By Stephen C. Schultz The clouds were wispy and white…threadlike with the texture of a painter’s stroke. There was an almost imperceptible dull roar in the background of birds chirping and rustling leaves. When walking through the underbrush of the Western Oregon temperate rain forest, you become dependent upon your sense of hearing and pay close attention to every sound. The gold spotted Thomas Lure at the end of my pole six feet in front of me was bouncing up and down, spinning around and generally getting as tangled as physically possible. The barbed hooks on the lure managed to pierce every fern along the ground and grab every swooping cedar limb above my head. For a nine year old, taking ten minutes to go ten steps seemed like an eternity. Having to focus on each step directly in front of me as well as the end of the pole six feet out was a skill only those champions of “Wack-A-Mole” could appreciate…and I was not a champion! The goal of this adventure was a riv...
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