The Eagle Outdoors: A country for old men

I often hear people say that the problem with young people today is this, or that, or something else. Following the announcement, I'll be informed of said problem; perhaps, more than one. However, what I don't hear is the solution. Problem, solution? No, sir. Problem, problem.

Well, I ain't that guy. Do you want to know what the problem with young people is? No old men. Simple as that. The solution? Old guys. That's right. Get yourself an old guy. Problem solved.

How, pray tell, is that a solution? Well, I was born in 1964 and basically grew up in the 70s. Life was different back then. The kids had old guys. It wasn't your Dad; he was just in charge of yelling at you for holding the flashlight wrong while he was spraying dressing on the fan belt, the alternator, the carburetor, and everything else under the hood of his '65 Ford 500 Custom. If you were like me, your old guy was grandpa, the retired steelworker next door, or the guy who owned the neighborhood tavern down the way. The "old guy" may even have been your Uncle Ed who took you to Cleveland Stadium in '77 to see the Indians play the Yankees, introduced you to the entire Yankees roster, put you in a limousine with the late Billy Martin and Phil Rizzuto, and took you to the field where you sat behind the Yankees dugout and ate 4,762 hot dogs for free. As an adult, I asked my Pop about Uncle Ed and his "friends" in New York. "We don't ask Uncle Ed many questions," he told me.

I was lucky. I had several old guys, Dzedo (Slovak for "grandfather") Johnson, John Shafer, Bill Custer and John Matas, who taught me everything I ever needed to know and probably will ever need to know about life. Some of those lessons were prefaced by the warning "don't let your mother hear you say that" and weren't for use in polite society.

I learned to get up early, work hard, go to bed tired, and to eat everything on my plate, including the cooked carrots. I learned to fix things when they broke; to take responsibility for getting things done and, when it happened, for doing things wrong. I learned that under an often cantankerous exterior, there lived a soft heart; one that genuinely liked beagle pups, perfectly tuned carburetors, and a good homegrown tomato, along with the occasional infant. From my old guys, I learned to respect women, to stand up for what I thought was right, and, 'tis true, to sometimes ask forgiveness rather than permission.

My old guys were radiomen in Burma during World War II, mortarmen at Chosin Reservoir, and grunts during Tet in 1969, the latter returning to a radically changed American climate armed with questions we couldn't answer and issues we couldn't understand. Their rules were elemental in nature, like those given me 30-plus years ago by Mike Fine, a tremendous fisherman and member of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. hockey team that beat the Russians in the Winter Olympics. "If you tell someone you're going to do something, do it," he told me, "If you can't do it, tell them 'I can't do that, but here's what I can do,' and then do it." Old guys, it seems, are very profound, albeit quite simple in their logic.

I learned about the outdoors and to respect mother nature as I watched. I learned then-significant things like the connection between the yellow willow flowers and the white crappies moving into the shallows to spawn, how to spot a motionless cottontail by the 'shine' of his eye, and everything has a reason and a purpose. Even the English sparrows, which my father found to be excellent harvesters of the Japanese beetles that voraciously attacked his roses. From them, I learned how to cast a level-wind reel, to hit what I was shooting at, and patience; the patience, that is, to sit for eight straight hours in a 12-foot, aluminum Sears boat and never say a single word. I learned to sit under a huge beech tree, without moving, and out-wait a fox squirrel. I learned which mushrooms to pick for machanka, a Slovak soup eaten on Christmas Eve. I learned the difference between a white oak and a red oak. In other words, the important stuff.

So to today's young people, I say this. Get yourself an old guy. Prepare to be enlightened. Come equipped with thick skin, for old guys pull few, if any punches. Should you venture onto the river in his Hewes Craft, never forget that in a boat, you can only run so far. If, for whatever reason, he tells you to hold the flashlight, you're on your own.

Smelt

Saturday, March 22, was the final 'dip day' for the 2025 smelt season, which was a clear cut case of 'we threw the party and no one showed up.' As many of you witnessed, the main stem of the Columbia was jam-packed with smelt, seals, sea lions, eagles, gulls, cormorants, and merganser ducks for several days last week. Unfortunately, it would appear the eulachon got as far as Willow Grove and disappeared. Some say they're headed even as you read this to the Sandy River. Others say the little fish spawned in the Columbia and then, as semelparous species do, died. On a positive note, talking with a biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) on Saturday, it seems the agency's new tentative harvest schedule process worked very well. In addition, compliance with the new-for-2025 fishing license requirement for smelt harvesters was, at least on Wednesday, March 19 (and according to WDFW law enforcement), right at 100 percent. So, we had an opportunity – actually four separate opportunities – but the smelt either didn't get or simply ignored the memo. There's always next year.

Fishing license

The new fishing licenses are a must as of April 1, 2025.

Annual trout opener

True, it's a ways into the future, but April 26 marks Washington's statewide trout opener, as well as day one of the WDFW's 10th annual Trout Derby. For 2025, the department plans to stock or has already stocked some 14.6 million trout and kokanee salmon into an estimated 500 bodies of water, including over two million 'catchable' or, roughly, 10 to 11-inch-long trout. NOTE: The WDFW put 1,500 catchable rainbow trout produced at the nearby Nemah Hatchery into the Radar Lakes (Snag and Western) above the old Naselle Youth Camp on March 12. I'd suggest pink or chartreuse Berkley 'Crappie Nibbles' fished under a light bobber, small Roostertail spinners, or a 1.75" Freaky Franks 'Lil Freaky' worm in pink fished on a 1/16th or 1/32nd ounce lead jig; also, under a light, preferably clear, bobber. Good luck out there, and be safe, and be kind.