In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

134 Desdemona Sands THERE WAS A WEAK RUN in Cook Inlet in 1968, and Fish and Game closed the season early. This left me in a bind, because I couldn’t make my boat payment for Sounion and I needed more money to finance my next year in graduate school. The National Marine Fisheries Service let me make only half a boat payment for the year, and then my friend Ted helped me find the money I needed for school. He told me about a short gillnetting season that would open soon at Astoria, on the Columbia River, and suggested that I take a shot at it. Like many other Cook Inlet gillnetters , Ted had also fished the Columbia for most of his life. He lived in Vancouver, Washington, and fished that area as well as Astoria, Grays Harbor, and Willapa Bay. If I showed up at Vancouver during the first week of August he’d take me under his wing, lease me a net, find a boat that I could lease for the two-week season, and show me the ropes. I jumped at the chance. In Vancouver Ted lined me up with a boat that belonged to our mutual friend, Ken, who wasn’t fishing that season. It was a conventional Columbia River bowpicker, with no frills such as a depth-finder, and not even a name, but I was happy to have it. Within a few days I was following Ted as we made the day-long run down the river to Astoria, each of us standing outside, at the wheel behind the house. Neither of us had a radio, so once in a while Ted would slow up enough for me to come alongside and then he’d shout something to me about where the channel was or what to look out for on my way back upriver in a couple of weeks. We saw several ships on their way to or from Portland, and I’d heard a lot about this traffic. You were supposed to stay clear of the shipping lanes when you were on a drift, but it was hard to tell where these were, even in daylight—and Astoria was a night fishery. I’d also heard a lot about the bridge at Astoria, how it was right in the middle of the area where we’d be drifting, and how you had to stay clear of its huge pillars. The fishing Desdemona Sands 135 boundaries were from about six or seven miles above the bridge to six or seven miles below it—that is, almost to the mouth of the Columbia. The idea was to begin a drift on the flood well below the bridge and then pick up just before you got to the bridge. Then, you would set out above the bridge. On the ebb you would do the same thing, in reverse order, drifting down and picking up before you got to the bridge, and then setting out again below the bridge. When we finally got to Astoria and passed under the bridge I couldn’t imagine how to avoid catching it. The current was racing out just then, and when the tide changed it’d race the other way with equal speed. We’d be out here again in just about six hours, and I was doing my best to get my bearings. So when Ted slowed down again I pulled close enough to hear any advice he might shout to me. We were just below the bridge and he pointed downriver to a stretch of water that looked exactly like the rest. “Over there’s Desdemona Sands.” It was just after high water and the river seemed enormous as it widened toward the mouth. We were headed to the little town of Chinook, on the Washington side not far from the mouth, where Ted and his family rented a small cabin each August. We were in a hurry because we wanted to take a short nap before dark, so Ted no longer slowed down to point things out. He just pointed to a rock jetty, or a buoy, or some old pilings, and shouted something that I couldn’t hear over the engine noise and propwash. Only once, about halfway from the bridge to Chinook, he slowed down and pointed out a landmark on the north side, a weather-greyed and abandoned old church. “When you’re drifting up on the flood, you gotta start picking...

Share