Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/113



OU know, everybody in Southern Oregon claims that the Rogue River is lousy with salmon, steelhead and rainbow. I'll agree that it's got some mighty pretty fishing holes, only I've never been able to pick the ones that the fish do.

That's why I designed this fish-spotter, a rig I dreamed up when I was a Sonar-Radar technician in the navy. Much as I enjoy fishing, I like catching one once in a while even better. I figured that if I could test out these beautiful holes beforehand, my weekend trips might get me something more than fresh air and exercise.

So I headed up-river toward Union Creek Camp this particular Sunday morning with my newly finished spotter beside me in my quivering jalopy, a song in my heart and a scientific gleam in my eye. No more of this hit-or-miss stuff for me.

It was a full, beautiful dawn when I picked out a section of sugar pine forest and drove off into the bushes where no one would likely see the car and follow me. I wanted to be alone.

One thing about the Rogue, almost anywhere you hit it, it looks fabulously fishable. It's full of riffles and eddies and rugged rapids and pleasant little falls with deep pools and interesting backwaters.

Well, I broke out of the brush right over a honey of a little fall where the river had cut a gorge, and the pool at the bottom looked deep. Some forty feet downstream it shallowed out into choppy rapids. 113