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Took a jet boat ride up the Snake. An all day trip. We left quite early in the morning - I don't remember how early, but it was cold - from about 20 miles up river from Lewiston/Clarkston. The road here is only on the Washington/Oregon side of the river, so I guess more correctly we put in about 20 miles up river from Clarkston.

My sons were big into fishing at the time, so the purpose of the trip was to catch Sturgeon (it was either that or Bigfoot): they're protected, but not endangered, so they are fair game. But there are lots of rules:
- You have to have a guide (the owner of the boat) to fish for them.
- The license is a one-day license, or was it two weeks?
- You cannot use barbed hooks, only plain hooks.
- You cannot take them out of the water, so no "poses".
- Obviously it is catch and release.

It is a surprisingly difficult task to catch these beasts. They can run to pretty good size. One son caught one about 3', the other caught 2 about 3' - 4', and I caught one about 7'4". The captain took us to places that ran 50' deep or more, because they prefer cold water, and they're bottom feeders. After about 45 minutes of the fish running and diving, and I'd crank it close, then it would run and dive again, repeat about 10 times, the fish was tired and we could "herd" it along toward the shore. The captain/guide hopped in (about knee deep) to remove the hook, and stretched a light string the length of the beast. I have that as "my fish". And no, it's not mounted.

But you really don't care about that. And the "catching" took only about 90 minutes, though the "waiting" took most of the day.

The day was beautiful, once the sun showed for a while. The canyon is pretty stark: sandstone (probably, I'm no geologist), with some sandy areas and desert scrub. Being on the water we drank quite a bit. (Water is our poison of choice, though we had sandwiches, juices, and various snacks.)

And the birds were everywhere! Mostly not visible, but singing like you wouldn't believe.

There was one distinctive songster. I never saw it, but caught its song on video. (I ran video, the mic picked up the song. And quite nicely, I might add.) Later I was listening to the Peterson recordings and heard it. Went back to the video and verified the song. Schweet!

So, this trip's list: Cactus Wren.

Pretty pathetic, isn't it?

But nothing was flying, and it's hard to flush birds from the middle of the river. And the Cactus Wren was a lifer.

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Tags:

id , river , birding , snake river , lifer , sturgeon