» Outdoors and More

Pete Heley

During a week when virtually all fishing options were either unseasonal,  extremely uncomfortable or downright dangerous, the crabbing in the Lower Umpqua River at Winchester Bay held up its share of the area’s recreational opportunities. Boat crabbers achieved some limit crab catches over the weekend and even some of the dockbound crabbers accounted for half-limits.

The fishing and hunting regulation booklets are now available to pick up. I intend to cover that subject more thoroughly in next week’s column. There are more changes in this year’s regulations than in the last six years combined.

There seems to be some surprisingly nifty outdoor gadgetry becoming available. They may be expensive, but the newest insulated outdoor gear will almost certainly have the inert gas argon as its insulting layer and in tests, to date, it seems to be more effective than any similar gear curently available to purchase.

Swimmers, scuba divers and float tube-using anglers will have the chance to purchase some much more effective fins. These fins bend at a central pivot and tests have shown that they are far more effective than conventional fins. These Sea Wing Nova fins look kinda weird, being much more slender than regular fins and they do cost nearly $200 — but they should allow an angler to fish longer, cover more water and beat his float tubing-buddies to the best fishing spots. In other words, to the more serious anglers, they are probably going to be worth it.

On a more negative note, a recent study of the effect on pollution on fish gender was surprisingly grim. It also lumped the Columbia River in with those “polluted eastern rivers.” It seems that in almost every large river system, there are enough pollutants in the water to cause an average of 44 percent of the male bass dissected turned out to be intersex.

In fact, in the nine-year study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, biologists found intersex bass at 34 of 111 sites in eight of the nine larger river basins including the Mississippi, the Colorado and the Columbia. One would almost think that the Willamette River would be more polluted and havae a higher ratio of affected fish than would the Columbia. Even scarier, at one site, biologists found 91 percent of the male bass to be so affected.

While the study, which was covered in an article in the current issue of Popular Science, didn’t mention any far-reaching conclusions, this writer couldn’t help himself. It seems that the animals that are more and more developed are becoming affected by pollution on land and in our waterways.

At some point, it is also going to effect us and one can only wonder in what ways. I suppose some incredibly optomistic bass angler is going to think that those male bass are going to start growing as big and as heavy as do female bass.

Like a normal Oregonian, this writer was elated by the Oregon Ducks’ double overtime win over a spirited Arizona team. However, it seemed that in the middle two quarters, the Oregon team seemed to be merely going through the motions. While the Ducks almost certainly have a more talented roster than do the Oregon State Beavers, it is becoming more and more apparent that the Beavers play hard in every game. Not always, but quite often, despite a talent deficit, the harder-working team comes out ahead of more talent-laden teams.

 But despite the eventual outcome, a true Oregon sports fan should be elated that no matter what happens, a team from the state of Oregon will be playing in the Rose Bowl.