Fishing, Catching, and Golfing

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

At 5:30 this morning the people next to Fred and Wilma started up their diesel truck to head out for fishing, so the sleeping was over. We slowly got up and around and headed out to the river. It was a beautiful morning! No morning fog, almost clear skies, and fairly warm.

By the time Fred had his gear put together, Betty and Barney had arrived with the fresh bait. So off they went. There were already quite a number of people out there, but they just find a spot at the end of the line.

Betty and Wilma stayed at the rolling caves and read. Several people were soon coming back in, and said the weather was too good today, and fishing wasn’t that great. One of them told Wilma that a couple of guys out on the end were using bait instead of spinners and seemed to be doing okay. About mid morning Wilma and Betty went on out to see what was going on. Shortly after getting set up, Fred reeled one in, but again it was a wild one and could not be kept. Almost as soon as they got that one released, Barney also reeled a wild one in and had to release it. A while later though, Barney reeled in a really nice Chinook keeper! Yeah!  Fred and Wilma have decided it is really nice that Fred only catches wild fish and has to release them, and Barney catches the keepers and has to clean them!!! Oh what fun!

Barney bringing his fish in. The fish
jumped at the perfect time for the picture.

This is Barney and his King Salmon.

As Betty and Wilma headed back to the rolling caves, lots of the people had comments. One man said something about us taking good care of our guys by taking them lunch, and then he asked if we like smoked fish, and said to go to the passenger side of his truck and help ourselves to the container he had there. The man that seems to always be next to Fred and Barney is quite helpful, and very friendly. He tries to make sure we know all the regulations. Very nice people out there.

When Fred and Barney came back in there was a couple that parked and took a pet goat out of a dog carrier, put him on a cable, and took him for a walk on the beach. Just a little different than usual. We had already seen a couple of women unload six yapping dogs and take them for a walk.

After fishing was done, we took off for Seaside to hit the outlet mall. We went to Taco Bell first, decided not to stop at the outlet mall, and went to the Highlands Golf Club which is a public nine hole course that we have played in previous years. You have to walk it; no power carts are available, and it is up and down again and again. That’s if you hit straight. If not, it is double or triple the ups and downs. We love the fifth hole that looks out over the ocean. Really a fun course to play.  They have lost a number of trees since we last played the course, but that lets you see the ocean more. We did make it around and then dragged ourselves to DQ for a treat! This camping in an urban area is quite different than the beginning of the trip!

We enjoy seeing all the boat traffic coming and going on the river; all kinds and sizes of fishing boats (some very small,) barges, tankers and other cargo type ships. It is impossible to get a good picture of all the boats out there because it is so spread out. Today as we were coming back to the campground there was a large cruise ship going through, so we went out to watch it. We have visited the maritime museum in Astoria several times and heard about the pilot boats and helicopters that take the river pilots out to get them on board the various ships to guide them over the bar and on down the river, so it’s fun to see the boats and helicopters going by.

Tonight's sunset over the ocean.

That’s it for tonight from the rolling caves.