snow./Hack waits for April to show./Time to fish springers.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins still out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever the hell else comes to mind, with a  few forms of bad Japanese poetry sprinkled in as the schtick.

Gotta have a schtick/To stand out in blog-a-sphere./This is all Hack’s got.

So April has finally brought some decent water conditions in the Rogue River, which is Hack’s home waters. And the drop in flows this week should trigger some migration of spring Chinook, this-here river’s signature salmon. They’re big, tough to catch and fab to eat, meaning they can be a damn frustrating fish to pursue.

The stakes are so high/When fishing for spring Chinook./Drives anglers batty.

Hack has opined before that nothing turns more Oregonians into a-holes than Chinook and elk. Top targets of our woods and waters.

Hack will be fishing the upper Rogue regularly as soon as 100 Chinook enter Cole Rivers Hatchery. As of last week, the count was zero.

Buck says 30 in the trap by Friday.

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack isn’t going to tell you where to find spring chinook salmon on the Rogue River, Hack’s home waters.

But Hack is more than ready to tell you where they ain’t.

Aint.Springers. Hatchery.

They ain’t in Cole Rivers Hatchery, which has yet to capture it’s first springer of the season despite Shady Cove angler Mark Randolph catching the river’s first springer March 7 not 100 yards from the hatchery fish trap.

Perhaps the only guy not surprised is Dave Pease, the hatchery’s manager.

Pease says the Hatchery Hole right in front of the trap typically teems with fresh springers in April before any actually nose their way to their destiny  either in the hatchery as future brood stock or slung over the shoulder of a happy fishermen.

“We’ll see salmon walk out of here a good two or three weeks before we get one in the trap,” he says.

Over the past decade, the earliest springer to show up in the hatchery’s trap was on March 30 in 2010, Pease says. The latest was June 3 in 2008.

Last year’s first spring chinook in the trap was on May 9, and it was April 19 in 2011, Pease says.

So let hatchery fish counts determine when you hit the Rogue for springers.

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is rockin’ March Madness bets and chasin’ lobos while that great babysitting service known as the Medford School District begs out and lets the Tax Deductions run wild for two weeks.

All in all, it’s gonna be a damn-good day.

Damn-Good. Imminent. A-Huntin’.

Fish Hack’s second job at the Fish Wrap is taking cash from the pockets of his fellow wrappers, and this-here NCAA tourney is a top take.

The game is simple: Eight playas draft eight teams from the field of 64. Add up the wins, and top three cash.

With Kansas, Marquette and Syracuse still on Hack’s big-board, payoff is imminent

But first, Fish Hack has to go a-huntin’.

Yours truly and Fish Wrap shooter d’ excellance Jamie Lusch are out today searching for OR-7, that wandering wolf that famously has returned to Jackson County.

Fish Wrap readers can’t get enough of OR-7′s wandering search for a mate. So we’re going looking for him…not with flowers and chocolates but a desire to get a rare photo — and perhaps some video — of him.

Missed the latest on OR-7? Check it out HERE..

Stay tuned to the cyber and paper versions of the Fish Wrap to learn what it’s like to be on the trail of the first confirmed wolf in Western Oregon since 1937.