A Sportsman Journal - 1971 thru 2025: Chapter 1 ~ The Umatilla
My earliest memory of fishing dates back to around 1971. I was seven years old, a first or second grader at Marcus Whitman Elementary in Richland, Washington.
Richland was a boomtown in the 1940s, when the war effort inspired a rapid buildup of prefabricated homes on the sand and sagebrush of the Columbia Basin. The Yakima River framed Richland to the west, and the mighty Columbia flowed south from Canada, eventually joining the Snake River near Pasco.
My grandparents, Bud and Jane, lived on Dallas Street, and we lived just a few blocks away on Cottonwood. Richland at that time consisted of tidy streets lined with small, well-kept homes—yards neatly trimmed, young trees freshly planted. The town was young, and in those postwar years, life seemed good: simple, stable, and full of quiet prosperity.
My grandfather hunted and fished with a band of friends in upstate New York near Jamestown. They drove an old Ford woody wagon with a canoe strapped to the rack. They were a rugged and hardy lot. His friend, Orm Lawson, had somehow lost a leg; judging from the old black-and-white photos, that loss hadn’t slowed him down one bit. Orm navigated his sporting path with a crutch under one arm.
They paddled canoes, camped in canvas tents, and caught trout in rivers and streams. In those early days, my grandpa used an ultralight spinning rod with small brass spoons, which he would cast downstream and let flutter across the current—a deadly way to catch fish. Somewhere along the way, he discovered the fly rod. By the time I came along, he had been fly fishing and tying his own flies for decades. Through practice and study, he became a master.
When I arrived on the scene—his first grandson—I’m sure he was eager to begin a new chapter of his life. I became his apprentice in all things fly fishing. And my fascination with it all began with the trip I’m recalling here.
My early childhood memories are more like scenes from an old film—soft around the edges, filled more with feeling than detail. I have no clear memory of preparing for that trip, but I vividly remember climbing into the Alaskan camper clamped to the back of his 1964 Ford F-100 pickup.
The truck had shiny chrome knobs on the dash and an Indian blanket seat cover with a slot sewn into the front where you could slide a shotgun or rifle. Grandpa liked his trucks simple—no power steering, vinyl seats and floor mats, and a 300-cubic-inch straight six-cylinder engine with an automatic transmission. His theory was that the fewer moving parts there were, the fewer things could go wrong.
The camper’s interior was paneled in warm wood, with a manual hydraulic jack to lift the top half and turn it into a livable space. The sleeping area was a convertible dinette in the front, with a small stove and a few simple kitchen amenities. I must have had help packing—most likely from my mom and Grandma Jane, making sure I had enough warm clothes for a seven-year-old’s first big adventure.
When you look back on childhood travel, distances feel much larger than they truly are. What seemed like an epic journey was, in reality, maybe an hour and a half’s drive.
I remember one stop clearly: a gas station at Wallula Gap. A vivid detail from that stop was Gramps allowing me to pick out a bag of candy for the trip—a rare bit of freedom and responsibility for me. In a moment of panic, I grabbed a bag of burnt peanuts. You might remember them—peanuts covered in a dark red, crunchy coating. That little bag of candy would play a key role later in the day.
I don’t remember the rest of the drive, but from research I’ve done since, I believe the campground we drove to was likely called Umatilla Forks, about 120 miles from their house on Dallas Street.
By the time we arrived, I had eaten nearly the entire bag of burnt peanuts and promptly threw them up all over the tailgate as we unpacked. I’m sure that, in his patient way, Gramps recognized that I had just learned an important life lesson about restraint.
Not long after, we walked down a well-worn path toward the Umatilla River—a river that, even today, feels more like a large stream.
I have a faint memory of us wading into the current, Grandpa Bud at my side, showing me the basics of how to cast. We were most likely fishing a “Humpy” on a size 8 hook—a clump of deer hair forming a buoyant fly that trout couldn’t resist.
With his help, we coaxed a fish to rise. A brightly colored eight-inch rainbow went onto a makeshift stringer cut from a willow branch. Something changed in me at that moment. I believe we caught another fish or two, adding to our small bounty.
As the afternoon faded, we made our way back up the path, elated. Along the way, we met a woman who admired our trout. “Who caught them?” she asked.
Full of pride, I said, “I did.”
She looked me straight in the eye and replied, “No you didn’t.”
In all my seven years, I had never been more insulted. I knew what I said was true. Puffing out my chest, I walked beside my grandpa, who said nothing—just smiled slightly as we made our way back to the camper.
I have no more clear memories from that trip, though I’m sure Grandma Jane, my mom, and dad all celebrated the accomplishment when we returned. That small victory set me on a lifelong path—a little too confident, perhaps, but forever captivated.
In just over a month, I’ll turn sixty-one. My memory of that trip, and what came after, are all part of a lifetime spent loving the challenge, focus, and beauty of casting a fly rod.
If that was my grandpa’s grand design, it worked.
