Friday--yesterday--looked pretty good, weather-wise, so I took the afternoon off and went carp fishing on the Columbia River. I should have been cleaning up the yard and mowing the lawn, but . . . you know.

I launched at the Gleason ramp, motored past an armada of salmon anglers, and ducked into a shallow, tree-lined slough. It was deserted and primeval, at least as long as you ignored the rumble of semis on the I-205 bridge and the not-infrequent roar of jets taking off from PDX. It was a pleasant place as long as you were deaf. Still, despite its drawbacks it was now my place, the piece of water I was going to fish.

Learning the Place

I found this slough last fall, when it didn't have any water, and I was eager to check it out for spring carp. Not far from the entrance a few fish rolled on the surface, so I set up shop with the bait rod. This forced me to slow down and get acquainted with the water.

The slough is about 3/4 of mile long at this river level, and I was a third of the way into it. It's about 200 feet wide and maybe four feet deep at most. The water temperature was right at 50 degrees. Carp splashed here and there, but most of them were on the south side where they had a tad more shade from scattered cottonwoods and blackberries.

My bread crust bait was attractive to a few fish--the ubiquitous seven pound common carp--but they weren't as aggressive as I'd hoped.

Breaking Out the Fly Rod

Enough carp were near the bank that I decided to go after them with the fly rod. Visibility was less than a foot, but I figured I could see them if they were near the shore. Motoring further up the slough, I saw carp after carp. Some were in the middle and disappeared in giant swirls as the boat neared them. Others were clustered near shore. Sometimes the whole carp was visible, sometimes just the glow of the lips. No tailing fish, though; most of these fish were just sunning themselves and not actively feeding.

I parked the boat at the slough's far end and walked back, taking shots at carp. For the most part, they didn't want to know about me. Fish near shore would occasionally tip their noses down as my fly sank in front of them, but nobody ate it. My fly was a Carp Worm that has worked well for me over cobble bottoms on the mid-Columbia near Vantage, but other than some baby carp on the Willamette it's been unproductive over silt bottoms. I've lost confidence in it and need a new fly.

Sharing(?) the Water

It was about time to turn around and head back to the boat when I heard a motor coming up the slough. An 18-foot flat-bottomed boat was plowing along at a good clip, pushing a big wake and scattering carp left and right. The boat slowed down and a guy with a long gray beard asked me if there were any carp in here. "Uh, yeah," I said. Adding under my breath, "at least there were until you barged up the slough and scared the snot out of them."

His English was broken and heavily accented. Russian perhaps. "I have special permit," he said, "to net carp." I needed to leave so he could string a gill net across the slough. It was time for me to go home anyway, so I didn't push the point and left.

Thinking the Worst

Graybeard (I should talk!) seemed like a nice enough chap, but I found myself distrusting him. Yeah, carp are a non-native species and there are tons of them in the Columbia; getting rid of a few is probably not a bad idea. But in the space of a couple of hours, this slough had become mine. I now had ownership of the water and its fish. I was looking forward to coming back to it, and Graybeard was going to hoover every fish he could get his gnarly hands on. I'd probably find it fish-free on my next visit.

About 20 years ago, a couple of guys from the Russian Old-Believer community in Woodburn were arrested on Wickiup Reservoir. They'd strung gill nets across the main spawning tributary for the reservoir's brown trout. They'd been there several days and had taken literally tons of brown trout at the peak of the spawning season. Wickiup's trophy brown trout population was devastated. The Russian's claimed they thought the fish were carp.

I couldn't help but think that Graybeard's carp story might be a cover-up, that as soon as it got dark he'd go out to the mainstem and net salmon. "Special permit to net carp, my left foot," I thought. Probably made it up. Probably been poaching salmon all week. Probably was one of the yo-yos at Wickiup. Probably . . .

I don't like it when I think the worst of people, especially when I don't know them or have the facts. I wasn't proud of myself, but that's how I felt when I left the slough.

Next Up

I may go carping again at the end of next week. I'll bring some new fly patterns, and I'd like to explore some more places on the Columbia. I may even come back to this slough, even though it's not my ideal carp spot. Like I said, now that I've fished it, I own it.

But first I'm headed to the North Umpqua to fly fish for steelhead with Frank Moore, my all-time favorite Oregon angler. That's about as far as you can get from carping on a noisy Columbia slough with a suspect gill netter.

Scott, tell me you contacted OSP and gave them the the boat numbers and a description. The last thing you need to do is let the guy get away with it. I would prefer to be wrong than walk away from something that may do more harm than good. Remember when the boys out of Woodburn wood net Eagle Cr. on the Clackamas or even the mouth of the Mollala. 2 to 1 says the guy had no special permit to net in the slough or anywhere else.

Every time you don't call on a violation you are allowing the infraction to continue. Look at it like you are watching a couple of new bee's fly snagging at Lorens drift on the Trask in the fall or even snagging chum on the Miami. I don't think that you would allow that to continue. You would either call OSP or try to discontinue the snagging.

Stepping up to the plate is not just a baseball term.

Scott, just ask Frank Moore. If anyone has stepped up to the plate it has to be Frank, what a guy!

I thought about making the call, but was after 5:00 on a Friday afternoon. Because of the plethora of salmon anglers, there was probably at least one ODFW enforcer already on the water within a couple of miles of where I was. But would that enforcer leave all the salmon boats to check out a guy who was planning to remove what ODFW regards as a non-native trash fish? I don't know.

Scott

I for one hope that he really did have a permit to net the carp. I also hope he has a thriving market to sell them, and a lot of friends who also want to net carp. Most people underestimate the damage that carp do to the PNW ecosystem.

It's very likely the guy had a permit and was legit.

A few years ago in April I was at the ODFW office on Sauvie Island to get a dog training permit when in walks a Russian guy to get a permit to gill net carp on Mud Lake. No one in the office acted surprised and apparently took care of it right there. I asked the guy what he did with the fish and he told me carp were very popular food fish in the Russian community.
As I left I noticed he had an old beater tri-hull ski boat with the seats removed and it was full of monofilament gill nets and coolers.

I guess we'll never know. No offense, but here in the big city, people make a living off of getting the benefit of the doubt when they don't deserve it. knock on wood.