Rogue River 2009

[Flaskman]

First things first...


This is my rig. My buddy had a raft he wasn't using, I had a truck I wasn't driving...I needed a raft, he needed a truck, so we traded. Good trade.


If you look close you can see the Salmon jumping up the falls


The views are really nice


Entering Mule Creek Canyon, home of the Coffee Pot


The Coffee Pot, they say the water is 90' deep here and the canyon is only about 15-20' wide, not much room to manuver


Just below the coffee pot is Blossom Bar Rapid, it's really the only rapid with any severe consequences. If you look close on the right side of the photo you can see someone suffering those consequences...a wrapped boat makes for a long day.


Then we get down to Half Moon Beach camp




They estimate the flow was 310,000 cfs during this flood


Below Blossom Bar Rapid you get the occasional Jet Boat


Our camp at Tacoma, our last night before the takeout, luckily the bears left us alone.


Another fine week on the Rogue!

[406]

looks like fun.

[ak_powder_monkey]

good to see there is at least one salmon left in oregon

[Flaskman]

hehe...actually, we saw more big ol' hogs jumping outta the water to break roe than ever before, so fwiw, the Salmon population seems to be in full force this year...minus the couple we saw get hauled out by the local fishermen as we passed by.

[Nick_C_123]

The Rogue is awesome. Once we at camp and some guys in a kayak and a raft came by in the pitch dark. They asked if we had seen the rest of their party. As they left we thought they were some serious badasses, no headlamps, no moon, just getting after it in the dark. Then in the morning as we pulled up to China Bar Rapid we saw this.
Guess who?

[HotCarl]

Thats a pretty firm wrap....

[Flaskman]

Looks like a nice oar frame though...

[QuikR12]

Uber sick man. Love this River, its where I grew up. Be back down there next weekend for a little bear hunting. Nice boat too.

[BasinDaddy]

How many days? I have family in the area and would love to do a trip out there someday. Nice boat too. Hope to have one soon

[Flaskman]

It could easily be done in 3 long days, we usually do it in 4, this year we did it in 5 with 2 pretty short days mile-wise, but with lots of fishing and beer, it still took us all day on those short days.

There are outhouses along the way at designated camps, so the usual routine of most of the people on the river is to race downstream to get a good camp spot. If you take too long then all the good spots are taken when you get there. It also puts you in line with 20-30 other rafts going downriver and through the rapids. We chose a different strategy this year...we used our groover so we weren't just restricted to the camps with outhouses. We just floated until we found a great, lonely beach and we stopped. That also let us just eddie up and fish while the freeway of boats went by and then we had the river to ourselves. That was pretty cool cuz every day we'd see the same folks go by and some would stop and chat and we'd share our goods and they'd share theirs. It was much more sociable in that way instead of racing everyone and trying to keep your place in line.

[BasinDaddy]

Sounds like you've got it down. I'll keep that in mind when I make it out someday. We did the Gates of Ladore a few weeks ago and took a few lazy days as well. Not a bad way to go imop.

[carvedog]

The Rogue is awesome. Once we at camp and some guys in a kayak and a raft came by in the pitch dark. They asked if we had seen the rest of their party. As they left we thought they were some serious badasses, no headlamps, no moon, just getting after it in the dark. Then in the morning as we pulled up to China Bar Rapid we saw this.
Guess who?

That is one fugly wrap right there. If you ever on the rogue there is a 30degree strip of sand on river left just above blossom bar by about a 1/4 mile or so. Sixteen of us camped there because I refused to camp at Blossom Bar on the rocks. Or run it in the dark.

[HotCarl]

We did the Gates of Ladore .

Please,just 'Lodore.'

I'm gonna start a movement for people to stop calling it "Gates of Ladore."

[Flaskman]

I was reminded of a couple of stories after looking at the Green River TR in the fishing forum. We were all loaded up and ready to launch when I saw something swimming across the river right at us. Someone asked what the hell is that? It was a rat...swimming right towards us. We didn't know if we should help it, or kill it...so we just decided to let nature take it's course. He got almost all the way across and got up on a rock about 3' out from us. He climbed up on that rock and looked right at us, then shook so hard that he fell off the rock back into the water and started swimming again towards the shore. Problem was, he got caught in the eddyline of the rock and was just going in circles. By this time we were routing for him to take a better ferry angle so he could get outta that eddyline. But he just kept circling and circling and soon enough, he was gasping for air and getting tired, as he tired we all knew what was coming and soon enough, he went under. I could see him sink towards the bottom with his arms outstretched and his mouth wide open as he sank into the abyss. It was only a rat, but watching that drama had a pretty profound effect on all of us. Oh well, some sturgeon had a good meal coming.

Later that day we caught a nice sized squawfish, but since squawfish are considered an undesirable species we didn't want to eat it or let it go. Right then I noticed a buzzard walking around on the beach, so I told my buddy..."hey, see if you can hit that buzzard"...so he tossed the fish up to within 10' of the buzzard. Now that's just too fresh of a meal for a buzzard, he didn't know what to do, but he walked over and inspected his breakfast. He didn't know what to think, just about then it flopped around and scared the crap outta the buzzard, I mean literally, he crapped as he jumped back from this easy meal. I eddy'd up and watched for a while as he circled this fish with extreme caution as he wasn't sure if there was any danger or not. He didn't eat it while we were there, but I'm sure he did eventually.

We set up camp at Little Whiskey Creek the first night. As we were having happy hour, one of the guys in our group who had been drinking all day (we all had been) was having trouble setting up his tent. Someone yelled at him to "try it naked"...so, of course, he dropped trow and proceeded along like normal. Right about then another group floated up and asked if there was room for them to share our camp. We looked at the other 5 boats floating up and said "hmmmm...maybe?" He floated down a bit more and beached. A few minutes later he comes walking up the trail right towards our drunk buddy who was still working on his tent wearing only a tshirt...we were all cracking up and just watched as the guy came up over the hill to a full moon shot of boogers butt. Not sure what he said, but booger grabbed his shorts and quickly put them on as he answered some of the guys questions. We were howling over by the kitchen area. Wisely, they decided to move on, probably not wanting to camp next to the drunk, naked guy. The next morning we saw those guys on the river, along with a bunch of other folks. They had their boat rigged with ammo boxes strapped down to the top of the oar frame like pillars. As the other folks floated past him he looked at booger and asked if he was the last boat? Booger said "yeah, I think so"...so the guy looked around, opened one of the ammo boxes, and dropped trow and climbed up and sat on the ammo box and took a dump right there as they floated down the river! I'm not sure if he was just trying to get back at booger for the moon shot the night before, or if he just had some colon issues, but either way...it was hilarious!

Ya just never know what you're gonna see on the Rogue.