Casting for that iconic Northwest fish; how had I never tried this before?

WALDPORT — In seven decades, I’ve experienced a lot of “quintessential Oregon.” I’ve hiked the 452 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Washington, run the Hood to Coast relay, shot the McKenzie River’s Marten Rapids, cross-country skied outside Bend to cut down a Christmas tree and, in the state’s southeast corner not far from Steens Mountain, drank an ultra-thick milkshake in the Fields Station Café, the farthest point in the United States from any Walmart or McDonald’s.

But until last month I’d never experienced a more basic Oregon activity: salmon fishing.

I’m not sure what the best part of the day was: the beauty of Alsea Bay as a deep fog gave way to sunshine, the two high school buddies I was with, or the actual fishing for salmon. Call it a three-way tie. I do know it was one of those Oregon days I’ll never forget.

On Sept. 24, dressed in a trail hat and waterproof pants and jacket, I was waiting at the Port of Alsea boat launch when longtime friends Tom Rondeau and Jay Locey pulled up, towing the boat.

“Ready to catch some fish?” I asked Rondeau as he headed for the pay-to-park station.

He glanced at me but didn’t say anything.

Oh, my gosh, I thought; that’s not him. Then I realized it was him; he just didn’t recognize me.

“I thought you were just some old codger,” he later said.

“I am.”

I’ve known Rondeau and Locey, both a year younger than my 71, since Little League baseball in Corvallis more than 60 years ago. We all attended Corvallis High, where Rondeau was an All-State basketball player, Locey an All-State football player and I a hack cross-country runner who finished 23^rd at district. (Which of these is not like the others?)

Of the three of us, Rondeau emerged as a true fisher of big fish. Locey and I are neophytes still squabbling over whether a fish I caught at Hunts Lake on a backpacking trip in 1974 was a trout (my contention) or a chub (Locey’s contention).

I marveled at how fast and efficiently Rondeau slipped the 20-foot boat off the trailer and into the ebb tide. I deal in sailboats, the rigging and launching of which require hours, ladders, patience, prayer and bloody fingers.

Just after 8:30 a.m., we headed west toward the bridge in a thick fog, each of us wearing auto/manual inflatable life vests that were hardly more cumbersome than a necktie; way more practical than what I wear aboard At Last — at least until I upgrade to a similar inflatable next spring.

Despite the fog, the bay was alive in wonder: Scores of seals snoozed on a sandbar, a few popping up out of the water on our port side. Seagulls squawked overhead. Pelicans arrived in formation, as if a welcoming party. A heron, stiff as a statue, eyed us from the north shore.

As we neared the bridge, the fog began lifting and blue sky emerged. Oregon is blessed with beautiful coastal bridges, thanks to Conde Balcom McCullough, the state bridge engineer from 1919 to 1935.

He designed the original Alsea Bay Bridge that opened in 1936 and engineers replicated its gracefully symmetric span for the replacement that opened in 1991. I was there when Gov. Barbara Roberts dedicated it.

Beyond the boat, a pelican dive-bombed into the water in search of fish.

“Beautiful out here,” said Locey.

“Love all the sea lions,” I said.

“Once a woman with a camera at the launch offered me $20 to take her out so she could shoot pictures of them,” said Rondeau. “I turned down the money but happily told her to climb aboard — then promptly ran us aground on a sandbar. It can be tricky out here with the changing tides.”

This day’s incoming tide had just begun as we made our way to what Rondeau calls “The Jaws,” the narrow 500-foot channel between the Bayshore spit to the north and Yaquina John Point to the south. The rising sun burned through the fog in fuzzy wonder.

Just beyond was the Alsea Bay bar, 2-foot surf crashing in splashes of white.

Using a remote control hung around his neck, Rondeau maneuvered the 8-horsepower trolling motor alongside a 115-horsepower Honda roughly the size of a refrigerator. He rigged the hooks on our rods with herring that had been soaked in “a secret brine I can’t reveal.”

With the patience of a kindergarten teacher, he explained how to unlock our rod holders if we had a fish on, how to reel in the fish and how we’d net the fish. I sensed that he expected to catch fish, which was a new expectation for me when it came to fishing.

Soon we had three lines in the water.

“I expect the swells to get to 4 or 5 feet by midmorning,” said Rondeau, an amateur meteorologist. “The wind is probably going to kick up and blow us off the bay. Things get messy. You have to increase your speed to compensate, and that can cause your bait to come off.”

Every few years, people fishing or crabbing here stupidly tease an outgoing tide and get sucked into the Pacific. The previous day, the Coast Guard had to rescue a commercial fisher whose small boat capsized not far from where we were.

For now, winds were light, the chop low and all but one of the half-dozen other boats respectful of one another. Like water farmers plowing their watery fields on a tractor, we chugged west then, near the roar of the surf, back east. We were in what Rondeau called the “suck zone,” a deep channel with “lots of fish.”

“There’s one bozo out here who thinks he owns the place,” said Rondeau. “He’ll come at me like he’s playing chicken. Never budges for anyone else. He’s a guide; needs his people to catch fish. Drives me crazy.”

From time to time, Rondeau would have us reel in and, gloves on, yank the seaweed off our plug-cut herring. “That’s the curse of salmon fishing out here,” he said. “Seaweed.”

As the morning deepened, we saw but one fish netted by another boat. We hadn’t had any tugs.

“It can be hit or miss,” Rondeau said. “A few days ago, we got five.”

I was too busy enjoying the experience to worry about fish. The salt air. The sound of water splashing the side of the boat. The stories from high school, most, for now, revolving around basketball.

I told about Corvallis High’s JV and sophomore teams coming to Waldport for games against the Irish’s varsity and JV in late 1969. (I was, ahem, making my debut as the JV manager.)

“The whole way over, all we did was make fun of Waldport,” I said. “Like, ‘You know, their gym’s nets are actual fishing nets’ and ‘The concession stand doesn’t serve hot dogs and popcorn but flounder and crabs.’ But after the sophs lost and we continued the razzing on the way home, one manager — not me — actually got fired by a not-too-happy coach.”

“How does a sophomore basketball manager get fired?” asked Rondeau.

“It’s not easy,” I said.

Rondeau told of how he hit a last-second shot to seemingly beat Central Catholic, but the ref waved it off as being after the buzzer.

“And there were our two moms, Loce, storming the court to protest!”

“How about a game at Sheldon when we got a bad call and Don Buckendorf threw a tennis ball at the ref from the stands?” said Locey.

“First time I’ve seen a visiting crowd get penalized with a technical foul,” said Rondeau.

We talked about aches and pains, Little League baseball, families and fish.

“Biggest you’ve ever gotten out here?” I asked.

“Forty-three pounds,” said Rondeau.

“Goodness, all the fish in my life haven’t added up to 43 pounds,” I said.

“The largest I’ve seen caught out here is 62,” he said.

“My biggest trout was Big Red,” I said. “Maybe a pound.”

“That wasn’t a trout,” said Locey. “That was a trash fish. A wannabe.”

Suddenly, the trip of my rod bent over like a tipsy question mark. Tat-tat-tat.

“Fish on, Bobby!” said Rondeau.

I grabbed my fishing rod and tried to yank it from the rod-holder. No go. Rondeau popped it loose with one hand.

I pulled back on the rod, reeled in a bit on Rondeau’s command, held tight, reeled in. The resistance on the rod seemed to abate.

“Might have lost him,” Rondeau said.

How many times, as a kid, had I heard my father say those words to me — on the Yachats River, Gold Lake, Suttle Lake, you name it. The story of my — .

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. My line suddenly peeled off.

“You still got him!” said Rondeau. “He’s coming over here, from the bow to the stern.”

I saw a flash of silver, and it splashed at the surface. Rondeau grabbed the net.

And soon there it was, a 24-inch coho flipping back and forth on the bottom of the boat.

“Probably 8 pounds,” said Rondeau.

To say I caught it was a little like saying people who pay sherpas to drag them to the summit actually climbed Mount Everest. But, hey, I’ll take it.

Rondeau was right. The wind soon picked up, the chop increased and we headed back to the launch. But not before he insisted we get a photo of me holding the catch.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Don’t hold it to the side, hold it out front. Looks bigger.”

Just before noon, we pulled out the boat, hugged each other goodbye and headed home, Locey riding with me. My cocky side fleetingly wondered if I should suggest that this should silence him about my “trash fish,” right?

But I didn’t have it in me. I was too humbled by the morning on the water with two longtime friends, fog, sun and sea lions. It wasn’t about the fish.

OK, maybe a little of it was.