The county list

I’ve been checking items off of a list for a decade or so- a list of counties in Oregon in which I have caught a fish with my flyrod. My goal has been to get one fish on a fly in every Oregon county. For the last couple of years I had one remaining: Curry County, in the far southwest corner of the state. I work down there occasionally and I thought it would be straightforward, but it didn’t turn out that way. I already had a few “one-bite counties” on the list (Umatilla and Morrow, for example), and a couple others that were checked off with fish I am not proud of (Clackamas and Marion, for example)… and I wasn’t going to end the process with a bluegill from some farm pond.

So, my last county would be the first county checked off with a guide. We met a fella from Westernwaters guide service early Saturday and drove up the Sixes River Road. The guide was great. We ended up running into a couple fish in the afternoon, including this beautiful buck that really took me for a ride. It was full hair-on-fire for 5 minutes, for everybody in the boat.


With that fish, the county list is completed. It wasn’t a contest and it didn’t matter to anyone else but me. But, in an era where everything seems to be so important and divisive all the time, sometimes stuff that matters to you and you alone might be the best stuff in the world.

The next day I went hiking on the coast near Port Orford, home to some of the prettiest beaches you will ever see.


And then, fish and chips at this place on the way out of town.


A great weekend.

 

[RyRy82]

Congratulations! Way to cap off the quest!

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

Awesome idea! Nice job getting 'er done!

 

[mcswny]

damn, i like this idea.

 

[Slow_Floccer]

Inspiring!

 

[Draketake]

Nice..nice nice....

Congrats.

 

[mooseknuckles]

Mission accomplished, congrats!

 

[Peach]

Pretty cool adventure and I love the ideal. I like these types of challenges just to help motivate, or "force" you to explore different area's and/or try to target other species. I would like to see that list - but understand that it would be difficult to share.

A couple of years ago, I did a similar challenge "Species" challenge to see how many different species that I can catch in one year on the fly. I thought I did well with a dozen species - but once I asked others on the "other website" I was shocked to see how many folks caught way more different species than 12 in a year timeframe. But it was beneficial as it introduced me to flyfishing for warmwater species and I caught my first Tiger Trout & Lahanton Cutthroat Trout because of this challenge and introduced me to new fisheries.

Other type of challenges that I have seen is to catch a fish or trout every month of the year - I haven't tried this yet but this one is intruging.

Another one that I am thinking about doing is I have Denny Rickard's Book - "Fly Fishing the West Best Trophy Lakes" which he list as his 50 favorite lakes across 11 Western States . I would like to try to catch a "Trophy" , which for this activity would I would consider a trout of 16 inch or above, at each of the lakes he listed. Doing it all in one year would be a bit aggressive - but it would be a fun to give it a try. I may need to expand to a over my lifetime to hit all 50 lakes - that maybe a more realistic goal. In addition, that book was published in 1999 and some of those lakes listed are not the same lakes they were over 20 years ago. I know of a couple of them that aren't really in exsistance today or just don't product trophy trout like they did back then.

Peach

 

[mems]

Congrats that is a dedicated accomplishment. Thinking about it I have done the same thing here in Hawaii, but we only have 4 counties. But at least I have caught a bonefish in each county.