Old Friends

A few months back, Mark Bachmann was at the store doing a tying presentation, signing his book, and telling stories. I told Mark we should figure out a day and go fish the Sandy like the old days. Well, sadly, that didn’t happen. When I saw him a few weeks ago at the tying expo in Albany, he said, “I thought you were going to take me fishing?” 

“Yes, I did. How about Monday the 25th?” I responded. I think Mark was a little shocked that I responded so quickly, and we put it on the books. The week of the trip, I called another one of our mutual friends, Eric Gunter, and invited him along as well. The 3 of us hadn’t fished together in quite a long time. This would be a great way for us all to catch up. 

As far as I’m concerned, Mark Bachmann is Winter Steelhead royalty and the Dean of the Sandy River. Add the fact that most of the Sandy River guides worked for him at one time or another, and you know he’s at the top of the food chain. 

Mark has fished the Sandy for a long time; he’s got a lot of stories and quite a few great memories. I feel fortunate to be part of a number of them. I started working for Mark at the Welches fly shop

In 2000. Over the years, I fished and guided the Sandy and the Deschutes with Mark a lot. I don’t know how many days we fished or how many fish we caught, but it was a lot. 

We all met up on Monday morning, bright and early. We saw Travis in the parking lot, and I knew we would also see Brian and Marty. All 4 of us worked and guided with Mark over the years. I thought Mark might enjoy seeing all of his smokes out in the wild. 

We were the first boat in the water and pushed away shortly after dark. We have a pretty good system between all of us. We’ve all been doing this together for a long time, so we work together pretty easily. Since I was the first in, I get the first choice of where to fish. We started at the Gauge. The river was around 2600 cfs, which is a great level. 

We kicked Eric out of the boat and set him to fishing, while Mark and I drank coffee and talked about the river and all of its intricacies. This is a conversation we've had 100 times, in one form or another. When Eric got to the bottom, I fished the tailout behind him. Neither one of us got a fish, but the day was young. 

We floated around a few different spots, looked at, and explored the river. We stopped in a run called Log Jam. This is a bouldery, deep wade. Again, we pushed Eric out and Mark, and I sat there and talked. I was watching Eric from the boat when he bent down and wound up for the hook set. He was probably only 20 casts into the run, and he was hooked up to a nice winter fish. I netted the fish and snapped a few pictures.

We made our way downriver, stopping and fishing Marks namesake run, Bachmann’s beach, then the Big Rock Hole, the Swimming Hole, My Run, and Diack.

The day was perfect, and it was wonderful to spend the day with these two great humans. Hopefully, we do this again before another 10 years go by. 

This reminds me that time doesn’t stand still, and we all get older. Don’t let the people who are important to you slip away.