Category Archives: Good Action

Huckleberry Hounds

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Screw on your berry snout because the time is now to sniff out one of the great treats of late summer. By general consensus among the berry cognoscenti, the western huckleberry enjoys a position at the pinnacle of berry crops across the brakes of North America. East Coast blueberries, long since domesticated and hybridized into amusement park proportions for lowest common denominator taste buds, may be the sweetest of the Vacciniums, but the wild huckleberry, with its complex sparring of sucrose and tang, is the berry of record for true aficionados. And while FOTL can’t consider himself an aficionado yet (he’s only been picking huckleberries off and on for a mere two decades), he knows ’em when he sees ’em.

Last weekend we captained the Loaf down to one of the most storied berry patches in the land, the Indian Heaven Wilderness in the center of the volcanic triangle of Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. Indian Heaven is a seismic plateau of lavaflows and ancient, long-foundering cinder cones, a snowtrap in winter and a meltwater sponge through the summer—conditions that make it a Mosquito Heaven for sure, and a Huckleberry Heaven of tall-tale grandeur as well. For hundreds, probably thousands of years the Yakama and Klickitat tribes gathered here in summer to hunt, fish, pick berries, play games, and race horses. The Indian Racecourse is still around, as are the great berry fields, an accident of fire ecology that was later accentuated by purposeful fires set by the Indians themselves to choke out competing groundcover and keep the canopy open.

Among famous berry-picking locales (a few that come to mind include Glacier NP in Montana and the Blue Mountains in northeast Oregon), Indian Heaven has to be the most prolific I’ve ever seen, with some of the biggest and tastiest berries to be found anywhere. This year the berries are 2-3 weeks late in much of the Northwest due to lingering snowpack and a hard spring, so the season was just getting going. We came from the north, a long slog on forest roads 25, 90, 30, and 24, arriving finally at Sawtooth Mountain flanking the northern end of Indian Heaven and the beginning of Huckleberry Nirvana. Indians picked along the roadside, using improvised milk jugs with lanyards to free up both hands. A sign on the east side of the road laid out the terms of engagement (see image above). Just past the PCT we came upon this view of Mt. Adams to the northeast.

Washington and Oregon host a dozen species of huckleberries. Two of the most prominent (and the two we’re pretty sure we picked) are the thin-leaved huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum) and the oval-leaved huckleberry (Vaccinium ovalfolium). V. membranaceum has very large, sweet purple berries; these are the berries sought after by most pickers because of their size and taste. The other, V. ovalfolium, looks more like a small bleuberry with a slightly glaucous waxy sheen; they’re smaller in size, though a good bush can be covered with scores of them, and the flavor is tarter, making V. ovalfolium a preferred huckleberry for jams and jellies. You can see the differences in size and color between the two species in the video and image below.

If you go a-huckleberrying, do yourself a favor and fashion a proper bucket that can hang around your neck. A word of warning though: I know of a guy, an experienced ex-forest service employee, who was picking Oregon grape berries with a similar leashed bucket. He was picking so fast he inadvertently scooped an entire bees’ nest into the bucket. As the mad bees started swarming over the berries he saw his error and tried to run away but the bucket naturally followed him. Throwing it did no good. Lots of screaming and running in circles ensued. Finally he had to concede to the reality of the leash and lift the lanyard over his head, effectively putting his face right in the bucket. Good thing it was early morning and the bees still couldn’t fly; he escaped without a sting.

If you’re in my neck of the woods, the Gifford Pinchot NF puts out an excellent brochure on huckleberry picking that answers many general questions about regulations, biology, history, and also includes a map (!) to some of the better patches along forest service roads.

Since our return with a few gallons of huckleberries, we’ve vacuum-sealed and frozen most of our catch, and used the rest either to make cobblers and pancakes or to eat simply, unadorned. I’ll try to get a pie recipe posted soon, but first I’ve gotta get me some lard!

Warpo and the Hatch

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Hardcore flyfishers know about a bug that emerges briefly in late spring, usually when brawling western rivers are running full tilt with runoff. This three-inch bug hatches in prodigious numbers, swarms of them crawling over bankside vegetation, falling in the water, flying hither and thither in their drunken helicopter pilot way—driving both the fish and those who stalk the fish crazy with a quivering, unhinged desire. This bug is called the salmonfly (Pteronarcys californica); it’s a giant stonefly with a salmon-colored underside, and it’s a scrumptious meal for a trout.

Salmonfly hatches come off on some pretty good rivers: Rock Creek in Montana, the Deschutes in Oregon, and elsewhere. Problem is, oftentimes the rivers are too blown out to fish when the hatch is on. Anglers with time or money (or usually both) might spend years trying to catch a salmonfly hatch at its peak. When conditions are just right—river in fishable condition, flies in big numbers, fish looking up—you need to drop everything and get yer ass on the water. The hatch might be over a day later—moved upriver to private waters, or just gone, poof!

When my friend Warpo and I planned our excursion into Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison months ago, we weren’t thinking about the salmonfly hatch. Because of tricky scheduling, we would be going in early July, a couple weeks after the hatch in normal years. But this hasn’t been a normal year, and lingering snowpack in the Rockies has delayed all sorts of signs of the season, including wildflower blooms, bird nesting, and…The Hatch.

The night before leaving for the canyon, we watched a documentary to prime the pump. Twice. The boys over at Felt Soul Media put together a 17-minute award-winning film that captures the beauty of the rugged canyon and the madness of the angling action during the salmonfly emergence. (You can watch it on their web site.) It didn’t make them many friends in some quarters, notably among the locals who were keeping this fishery close to the vest for years. But as with so many priceless natural resources, if folks don’t know, it might just be trashed…by the developers, miners, timber barons, water hogs, and other exploiters. In this case, the threat is from Front Range water users like Denver, always on the lookout for more agua to sprinkle on Kentucky Bluegrass yards in desert suburbia. (It should also be noted that Felt Soul is doing yeoman’s work to expose the greed and fraud of the proposed Pebble Mine in the headwaters of Alaska’s most cherished fishery, Bristol Bay, with their latest film, “Red Gold.”)

The skyrocketing popularity of fly-fishing in the last 20 years and the concurrent pressure on fisheries has resulted in an increasingly technical (some might say fussy) approach to the sport, with ever tinier flies and leaders and warier fish. The salmonfly hatch, on the other hand, is a refreshing trip in the Wayback Machine: big flies, big fish, big scenery. The only indicators of the 21st century are the hordes of absurdly geared-out anglers.

While I’m at it, taking a few shots at modern flyfishing, let me say a few words about the modern “angler” who would never deign to kill a fish. Weak sauce. That’s all I’ll say. If you’re willing to hook fish after fish in the mouth and play them till near exhaustion, you should have the nuts to give at least one a rock shampoo—where legal, of course, and within the limits of a practical conservation ethic—and eat it for dinner. All else is hypocrisy. Warpo and I were looking forward to a trout dinner in the backcountry. When we reached the bottom of the canyon, we were hot, sweaty, and hungry. Warpo’s had a tapeworm for as long as I’ve known him. I told him the fishing might take his mind off his stomach, that we would be eating large that night if successful.

How was the fishin’? Well, friends, let me tell you. The scene did not disappoint. Clouds of salmonflies filled the air. They were everywhere. You couldn’t walk the banks without getting them on you. They crawled up your legs and even into your shorts. Every now and again you’d see some fisherman with a big grin on his face doing a little jig on the rocks, trying to dislodge a few misguided salmonflies from the family jewels. And the fishing was off the hook. The first day we fished 12 hours straight—all on top—without a break. Huge trout crashed our flies with ceaseless abandon.

Toward the end of the day I started thinking about dinner. Whirling disease has taken a toll on the Gunnison’s rainbows, but browns are open to harvest. The rules require a brown to be at least 16 inches, so I whacked this one above. He was big enough to fillet, and despite the limited scope of a Leatherman knife, the fillets turned out pretty decent. We had a Ziplock ready with a mixture of breadcrumbs, flour, oregano, Old Bay, and a few other spices lifted from the cabinet before dawn. A little olive oil in the pan and these babies were sizzling as darkness enveloped the canyon.

Warpo has rekindled his childhood interest in flyfishing only in recent years. We’ve made a few trips together, but he had yet to catch a really big fish, a true hawg. Last year he lost one during a moment of bad decision-making on the part of his net-man. The lost fish stayed with him, haunting his dreams. After our first day of the hatch, he could point to numbers of large fish caught to ease the pain, but not a bragging-rights monster…

Until a few minutes before our departure the next day, when he perfected his “wall artistry,” hooking this brute against a sheer slab of impassable rock at the full extent of his casting abilities. (For perspective, Warpo is a tall fella, with knobby, oversized carpenter’s hands.) The big ‘bow was released to eat more salmonflies and tempt the next lucky angler who braves the depths of the Black Canyon.

Shadenfreude

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Schadenfreude: Hyperdictionary definition: [n] (German) delight in another person’s misfortune.

Shadenfreude: My definition: [n] (Piscatorial) delight in catching bucketloads of non-native Columbia River American shad, which could be viewed as the fish’s misfortune.

This has become an annual trip for me in recent years. I blast down to Portland for a night of good grub, a dram of Beam, and a few hands of cribbage with my pal Bradley. In the morning we get up before dawn, pound a few mugs of coffee and a Viking-sized butterhorn and make tracks for the Columbia Gorge, where we get in line with several dozen other vehicles to wait for the 7 am starting gun, when they open the Bonneville Dam visitor’s center to the public. It’s key that we be one of the first cars in line, because inevitably we’re the only anglers fly-fishing and we need to establish a proper DMZ for back-casting.

If there can be said to be any sort of silver lining at all to the decline of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia-Snake system, it is the shad. American shad (Alosa sapidissima, from the Saxon allis for European shad and the Latin sapidissima for most delicious), are the largest members of the herring family and native to the Atlantic. Pioneering aquaculturist Seth Green planted the first 10,000 shad in Pacific waters in 1871, introducing the survivors of a seven-day cross-country railroad journey into the Sacramento River. There is evidence that descendants of that original stock might have made it to the Columbia River as early as 1876, but the river was planted in 1885 for good measure.

Now there are millions of shad migrating up the Columbia every year, and without much of a commercial fishery it’s a boom-time for recreational anglers. Most fishermen don’t bother until fish counts over the dam hit 100,000 per day, but owing to a complicated set of schedules, Bradley and I would need to make our trip in advance of that magic number this year. As it turned out, we needn’t have worried.

As Bradley says, fly-fishing for shad in water as big and boisterous as the Columbia is “about as much fun as you can have with a flyrod,” at least on a sustained basis. Sure, there’s nothing quite like a hot steelhead ripping line off your reel (or hooking into a marlin, I suppose, if you’re into 14-weight rods), but in terms of action, it really doesn’t get much better than shad. And in my experience, fly-fishing is far and away the best way to catch a ton of shad, much more so than conventional tackle (although I’m told there’s a hand-lining method that absolutely slays ’em).

There’s something about the dead-drifted fly that turns the shad on, so right off the bat you’re playing to the flyrod’s strength. The take is usually near the end of the drift, which means you’re fighting a three-pound fish downstream in the current of huge water. Double barbed hooks come in handy. As do heavy sinktip lines. I use a soft six-weight rod, which means Bradley is always barking at me to bring in my fish, “enough diddling around already.”

On this day we were joined by Bradley’s brother, Frank. The action was fast and furious all morning as we jostled for position and razzed each other each time a fish got off. Shad have soft mouths and it’s not uncommon to lose as many fish as you land. Still, by noon we had well over a hundred pounds of fish on the stringer, this despite most of the males being tossed back. After lunch Frank and Bradley set to the messy business of harvesting roe from the females. Parboiled for five minutes with a dash of vinegar, the sausage-like roe casings keep well in the freezer and can be fried up in butter to make a powerful fisherman’s breakfast with eggs and spuds.

Minus the eight odd fish I took home to fillet and smoke, the rest of our fish are now at Tony’s Smokehouse & Cannery in Oregon City, getting cleaned, smoked, and pressure-canned. Shad on a shingle, anyone?

Mad Shrimping

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Hood Canal. Last day of spot shrimp season. Two guys, two shrimp pots, 800 feet of rope. One canoe.

This may be one of stupider things I do on occasion, but it’s surely no stupider than things I did in my youth. Yes, the water’s cold and if we dumped it would be a problem, but generally we try to stay close enough to shore so that, in the event of an emergency, the swim isn’t too far.

A few years ago we hit Dabob Bay further up the Canal on a beautiful yet blustery spring day. By late morning there were whitecaps on the water, which made for a tough go. This outing was a piece of cake. No wind, still water, not too many boats. After setting the first two pots we paddled to shore and snacked on a few oysters. Seals and eagles foraged nearby.

But maybe we should have been a tad more superstitious. After all, we were shrimping off Dewatto Point, known to the Salish Indians as the place where men’s bodies are inhabited by evil spirits.

Shrimping off Dewatto Point was sketchy enough; when I got home I was beat tired and able to summon only enough energy to make tempura fried shrimp. Head on.

Martha joined me. “It’s like salt and pepper shrimp at the Hing Loon,” I explained. “The head is good for you. Plus, you don’t want to be wasteful.” But Martha won’t be biting the heads off shrimp again anytime soon. The next day she said they invaded her dreams.

Oyster Po’ Boy

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WHAT IS A po’ boy, you ask? It’s a traditional Louisiana sandwich served on a French roll or baguette. The usual ingredients are shredded lettuce, thinly sliced tomatoes, and some sort of meat, often fried shrimp or oysters.

The derivation of the term is disputed. One theory dates it to a 1929 streetcar strike, when a conductor-turned-restaurateur fed his former colleagues—called “poor boys”—free sandwiches from his shop.

The oyster po’ boy is also known as a “Peace Maker.” Men carousing about town traditionally brought home a Peace Maker to their wives at the end of a late night. 

Oyster Po’ Boy

Dip oysters in egg, then batter with a mixture of mostly cornmeal, a little flour, and spices. The “shake and bake” method of battering is easiest, which is to say: do it in a plastic baggie. Fry in oil and/or butter and remove to paper towels. Spread mayo, tartar, remoulade (or any combination thereof) on a French roll or baguette and pile with shredded lettuce, thinly sliced tomatoes, and the fried oysters. Drizzle with hot sauce. Pickles, onions, and whatever other condiments you prefer are optional. Serve with French fries and a suitable hair-of-the-dog beverage.

Secret Ingredients

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This post goes out to my dear reader in Augusta, Italy, where the value of “little pigs” is understood.

I’m a fan of secret ingredients—just as long as I’m in on the gig. Secret ingredients can be exotic, hard to find, or, as in this case, curveballs. For two years running now, maybe longer, the Puget Sound Mycological Society‘s annual exhibit has employed a certain chef to whip up countless mushroom dishes for its cooking demonstrations, including a wonderful Cream of Chanterelle Soup. This year I collared the cook during a moment of weakness and extracted the recipe. The secret ingredient that puts this soup over the top is not the nutmeg (although the spice adds an extra dimension for sure) and it’s not the chanterelles, as velvety smooth and sweet as they are (a secret ingredient can’t be the main ingredient, after all). No, the secret ingredient in this chanterelle soup is an entirely different species of mushroom that lifts the soup out of mere excellence and raises it to the sublime: Boletus edulis, the king bolete—known to Italians as porcini, or “little pigs.” The porcini have been dried and aged to concentrate the flavor, then pulverized into dust before being reconstituted in warm water. The resulting wet mush is like a double-shot of the earth itself.

Italians have enjoyed the hearty properties of porcini for centuries. They use them to flavor soups, stews, and sauces with an earthy bass note that cannot be duplicated with any other ingredient, fungal or otherwise. King boletes fruit throughout the temperate regions of the world, although we are fortunate in the American West to have a noteworthy abundance while in traditional European hunting grounds the king, like many other mushroom species (including chanterelles) is increasingly hard to find. Spruce forests in particular are places to look. The largest concentrations of king boletes I’ve ever encountered have been in the montane forests of Colorado. Yesterday’s Cream of Chanterelle Soup was made with king boletes from the North Cascades and chanterelles from Oregon’s Rogue River Canyon. Ideally the chanties should be fresh out of the woods; frozen chanterelles such as these are acceptable provided they’ve been properly stored. The last time I made this soup, for the annual Yakima River Burning Pram, a buxom fly-fisher who called herself Trout Girl took a spoonful and asked me if I was married. Such is the magic of this fairly simple recipe.

Cream of Chanterelle Soup

6 tbsp butter
1 med onion, diced
1 lb fresh chanterelles, diced (frozen dry-sauteed is acceptable; see this post)
1 – 3 oz. dried porcini, rehydrated in 1/2 – 1 cup hot water
1/4 cup flour
4 cups beef stock
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
salt to taste
1 1/2 – 2 cups heavy cream

1. Melt butter in large pot. Add onions and cook over medium heat until caramelized.
2. Add chanterelles, raise heat, cook 5 minutes, stirring.
3. Pulverize porcini into dust with food processor and rehydrate.
4. Blend in flour with sauteed mushrooms and onions. Add stock slowly. Add porcini mush and any leftover water.
5. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer 5 minutes. Add spices.
6. Lower heat and add cream.

Serves 4 – 6