Document text
Woman lands rare spring catch By MARK FREEMAN After fishing guide Bill Urie barked to set the hook and the monofilament line went screaming out of her fishing reel, Pat Madsen assumed Tuesday that she had just picked a fight with a feisty upper Rogue River winter steelhead. Her husband had just caught a 10-pound steelhead in the same upper Rogue fishing hole moments before, and the fish that had just bitten her bait seemed to recreate that previous tug-of-war. But Madsen's fish swirled in an eddy, and Urie knew something was amiss. "When I got my first look at it, I thought, wow, this looks like a salmon," Urie says. "Then I saw the forked tail and said, that's a chinook." Moments later, Madsen boated the first spring chinook caught in the upper Rogue River this year -- a bright 18-pound male hauled in on 8-pound-test line. "What a treat," says Madsen, 64, a fishing tourist from Champaign, Ill. "I was beside myself," Madsen says. "I had no idea I could land it. But Bill talked me in. It was wonderful." Perhaps even more remarkable is that Madsen's story beat the tax man to the upper Rogue by four full days. A spring chinook caught in the upper Rogue by April 11 is a true rarity. And Madsen's success has even more astronomical odds when you consider that only 33 spring chinook had been counted over Gold Ray Dam through April 9. Madsen's spring chinook was caught at Paddigan's, a deep hole about 8 miles upstream of Gold Ray Dam -- or roughly a day's swim for a migrating chinook. Madsen's fish signals the start of the upper Rogue's spring chinook season. The annual spring chinook run is the crown jewel of the Rogue, producing more angling days and generating more income than any other sport-fishing season on the river. The springer run is prized because the fish are large, feisty and available to bank fishermen as well as those fishing from drift boats or power boats. Spring chinook fishing in the Rogue Valley typically starts in late April or early May and runs through July. The season halts July 31 so the wild salmon can spawn uninterrupted by anglers. In recent years, about three out of four Rogue springers over the dam are hatchery fish raised and released from Cole Rivers Fish Hatchery near Lost Creek dam. But the main component of this year's wild run was wiped out as eggs by the New Year's Day flood of 1997. The average spring chinook run is about 31,700 fish over Gold Ray Dam. This year's run is forecast to be 12,000-20,000 fish. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Mail Tribune � 2000 -- Medford, Oregon USA