I have been rereading an autobiography of Ira Yeager, who was very possibly the first white man to fish steelhead in the Skagit. The following are some quotes from his book that really blew me away.

“My first trip on the Skagit in a boat, we had the girls take us up river to Hamilton. Then they took the trailer down to Lyman. We put the boat in the water and were going to drift down from there. Well these two guys were baiting while we rowed across the river. Before I had the boat anchored these guy were casting. They were real eager beavers, and they both had fish jumping I picked up my rod and threw out there too. I shouldn't have done it. Jesus there was one on mine. What you should do is play it safe, and when there's two fish on, the third guy waits and does the netting. That went on for two hours until we had twenty two steelhead in the bottom of the boat. I guess the limit was about three or four, but there was no game warded and no law. It got almost dark and they were still biting furiously. We never lifted the anchor once until we were ready to go."

Later he complained that the fishing in the Skagit had gone to hell. Go figure.

Dave, what is the name of that book, I'd like to read it. Thanks,

Recollections of a Sportsaman by Ira yeager

Thanks for reminding me of that wonderful interview you did a few years back. One of my favorite lines were something like " there were fish jumping all over hell "or something like like that as I recall. Awesome article! Now you got me diggin!

how bout the hoh article in the new sts... 30,000-60,000 wild steelhead in the hoh, and now we scrape to make 2,400.... man I wish I was born 100 years ago...

Ya but a hundred years ago g loomis and lamiglass fishing poles werent envinted. Must have been a lot harder to catch them without high modulus graphite rods.

When I interviewed Ira I asked him what was the biggest improvment in tackle in his lifetime. Without hesitation he said nylon line. Before that they use gut that had to be soaked the night before and even then didn't cast well. Even so he averaged nine steelhead a day.

I would prefer a river full of fish and poor gear to the best gear in the world on a dead river.

The importance of this kind of first hand historical information can not be ignored. Our elders, and theirs before them, all saw better days for the fish and for fishing. Many older people I have spoken withheree remember the huge wild run Sol Duc river steelhead that used to return to the Olympic Peninsula every autumn. Those fish runs are gone now. And they talk about the king salmon they used to catch, huge wild run fish, only a remnant remains of them today. They tell me that they used to catch 3 pound sea run cutthroat on the beaches almost every sunday that they went out to fish for them. As our elders pass away they take their unique personal history with them. And so the following generations have no clue that they are fighting over the last fish.

When we look at the status of our regional wild steelhead and salmon today, in numbers and distribution, and we compare this data to the historical facts, it is pretty damned hard to justify catch & release, much less any continued harvest. Maybe we should stop fishing and put our energies into saving the last of them, if not for us then for our children and grandchildren and the future. Seriously, what has to happen for us to take a courageous step and insist that the fish be restored? As it stands the arguments over who does the most harm, who kills the most fish etc, are endless- and no one changes their behavior or gives anything up for the sake of the fish. The management steps have not kept pace with the collapse of our wild fish. Only a radical and courageous action by citizen anglers and the public will can save them now. I seriously doubt that the sportsfishing community has the guts to do it, though I have no doubt that we have the power to do it. If all we ever talk about or go into action over is allotments then the fish are doomed.

Well said!
Human nature very rarely allows people to take responsiblity for their actions while in progress. Me included. It is only after the fact that there is a reaction and results vary in measured levels of success, but you almost never end up with what you started with no matter how hard you try.

The skagit is my home river, I have success because I am on it all the time, but most guys that fish the skagit don't have success... It's cool to hear stories of what it used to be , but sad at the same time realizing the skagit was arguably the 'best steelhead river' anywhere. From most old timers I've talked to it seems it really went dowhill after the bold decision. I read an article by someone researching what historical numbers used to be and the stilliquamish river potentially had 90,000 steelhead a year spawing in it..

this thread makes me remember what the chehalis river was like 30 40 years a go. i remember 20 steelhead played a day and the chehalis was always the number 2 river in the state for steelhead with the skagit number 1.

Not trying to start an argument here but ira was of the opinion the river went to hell well before Boldt. A quick quote " The Baker was quite a little srteam . . .well the dam ended all the steelhead for that branch. . Then within a few years they dammed the whole Skagit , no ladders. The Skagit was considered the greatetr steelehad river in the world. The Nooksack was considered pretty good. Now they are both dead. "

That was written some time before 1985.

Hard to disagree with that!

Bob, my fear is that without an angling community there won't be anyone who cares enough about the fish to save them...out of sight, out of mind...out of fish.

Fish on...

Todd

Dave,
that's probably true, I wasn't alive when the Boltd decision was made, I do wonder how many fish spawned in the Baker and in the upper skagit in Canada.
Ryan

Man, good luck finding that book. Even in Bellingham where Ira is from they don't have it at the library. I found it on ebay for $44 dollars; a bit rich for my reading pleasure although I would love to read the book. On another note, I've heard from a few sources that Salmon and Steelhead never did go above where the dam is located. I guess it was just to tough for them to fight the tight canyon that the dam is located in. Although, I heard the same story about the South Fork of the Nooksack where the natural falls is located and I've gotten Steelhead above it. Of course that was years ago when you could still fish that area.

I used to fish the Skagit as a kid on my lunch breaks when I was working at Fulton's Bike and Mower in Mount Vernon on the West Side. I'd take my lunch break and peddle like hell (I'm a kid - it's a bicycle - give me a break) to the guy on Baker Street that sold nightcrawlers. I'd proceed to Young's Bar with my dozen big fat nightcrawlers. I wouild rig my trusty yellow 6 1/2 foot fiberglass Wright & McGill spinning rod/Mitchell 300 combo with a worm and cast out. I fully expected and would catch at least one and many times two steelhead before packing up and returning to work. Sometimes I'd get a bonus 22"+ cutthroat to go along with the steelies. All this occurred in the span of thirty or so minutes. I'd pack em on ice and give my dad a call to come and get them when I got back to work. - Circa 1971

It never occured to me at the time that this fishery would go away. There were just too many fish. It did change significantly after the Boldt decision but it wasn't entirely the Boldt decision. In the mid 70's timber cutting all the way to the banks of the Skagit and numerous tributaries from the Day Creek area up resulted in massive silt laiden runoffs that turned the river brown during heavy rains. Within two or three years after the Boldt decision the native tribe's started stretch netting the Skagit just above the affluance of the North and South forks completely cutting off the fish. As anyone who's fished that area knows, when the nets went in the fishing basically went flat. By the late 70's, early 80's the fishing was in significant decline. That's were we sit today. In the early 90's, side-drifting from a sled I could still catch 4-6 fish in a day. The last time I fished the Skagit in 2006 I was down to 1 or 2 fish a day on average for the Feb-April run.

My opinion of course but I think we may have crossed the tipping point in the mid to late 90's on the Skagit. Even if the tribes quit netting, and we quit fishing I'm not sure there are enough fish to resurrect the run because mother nature has been throwing a lot of curve balls lately with flooding and completely unstable river levels.

Looking at the Skagit I see many reasons why the river no longer produces even close to historical numbers. Very rarely is there ever just one problem. Dams, The Boldt Decision, Sport Harvest, Logging, massive hatchery plants, and the major diking of the lower river. All of these man made problems have no doubt had a major impact in the survival of Skagit Steelhead. These fish survived through whatever Mother Nature threw at them. It wasn't until man stepped in that the fish started there downward spiral.

Dave: That is a great Book, Ira was a very great fisherman.
Where can I find your interview with Ira ?

You might also enjoy the book on Buzz Fiorini's life as well " Flying over Rainbows" if you have not already read it.























Ira was the first Guide on the Skagit but there were other's that fished for Steelhead first.
This was before anyone even knew what a Steelhead was.
Mr. Frank Wilkeson probably caught one or two of these 8 years before Ira was born.

I will let Frank tell you in his own words.

Humpback salmon are spawning
By Frank Wilkeson, town of Hamilton
This article originally appeared in the New York Times on May 15, 1892
With his fishing-buddies Ike Morrell and Theo P. Ladue

When the humpback salmon were spawning
A long fight with a big bull trout
The hoodoo dog-Ike's theory that the fish bite by the eye and not by scent
"Humpback salmon are spawning." Such was the body of a telegram that a young friend of mine who lives in the Skagit Valley sent me late in September last.
That terse message was weighty with meaning. It caused me to buy hooks, carefully to test leaders and lines, and to buy an extra large creel. "Humpback salmon are spawning." That fact indicated that the Skagit River was full of those ungainly fish, that they were spawning on the gravel bars, and that they had entered every creek and slough in countless numbers, to spawn and to die by the thousand. In addition, the message told me that bull and silver and mountain and river trout were swarming after the salmon, possessed of the sweet intention to eat every egg they laid.
During the time of salmon spawning, or running, the large trout that make their home in the cold water of the Skagit River will not rise to gaudy-colored or sober-hued flies, it matters not how skillfully they are cast. They prefer salmon eggs to any other food. The trout eat salmon eggs for breakfast, for luncheon, for dinner, for supper, and for between-meal snacks. These trout are large, powerful, active, and dead-game fish. They fulfill their mission on earth, or, more properly, in the water, by keeping the number of salmon within reasonable bounds.
The deadliest bait that can be cast into a trout stream or lake, it matters not the water or variety of trout, is salmon eggs. The trout does not swim in Western Washington waters that can resist this bait. To illustrate the point I desire to bring out plainly, I instance a trout that I caught one day. I had thrown a hook that was baited with salmon eggs into an eddy and as close to the rapid current as possible. A powerful fish struck it. After a delightful fight of five minutes I landed a bull trout that was nineteen inches long. Catching him firmly in the gills with thumb and index finger of my left hand, I held him preparatory to extracting the hook. Projecting an inch beyond his sharp-toothed jaws was the tail of a trout that was four inches long. I drew the small trout out of the large fish. Its head and body were half digested. The large bull trout, though its stomach was filled to its utmost capacity, could not resist attempting to swallow salmon eggs.
Hamilton jumpoff point
I arrived at a little village in the Skagit Valley in the evening following the day on which I received the telegram that is the initial sentence of this article. Theo, young in years, but old in casting trout lines, and good fellow, too, met me at the station [Hamilton railroad depot], and together we walked to his office. Arrived there, he said, as he opened a sixteen-pound creel, "I thought I would keep the large fish of my afternoon's catch to show you." He spread a newspaper on the counter and emptied the creel and arranged the fish side by side. There were nine trout of three varieties. The largest trout was twenty inches long, the smallest sixteen inches. They were hard, fat fish. Theo told of the catching and when he had finished talking descriptively, he added: "Now, you have but two days to spend here. To-morrow morning early we will get Ike-one of my neighbors when I am in the Skagit Valley, and a most expert fisherman, but prone to make uncalled-for, if not unwise, experiments in matters relating to bait-"to join us, and we three will kill two score of these ravenous river trout. We will fill that creel"-Theo pointed at a thirty-pound creel that I had bought especially for this trip-"with large trout, cleaned and headless trout, mind you, and you can take them to Fairhaven to show to the boys." By boys he meant a certain group of merchants and bankers and real-estate brokers. Boys, indeed! Not one of the group is under forty-five years. But so lightly and disrespectfully does Pacific Coast youth speak of rotund or arid or rusty-jointed age. [Ed. noteWe have researched and identified Frank's fishing buddies, Ike Morrell and Theo P. Ladue. Read about them in this Journal capsule-biography webpage about Hamilton pioneers. Like Frank, Theo was a town boomer; Ike was a farmer from Tennessee, and we cannot yet find anything about Dan.]
That night when our pipes were glowing after a rubber of whist, Ike and Theo told of the fishing of the previous week, and recklessly prophesied of the morrow. Presently a most unpleasant discussion arose between them-unpleasant, because Ike is given to profanity when excited. Ike had asserted that the trout would take fresh beef as freely as they did salmon eggs if it was cut into the proper shape. Theo held that the trout could see but little in the milky, glacial water, and that they were guided to the eggs by scent, and that sight had nothing at all to do with the matter. The discussion waxed warm, as discussions between fishermen are apt to do. Finally, Ike said sharply: "If I use beef for bait to-morrow, and catch as many trout as you do, or as Frank does, will you acknowledge that Skagit River trout bite by eye and not by scent?" and he added, sneeringly, "Just as though a fish could smell." "Yes." answered Theo. "And fish can smell their food." "You are wrong, Ike," I said. "I am right, and I will prove it to-morrow," he said savagely, and he left us.
We prove to Ike about a fish's sense of smell Early next morning, after a breakfast of broiled trout and ruffed grouse, we three shouldered our creels, and, rod in hand, walked slowly through the sleeping village. In the town we met Dan, a carpenter who had much rather fish and hunt than to drive nails and saw tough fir boards. His eyes lighted with pleasure when he saw us. He abandoned his purpose to work. He put away his tools and joined us. Besides carrying a rod he had a gun, and his dog-a famous grouse dog-accompanied him. We four walked slowly along the riverbank trail toward an eddy, known as the Maple Log Eddy, so called because a maple log juts into it. When we were about half way to the eddy Theo called our attention to a small, misshapen black dog, with an exceedingly curly tail, that ran in the trail about a hundred yards ahead of us. None of us knew this dog. He had appeared mysteriously, as though he had sprung out of the earth. My heart grew heavy. "Hold on, boys," I said as I seated myself on a cedar log. "Hold on," I repeated, and I added solemnly as my comrades ceased to walk: "I know every dog that lives in this town, and I am up in all things that relate to hoodoos. That black dog does not belong here. He is not a dog at all. He is a hoodoo. If we cannot rid ourselves of him we may as well go home. We will catch no fish if he accompanies us. He is an evil-minded hoodoo."
My three comrades looked earnestly at the dog-like animal through anger-lighted eyes, and almost instantly they agreed that it was imperative to drive the hoodoo away. We spent half an hour in separating him from Dan's honest dog, then stoned him and threw clubs at him, and derided him till he disappeared from the village. A hoodoo? Of course he was. In less than three minutes after we had rid ourselves of the uncanny animal Dan shot two ruffed grouse that his dog had treed.
Arrived at the eddy, we began to fish, Ike and I seated on the maple log, Theo and Dan seated on the riverbank. My rod and line ready, I baited the hook with salmon eggs. Ike contemptuously refused to use my eggs. He drew a large piece of rough, raw beef from his pocket and baited his hook with a small portion of it. He laughed the laugh indicative of supreme scorn when I mildly suggested to him that he was exhibiting about as much intelligence as a fog possesses in attempting to catch trout with beef when salmon eggs were being used above and below him. I cast my bait close to the current of the rapidly flowing stream and allowed it to sink to the bottom. Almost instantly a trout struck, and struck heavily. A turn of my wrist drove the hook firmly into the fish's mouth. Rising to my feet, I began to play my trout. I instantly realized that I had hooked a fish that was going to make trouble. He was very strong. I could not raise him. Persistently he sought bottom, which method of fighting indicated that he was a bull trout. The light rod bent and swayed to and fro and throbbed strongly as the furious fish circled, unseen by us, in the milky water.
"Give me room, Ike! Get your line out of the pool!" I exclaimed in a double-barreled sentence, as my trout swam faster and faster in a circle and fought desperately against coming to the surface. Suddenly the angry or frightened trout rose close to the surface and I saw him quite distinctly through the cloudy water. He was too large, I feared, for me successfully to handle him in a pool of so limited area. There were submerged logs and brush in various portions of the pool. To allow the trout to enter these encumbered areas would be to lose him. If I gave him line in answer to his imperative demand, and the fish entered the river, the strength of the current, added to his own, would aid him to break my tackle. I stood irresolute, with the throbbing, creaking rod bent as a half hoop in my hand.
"Give him line, Frank. He will break your rod else. Let him enter the river. You may be able to sweep him to the bank," shouted Theo, who was watching the struggle through blazing eyes. I lifted my thumb from the reel when the fish next approached the current. The trout dashed into the rapidly flowing water. The reel sang shrilly. Fifty yards of line ran out and stretched diagonally from me down the river. I added my thumb to the restraining pressure of click and drag. Ten yards more line rolled off, then ten more, then seventy yards of fine silk line stretched from me to the fish that was in the most rapid portion of the current. Eighty yards of line out and my pole creaked warningly.
"No use," I muttered, and set my thumb hard against the reel as I dropped the tip of the rod to the water. I meant to let the force of the current swing my trout to the riverbank. Snap! The tip of the rod flew up. The largest bull trout I ever saw had been lost. Looking behind me, I saw the small, misshapen, bow-legged black dog sitting on the bank above me-sitting with lolling red tongue and cocked head, and looking directly at me through evil eyes, as though to say, "I am after you, old boy." Ah, the cursed hoodoo!
"Look on the bank!" I exclaimed to my comrades. They looked upward. Four rods were carefully laid down, and four men stoned the hoodoo yelping from the river and into final disappearance. I lost no more fish that day. But I had lost a new double leader and twenty yards of silk line, and the king of the bull trout.
Bull trout and river trout
After the wicked hoodoo disappeared the fishing was excellent. There were two varieties of trout that afforded rare sport. They were bull trout and river trout. The former were the most powerful, but they were deep-water fighters, and never broke water till they were well nigh exhausted. The latter were more active, equally large, but were not as strong as the bull trout, but they broke water the instant the hook pricked them, and they remained out of the water almost continuously, leaping high, and shaking their heads furiously the while until landed.
When I had caught ten large trout and about twenty small ones that ranged from 8 to 14 inches long, I filled and lighted a pipe and laid my catch side by side on the cool grass that grew on the river's bank. Theo joined me, and together we looked at the trout through pleasure-lighted eyes.
"How many kind of trout have you, Frank?" Theo asked.
"Two," I replied.
Theo placed two of the large river trout side by side. They were precisely similar in marking. Then he spread their tails widely and looked significantly at me and asked, "Are those two the same kind?"
I looked attentively at them and saw that one had a squaretail and the tail of the other was forked, and I replied, "No," and added, "I do not know the name of these trout, do you?"
"No," he replied; "they are precisely similar in marking and in shape, save their tails. They are dead game. We will call them river trout. And we did and do.
Hours had passed. The sun was at its height, and Ike, the advocate of the absurd theory that trout bite by eye and not by scent, had not caught a fish. He had whittled scores of bait from his chunk of beef. He had dulled all the blades of his pocketknife in cunningly attempting to shape raw beef into resemblance of salmon eggs. During the first two hours of his whittling and alleged fishing his slight frame had been shaken at short intervals by furious gusts of passionate and denunciatory profanity, this whenever our lines began to circle and the rods to bow and large trout leaped high above the milky water. Ike's feelings presently became so intense that he could not express them vocally. He huddled into a silent lump. He seemed to grow smaller and smaller. His hair and whiskers hung limp. He cut beef-baits dejectedly, and cast the water-soaked and whitened baits into the pool with a motion of his hand that was indicative of supreme mental anguish. So sorrowful did he appear that we forbore to chaff him.
Salmon crowded into the pool to rest from their struggle against the strong current. They ruined the trout fishing. They took bait and swam directly into current the instant the hook pricked them. There, aided by the strength of the water, they broke hooks or lines or leaders. They were so numerous in the eddy that if we missed a strike at a biting trout the hook frequently entered the side or belly of a resting salmon. When we hooked a trout and the line circled, we repeatedly felt it strike salmon. I lost three hooks in succession and then quit fishing. It was a little after noon.
"Here, boys," I exclaimed, "this is not what we came out for. We are not rigged for salmon fishing. Let's go to the logjam and eat luncheon. There is no eddy there, no slack water, and these powerful salmon will not trouble us there."
"It's a whizz," said Dan and Theo as one fisherman.
"Hanged if I leave this eddy till I catch a trout with beef bait," said Ike, resolutely. And he visibly contracted before our sorrow-laden eyes. Sorrow-laden because we all loved Ike, the hot-tempered and explosive. We bade him a loving farewell, and attempted to cheer him with kindly remarks that caused a volcanic eruption of lurid profanity. We hastened away.
At the logjam we had the best of fishing, we caught trout after trout. About one in four was over sixteen inches long. Theo caught a bull trout that was twenty-two inches long. That was the largest trout caught. After fishing at the logjam for two hours I ventured to return to Ike and the maple log. Seated by the side of the advocate of fresh-beef bait I quickly caught two small silver salmon, which caused my comrade to sigh heavily, and to whittle new baits.
Spawning Humpback salmon
At short intervals dead humpbacked salmon floated down the river. Weak, worn-out fish tried to ascend the river and were swept back, turning over and over the while. Many of the salmon were torn, and large holes had been worn through their skins and deep into their flesh. Many dead salmon lay along the water-washed edges of gravel bars. It was evident that the run of humpbacks was approaching its end. About 3 o'clock Ike broke the silence, saying: "Look across the river at the riffle. A salmon fresh from the sea is mounting it." I looked in the indicated direction and saw the water rise from the head of a salmon as water from the bow of a rapidly moving sailboat. As I gazed I saw the water at the foot of the riffle boil whitely. Steadily and rapidly the foamy line that extended clear across the riffle moved up the river. "The head of the run of Chinook or Tyee, or jack salmon has arrived. They are welcome. I am tired of seeing these loathsome humpbacks," said Ike. From 3 o'clock till we quit fishing at 5:30 there were never less than 100 salmon swimming up the riffle at the same time, and frequently the whole area of the riffle was spray-coated, and countless, ever-changing, and tiny rainbows formed above the migratory fish as they hurried to their spawning ground. The spectacle impressed me strongly.
When the sun had sunk low toward the fir-clad divide that bounds the valley to the north a heavy pull on my line told me that I had struck a fish. I felt of him carefully. He broke water. It was a small silver salmon that weighed three and a half pounds. Then I caught a baby salmon that weighed a pound. My creel was packed full of dressed and headless fish. I reeled my line, unjointed my rod, and as I slipped it into its cover I said to Ike: "Let's call it a day and quit."
Slowly Ike rose. Silently he unjointed his rod, then turning to me he said, earnestly: "Skunked for the first time in my life." He clambered up the riverbank, and slowly walked along the trail toward home.
Theo and Dan joined me. Their creels were full. We emptied all the creels on the cool, damp grass. There were thirty-nine large trout and a peck of smaller fish, and in addition two long strings of trout. The thirty-nine large trout, headless and cleaned, filled a thirty-pound and a sixteen-pound creel. Take it all in all, it was the most enjoyable day's trout fishing I had had on the Pacific coast. Heavily laden and weary, we walked slowly home. Ike did not appear at the whist table that night. He was crushed.
After supper, when our pipes were glowing brightly, we opened the back door of the office and drew our chairs close to it to listen to the mysterious sounds made by the river as the water boiled and swirled as it hurried to the sea. At short intervals we heard the loud splash, splash, made by jumping salmon as they fell into the water, above which they had sprung high in playful leaps. Lowly, as though fearful to frighten the fish, Theo said: "The river is crowded with the fresh run. They are active, powerful fish. To-morrow we will try our salmon rods, and we will explode the absurd theory that salmon will not rise to flies or take bait after they enter the rivers of the Pacific coast." And we did.

Frank Wilkeson

[quote=ramrodncf]Dave: That is a great Book, Ira was a very great fisherman.
Where can I find your interview with Ira ?



You might also enjoy the book on Buzz Fiorini's life as well " Flying over Rainbows" if you have not already read it.

I will post it here in case anyone wants to read it.


Ira Yeager Sport Fishing Pioneer
By Dave Vedder

In 1904, when he was only four years old Ira Yeager ‘s family moved once again. Their travels took them from Illinois to Montana and finally to Bellingham Washington, always searching for steady work and a decent wage. In Bellingham opportunities seemed unlimited. Virgin forests carpeted the nearby hills, promising work for loggers in more than twenty nearby camps. Huge runs of salmon brought commercial fishermen and canneries that processed salmon by the millions on assembly lines that clattered day and night.

Ira’s dad liked to fish the local streams whenever he got a bit of time off. “My dad or grandad would take me out there once in a while to fish those little streams. They had some pretty nice trout in them, in those days. We had bamboo rods, about nine feet long with an inexpensive fly reel and inexpensive fly line. Later on we fished off the dock at Lake Whatcom for what they call silvers - kokanee you know.” Sometimes they would take the buggy as far as the Nooksack near Lyndon for cutthroat trout and dolly varden. In the fall all the small creeks were full of salmon. Ira and the other kids would stop on the way home from school to try to catch the spawning salmon.

At the tender age of eleven, Ira went to work at the Pacific American Fisheries mill on the south side of town. Twenty-four conveyor belts fed salmon to the mostly Chinese workforce, who gutted, cut and canned the fish as fast as their hands could fly. The plant often took in more fish than they could process. When the lines couldn’t keep up, the fish were barged out into the bay and dumped or the fish were sold to a fertilizer plant. By 1915 the runs were falling of and some of the processors closed.

When Ira was 18, the family opened a small furniture store. In 1922 Ira bought his first outboard motor, a twenty horse Evinrude, for a hundred and fifty dollars. That purchase established Ira as the first Evinrude dealer in Whatcom Country. Today Yeager’s is the oldest Evinrude dealer in America.

As a young man Ira fished steelhead in the Nooksack. He seldom had any trouble taking a three-fish limit. One April day Ira decided to try the Skagit. He went to Lyman and talked to the butcher who seemed to be the only guy around who fished for steelehad. He gave Ira a skein of fresh eggs and told him where to try. The next day Ira took his girlfriend Marie and her sister- in -law Margarite to small ferry that crossed the Skagit. From there they walked a half mile to the spot the butcher recommended. Ira rigged rods for the girls with single eggs to fish for trout. Ira hiked downstream a bit and tossed in a fresh egg cluster. ”That line didn’t get ten feet and it stopped. My old pole was sagging like a small alligator had ahold of it. I set the hook and it began jumping like hell. I landed an eighteen-pound hen that had two skeins of eggs that must have weighed two pounds. That was my first cast in the Skagit.” Meanwhile, the girls were hollering for Ira to bring the gaff. Steelhead were hitting trout gear and breaking off. By day’s end Ira had seven fish on the bank and released several more. He knew he had found steelehad heaven and wondered how good the fishing might be if he had a boat. He soon found out.


A few weeks later he and two friends launched a small skiff at Hamilton. The plan was to drift down to Lyman fishing all the good-looking water. Before Ira could row to the far side, his buddies both had fish on. Ira dropped the anchor and made a cast. Immediately he too had a steelhead. The action went on non stop for three hours until they had twenty-two steelhead in the bottom of the skiff. They never did move the boat. When they got back to Hamilton, a few locals saw all the fish and got excited. “Jesus the next thing you know everybody was grabbing a cane pole and headed to the Skagit, fishing for steelhead. That set it off. We were lucky to have those fish. It was the sport of kings you know”

For years Ira and a few friends were the only ones to fish steelhead in the Skagit. As word leaked to Seattle anglers Ira saw the opportunity to make a few dollars guiding while enjoying his trips on the river. By 1921 Ira was guiding on a regular basis.

The depression brought hard times to Bellingham and the Yeager store. Ira and Marie were now married. Marie worked at the shingle mill to bring in a bit of money, but things were tough. Eventually Ira had to close the store. Ira helped keep food on the table with his guiding income. “ I think I charged five dollars a person in those days. I could take three a day at five dollars apiece. My headquarters was at Sedro Wolley. I stayed at the hotel there. Sometimes I would do two or three trips a day. Generally speaking we never missed. The limit was three. If there was four guys in the boat that was twelve. Sometimes we had two on at once, jumping all over hell.
Once everybody had his three fish, then we let em go. That happened quite a bit. We never caught any real big steelhead - twenty-five pounds was about the biggest. We got a few twenty-four pounders, quite often we got a twenty-three.”

Ira had an acquaintance in Seattle by the name of Eddie Bauer who had a sporting goods store. Eddie helped Ira find customers. “Eddie got to be a pretty good fisherman. He was a novice. We taught him how to fish steelhead.”

Ira’s drift boat was the first to ever fish the Skagit. He used only oars for power and drifted from hole to hole, stopping to anchor only after he found a concentration of fish. He rigged an anchor on pulleys so he could drop it without moving for his rowing seat. “ Now days the guides run up and down the river. They drift through a hole, then do it again. That’s mechanical fishing. not angling.”

A year or so after he started guiding Ira was told he would need a license. It took awhile to find anyone who could issue a license. Finally the agent in Mount Vernon typed up a license, The license was number one. The first guides license issued in Washington.

”I f a young fellow as just starting out steelheading the best thing he could do was hire a good guide Then he would know just where to fish and how to fish steelhead. A lot of guys will go all winter without catching any. The guides know where the fish are. You gotta fish every day.”

As the years passed Ira’s fame spread. The rich and famous sought his services. He guided sports writer Royal Brohm, Chico Marx, President Roosevelt’s daughter and many of Seattle’s elite business men. “I think I guided half of Seattle over the years.”


In a few years two other guides began working the Skagit and before much longer there were forty guides working the water Ira had come to think of as his river. Not only did they compete for his fish they began cutting his price. By then his price was up to twenty dollars for the boat each day. The newcomers began charging fifteen. The growth in the guiding business coincided with rapid declines in the Skagit River steelhead runs. Ira quit guiding for steelhead.

Near the end of the Depression Ira started a store on State Street and opened a boat and motor store. He had kept the Evinrude dealership and was one of the first customers of a local boat builder named Reinell Boat works. Ira knew Reinell was nearly broke and hadn’t sold a boat in months so he made him an offer of $800 for two, new eighteen foot, clinker-built boats with a natural varnish finish. Ira was now in the boat and motor business.

In the summer months Ira guided salmon anglers at Point Lawrence on Orcas Island. “ I had a crude skiff with a 22 horse motor. I would launch at Gooseberry point and run across to Point Lawrence. In early summer we would fish for springs (chinook). We would use a herring jig to get enough bait for the day. We kept them alive in a tank I built in the boat.”

“ I used twelve pound test line, a long cane pole and a Winona single action reel. You had to play them real carefully. When someone hooked a big fish you had to reel in the other lines and sometimes we had to chase the fish all over hell. It cost us some hot fishing time. The bite usually kept up until dark when the phosphorous began to show. They wouldn’t bite after that.

We sometimes put down a commercial line for halibut. Usually we would get a dozen or so up to fifty pounds. If we wanted lingcod we would fish a herring down in the rocks. You could get all those you wanted. Mostly we threw them back. Sometimes we could sell them for a small price.”

In the early forties Ira guided President Roosevelt’s daughter - Anna Roosevelt- Boettiger. One day when fishing from the Boettiger boat, Ira was astounded to see they had a radio onboard. They stopped the boat and drifted as they listened to the President on the radio. That was the day he declared war on Germany. Apparently Anna knew the deceleration was coming, because she made it a point to listed on that day.

Salmon fishing was so good at Point Lawrence Ira seldom found the need to venture farther. In the first few months of summer limits of springs were easy to come by. Most fish were in the fifteen to thirty pound range, but a few bigger fish were taken each summer. Over the years Ira and his guests took several forty plus pound fish and two over fifty pounds. Quite an accomplishment using twelve pound test line and a single action reel, in strong currents.

By mid summer the fishing switched from springs to coho. Coho runs were so large that it was never any trouble taking a limit. The customers were always satisfied but Ira didn’t have his heart in it. To Ira the spring, or chinook salmon was the king of the salmon family. “ I’ ll take a spring salmon to any damn fish in the world. I don’t want to catch no leaping tarpon, or any thing like that. Spring salmon is the king of all fish - for fighting and for eating.”


Like any other fishing fanatic Ira went on fishing vacations whenever he got a few free days. One of his favorite destinations was Active Pass in British Columbia. “ There was nobody there except a Canadian fella in a little put-put. I asked where was a good place to fish and he said “Right here.” We started in and the water was absolutely solid with herring. And right underneath them was salmon like hell! No matter what you did you would hook one. We hooked about twenty-five that afternoon and we didn’t know beans about fishing.”

Ira remembers fishing at Active Pass with his grandson Ira John Urig. In a few hours they had eight springs in the boat - the daily limit. A friend came by and offered to take the catch to the beach so the two Iras could keep fishing. They gave the friend five fish. “ I shoulda given him all eight. As we fished in a big eddy I told Ira John to drop his herring down twenty turns. By the time you get it down twenty turns you’ll have a salmon chewing on it. We soon had eight fish in the boat again and had to go in. Later Ira John told me had got tired of catching them so he had only been dropping down ten turns. But he was hooking them just as fast.”

Eventually, Ira abandoned Active Pass. Too much ferry traffic and too many other boats worked the area to suit Ira. “The herring disappeared, so we had to take frozen herring, and the salmon didn’t like that. And the fish were half the size they used to be. Maybe I got too old.”

Ira found new fishing grounds at Egmont, near Powell River. He often fished there with a Canadian friend named Vic Faulkes. Vic first showed Ira the bounty of the area at a place called Skookumchuck Narrows, where tide rips kept the herring and salmon concentrated. “I had talked to Vic before about down below the Skookumchuck.” Vic said ‘ If you can get to the bottom , you’ve either got a salmon or a big lingcod’. Of course we didn’t want lingcod they don’t do a darn thing except chew your line off.”

Vic would anchor near the heavy current with three hundred feet of rope. He fished with a live herring and a three-ounce lead. He called his fishing method mooching. Ira wasn’t happy with anchoring. He finally convinced Vic to try trolling at an angle to the current with a cut plug herring. It worked like magic. In no time they had limits of eight big springs.

Soon all the anglers in the area were fishing Ira’s way. But it was still hard to get the bait to the bottom in the heavy currents. Ira decided to try a heavier rod that would handle a ten-ounce lead. “We dropped our lines out there and before we hit bottom both of us had a spring on. In two hours we had eight springs up to twenty-five pounds.”

Most rods in those days wouldn’t handle that much weight but Ira had bought a hundred and fifty long, heavy rod blanks for his store. In a mater of days Vic and all his friends were fishing with the ten ounce leads or with a Penn 49 reel and wire line. Ira still has a few rods rigged that was leaning in the corner of his kitchen.

“Now when I’ve got a good thing like those ten ounce leads I will keep it a secret for a while. But Vic couldn’t keep a good thing to himself. Anyway before long there was no more herring. Coho dropped off first. A few years later there were no more springs. Famous old fish camps up there are now abandoned and falling down.”

Old age and despair over the declining salmon runs finally forced Ira to give up his beloved fishing. Today Ira is 97 years old. He lives with his ???? in Bellingham. The family sports shop, now operated by Ira’s son-in-law, Frank, is still in business on State Street. Ira spends his day remembering the golden days sport fishing in the northwest. His sweet memories are marred by his concern over what we have done to our once thriving resource.