To find other items in this riveting series, check here:

Fishing for Desert Natives – Preface
Fishing for Desert Natives – Day 1
Fishing for Desert Natives – Day 2

[The following 3 paragraphs should be read with your best Tennessee Tuxedo narrator voice (quick refresher on YouTube).]

When last we looked, our erstwhile heroes were escaping the marauding mosquitoes of Guano Creek…

The plan was to make it to the dumpy town, er, scratch that, quaint village of Frenchglen to get some gas before they closed. They wheeled in about 4:45, 15 minutes before closing time, thereby interrupting the young lass working the till in the general store/gas station from her web surfing, and she was really putout about it too (we’re confident she was reading another fascinating account of swashbuckling adventure on cutthroatstalker.com, which would certainly explain her hesitation to abandon the computer to help three smelly amigos covered with DEET, fish slime and that overall testosteroney scent of victory—if only she knew she were in fact waiting on the very swashbucklers themselves…)

Anyhow, after gassing up they headed to the campground on the Donner und Blitzen River. Which was only a 15 minute drive from the gas pumps (in other words, they could have not worried about hurrying to Frenchglen, taken more time at Guano and…, well, you know, do other stuff).

So begins a series of events that culminates some 30 hours later in the “Ascent of the Nauseous at 8500′.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

[End narrator’s voice here.]

The campground at the Blitzen River is fantastic—nice shady spots, grassy areas, clean pit toilets, tables, water: the full monty. And mosquitoes. Lots of them. Worse than at Guano Creek, if that can be imagined. And it wasn’t yet dusk, AKA “Time of the Mosquitoes.”

We had several hours of daylight left in which we could sit around camp swatting and slapping, waiting for nightfall so we could go to sleep, or head to the river and do a little fishing.

I’ve typically found that on most waters in the western US, if there are mosquito problems on shore, they can usually be avoided in the river, especially if it’s a fairly decent sized water. The Blitzen isn’t huge, but I’d guess a good 40′ wide there at camp. It seemed that it would be a sure bet as far as getting away from the mosquitoes. No such chance!

It wouldn’t have been so bad if we were getting into some fish, especially some fish with a little size to them. We hooked up with a couple of little guys, and I did have a 14″ or so fish roll on my fly and I hooked him momentarily, but that was it. We probably fished pretty hard until 8:45, by which time the mosquitoes were just insane.

We cooked up some down and dirty Mac & Cheese pasta with a cheddar sauce and some pan fried kielbasas. Washed down with a couple of Capri Sun juices (all three of us being teetotalers, there weren’t any nice microbrews or wines chilling somewhere for us—but if I were to become a drinking man, a couple of shots of tequila in that juice might have been a good inoculation against the tatting skeeters).

The quasi-bed was assembled and climbed into. Except Gary. He brought a large aluminum pole tent with him, but opted to sleep under the stars on a cot—crazy brave man!

I don’t know if I was thankful or upset about the non-seal-tight bungee job over the tailgate. Thankful because the self-respiring kielbasas were making an afterglow appearance and the tarp was well-aerated; or upset because the mosquitoes were finding every nook and cranny available to gain access for the incessant assault on the tired.

After some major tossing and turning and trying to breathe completely covered in my mummy bag, I must have drifted off to sleep, because sometime shortly after midnight I awoke with a start. My stomach wasn’t feeling too hot—kielbasa’s revenge? I also had a little panic attack.

Last year, when camping in a very small trailer, on a bottom bunk with the top bunk mere centimeters from my nose (Ok, it was probably a good 50 cm from my nose), in a very dark location, I awoke in the middle of the night with a major case of claustrophobia. Which is odd, because I had never experienced anything remotely like it in my life. But I felt like I was suffocating. Since then I have had a couple of minor psychosomatic recurrences.

This night was one of those times, but it was quite small and I think it was more nausea than claustrophobia. I tried turning my head to the end of the truck to get a little more fresh air, but that wasn’t doing it. I would have to get out and visit the john. So I awoke Dan and did “the worm” out the truck and ambled dashed off to the loo.

Somewhat relieved, I moseyed back to the truck, and being the thoughtful guy I am, not wanting to bother Dan again, self-serving wuss I am, figured there would be fewer mosquitoes in there, I hopped in the cab. There I spent the next several hours trying to fall asleep. In the last couple of years, my right hip and knee have started to bother me when I use them a lot or have to sit in a cramped position. In the previous two days we had done a lot of walking and sitting in the truck. Needless to say, my leg was not feeling so good.

Around 5:00 I could take it no longer and needed to get a little sleep. I went ahead and bothered Dan and crawled back in my sleeping bag. Where I dodged and slapped dive-bombing mosquitoes for an hour or so between fitful bouts of almost sleep. I finally pulled the sleeping bag off and decided to get up. But not before looking at the ceiling of the shell. I wish I had the camera. Take your mind back to Day 2’s picture of Dan’s mosquito shirt. Now picture that on the inside of the shell. Dan also showed off his elbow which must have been left out of the sleeping bag because it had at least a dozen puncture wounds in a 2″ x 2″ area.

Gary apparently slept as well as we did.

We hurried and made some breakfast and packed and got out of there.

Day 3’s original plan was to visit Coyote Basin, specifically Willow Creek, the best publicly accessible place to fish for the Willow/Whitehorse Lahontan cutthroat trout. These are some of the least studied cutthroat around. It is believed they originally came from the same stock as the Quinn River Lahontans of the Lahontan Basin during the Pleistocene epoch.

At some point in time some of these cutthroat were introduced into Guano Creek, but later plantings of other strains of Lahontans into Guano have probably bred out any purity of the Willow/Whitehorse strain.

Other trout have not been stocked in the Coyote Basin, thereby leaving the Willow/Whitehorse strain genetically pure, making it a very small and unique population. However, they have not been scientifically named or “officially” recognized as a separate subspecies.

We thought this would be a great opportunity to fish for these rare cutthroat.

The plan was to leave Gary who would be picked up shortly by his father and sister (see Gary’s blog for the events that actually unfolded for him). Dan and I would proceed to Willow Creek and Gary would try and meet up with us there.

The trip through the desert was not too long. We continually wondered what type of person would willingly live in such a place. But live there they do. Not many, but every so often there would be a house or a long-vacated homestead precariously situated in the drought-prone vastness of southeastern Oregon.

I tried catching a few winks of sleep here and there, but the hip was bothering me. And, I had noticed During Day 2, an uncomfortable chafing of the nether regions had cropped up. And the nausea lingered in the background. So I spent my time in the cab squirming about looking for a comfortable position.

After a slight miscue and overshooting of the turnoff we needed (thanks to Gary for telling us that if we made it to the Whitehorse Ranch, we went too far—we did), we found the road and made our way south for several miles until we found the thread of green winding through the sage.

After following the creek for a few miles we came to some bluffs and decided to get out and try our luck. As usual, Dan was on the water while I was still putzing around. Of course, within minutes, he hollered out that he caught one. I made my way to the water and hobbled (knee, hip and crotch combo) around for an hour or so without any luck. Dan didn’t have any luck either. In fact, we didn’t even see fish, let alone cast to any.

I was too tired, sore, and overall feeling crappy to be excited about carrying on any farther. So I headed back to the truck to get some rest. When I was a little ways away from Dan, he hollered out that he saw a fish. But even that didn’t get me interested in turning back to the creek.

This area had a fair amount of volcanic activity at one time, and obsidian chunks and chips were scattered about. I was keeping my eyes on the ground looking for nice specimens, or possibly even worked pieces. As I neared the truck, I caught a glimpse of something about four feet ahead of me. It moved. And rattled.

It was a nice, thick rattlesnake. About four feet long, but fairly girthy. My next actions, which I can only blame on a tired, fevered mind, are rather odd. I picked up a rock and tossed it at the critter as it slithered away. And then I tossed another one, chasing it away from the truck. Now, if my camera was with me (Dan took the camera when we separated ways), I would have probably been thinking more clearly. But by the time it came to me, and I went to the truck and retrieved another camera, and returned to the last known location of the snake, it was gone.

So I slept a little. And took a couple of notes about the trip up to that point. And did a little reading. And had a sandwich. And waited for Dan.

When Dan returned he had pictures of three more fish he caught, some which were nice specimens. But at that point I really couldn’t muster up too much disappointment about my not catching any of those rare Lahontans myself. Now, on further reflection, it would be nice to someday make it back there and catch one. (I know Dan, I said at the time that any Lahontan is like any other Lahontan, and I’d already caught a Lahontan; but you’re right, those are some special fish.)

We headed east out of Coyote Basin. Our original plans for day 3 involved fishing The Blitzen in the morning, Willow Creek in the afternoon, then making it as close to Winnemucca as we could and find a place to pitch camp for the night. But, since we didn’t fish The Blitzen, we were quite a bit ahead of schedule. So we plucked up the gumption to make a long drive and get to the Jarbidge area to camp that night: 360 miles, the first 30 and last 75 on unimproved dirt roads. We figured it would be a minimum eight hour drive. It was around noon, so we needed to hurry.

We zipped south down Hwy 95, entered Nevada then stopped to make some sandwiches. Then we continued south until we got to Winnemucca. From there it was east along I-80 until we got to the little hamlet of Deeth (a couple of houses). We’d picked up a roadmap of Nevada earlier (I had also printed out Google maps of each area we were fishing in). The Nevada roadmap showed us the turnoff we needed to take to approach Jarbidge from the back (south) way. But the roadmap labeled the exit wrong (it labeled an overpass as a turnoff, complete with the overpass’ mile marker. After a 15 minute delay sorting things out and U-turning in an “official turnaround only” place, we were on the road to Jarbidge.

And it was getting late. And it was getting dark. And my stomach wasn’t feeling well. And the dirt road had some wet spots from rain. And there were clouds on the horizon. And Dan’s 4 wheel drive was not working.

The idea was to camp somewhere in those mountains and hit Jarbidge in the morning to fish. But as we pushed ever onward, it seemed like a better idea would be to try and get a room in Jarbidge for the night. Based on the previous night’s experience, it seemed like a phenomenal idea to me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m the one who made. In fact, truth be told, I said to Dan that if we made it to Jarbidge, I’d pay the entire bill for staying the night.

The road was not too bad the first 20 miles or so, just dips and a few curves. But as we continued on, it became a little slower going because of the condition of the dirt (not too bad for the most part) and more curves. Did I mention somewhere that I get motion sickness? Well, the Jarbidge road from the south is a pretty good motion-sickness-inducer.

It was turning a bit dark, and the road was beginning to climb. We could see the looming mountains all around that we knew we needed to get through to make it to Jarbidge. The tallest peak in the area, the Matterhorn (that should give you some clue as to the terrain we were driving toward), peaks out around 10,700′. My Google terrain map showed we would be driving well over the 7000′ marker for a fair distance.

It was a dark and stormy night (gee, that seems so familiar somehow). My head felt like it would spin off at any moment. My stomach was lurching with each dip and turn. By then I was ready to abandon the idea of making it to Jarbidge (anyhow, what town would have a motel room available to somebody rolling in after 10:00PM, I reasoned with myself). I told Dan that it didn’t matter to me, that I would gut it out and sleep anywhere he wanted. No, no, he insisted, we can press on.

The road continued to climb. It was a narrow thing, with plenty of twists. As we neared 8000′, the road hugged the side of the mountain with a steep dropoff of several hundred feet along the driver’s side. For some reason, Dan seemed obsessed with the appearance of some lakes he could see below us. I believed he was paying more attention to the lakes than the road. And I let him know, quite often, that his eyes should stay on the road. Sorry Dan, having a nagging “wife”-fishing buddy is entirely uncalled for, I apologize and blame it on the nausea-induced stupor, motion sickness, altitude sickness, homesickness, Tourettes, crotch rot, etc. Even though it began to rain and you had to drive through small washouts in the steep and dangerous road, all the while staring into the depths of the ravines wondering about some nonexistent lakes, I’m not bitter.

We finally made it to a sign that said “Bear Creek Summit, 8448′. It was in a little saddle of the mountains with no gaping precipices on either side of the road. I again suggested to Dan that we could pull off and sleep there. We sallied forth.

But I needn’t have worried, it took  a mere 6 miles to drop over 2200′ in elevation, and we were in Jarbidge in a mighty heave the blink of an eye. The dark, closed up, after 10:15 town of Jarbidge. But oh, wonder of wonders, a glowing light, beckoning the weary traveler with “Outdoor Inn – slots pool booze grub rooms”: five of the six essentials of the food dude pyramid (being Nevada, I was wondering where the reference to the womanly aspects of life, the sixth essential, were, oh well).

We stopped. I stepped out of the truck, darn near fell over, and promptly got back in to nurse my non-alcohol-induced hangover. Dan went in and secured a room at the Barn Hotel for $35.

And there a heavenly rest was enjoyed by all.

Afterword There you have it, the ramblings of a hypochondriac geezer in the making: bad knees; bad hip; motion sickness; claustrophobia; weak stomach; crotch rashes. Somebody put this wretch out of his misery!

---

One clear sign I wasn’t up to par on this day is the lack of photographs taken: