Indulging in the sights, sounds, and smells of a county fair is as American as it gets. Plunging one by one through the turnstiles and waddling the dusty rows with the unwashed masses is a special form of patriotism. It is unfettered democracy.
It is dirty. It is deep fried. It smells like corn dogs, diesel and cow dung. And I love it.
From the sheriff checking faces against warrants at the gates to the recently released convicts working the kid’s games, county fairs are for everyone. From the top of the Ferris wheel you can spy on your neighboring county and mock them from on high. At the bottom of the roller coaster you can feel your 10,000-calorie lunch doing acrobatic backflips.
There are fireworks.
There are also demolition derbies and bareback broncs. There are mutton bustin’ young bucks and New Balance-shuffling old folks. There are bedazzled rodeo princesses and crusty old carnies.
But if you ask me the real fun happens in the pig barn. Don’t get me wrong; the other animal barns are swell, too. The cows moo. The goats bleat. The chickens stand on their chicken feet. But that’s all a tad predictable. The cows and horses, when they get to come out, are led around on leads and halters. The chickens just hang out. Pigs, on the other hoof, run wild and free like teenagers on the lam.
Shawn Godinho, a 2015 graduate of Castle Rock, is a longtime member of a hog rearing FFA club. This year his gilt (young sow) won Best in Show and that new ribbon will not be lonely when it reaches the trophy room. Best in Show awards are par for the course for the young Godinho, whose family owns and operates the Four Corners Farm Store in Castle Rock.
Just to be sure, his gleaming gold and silver champion belt buckle with a robust hog at the center speaks to the young man’s bona fides.
While other future farmers, often many times smaller than their animals, chased swine around the barn yelling for help and cursing their animals, Godinho looked on with a grin that has often been described as “manure-eating.”
As the barn’s elder statesmen, Godinho regularly shouted, to no one in particular, “There’s a pig over here!” and then watched as his less seasoned peers set about inefficiently wrangling up the loose hogs.
With his crook-neck staff in hand and a steadily paced gait, Godinho never let the flustering atmosphere of the pig barn break his stride.
“I’d never chase a pig,” explained Godinho, who was an integral part of the winning Rural Baseball Incorporated team during this summer’s greased pig roundup at the Orzel Haymaker Memorial Tournament in Winlock. “I’m not an idiot.”
Instead, Godinho maneuvered his glistening pigs with only the slightest of taps with his staff and subtly cooed commands. Since mud is their forte, pigs do not come by their showtime shine naturally. A pre-fair ceremonial buttermilk bath and liberal applications of spray on “Show-sheen” does the trick though.
Out in the arena Godinho guided his hogs back and forth in front of the dirty booted crowd on hand to purchase the animals via auction. Godinho casually sauntered his pigs back and forth, turning them left and right to show off their robust hams, their taut bacon sides, and their stout haunches.
The pigs never broke stride and neither did their trusty pig whisperer.
When the auction prices started rolling in a cherub-cheeked ginger-headed kid who was maybe one-sixth the size of his hog excitedly told Godinho that he had just received $7.50 per pound (on the hoof) for his animal.
Godinho quickly fibbed that he had received $8.36 for his hog, when in fact he didn’t want to admit to his underling that he had actually earned a much lower price.
“I see those lying eyes!” replied the young whipper snapper.
I postulated to Godinho that there appeared to be an inverse relationship to the size of the pig farmer and the price paid for their pig. I also noted that his bristly goatee had probably cost him at least a dollar per pound.
“Yeah, the crowd really loves a big cowboy hat on a small kid,” admitted Godinho. “I guess I’m getting too old for this.”
And with that the grand champion hog hustler removed his blue corduroy FFA jacket and his preciously metaled belt buckle for the last time.
A new generation of future farmers is set to take his place though, and Godinho is ready for the real world where, “People will probably offer me 27 cents per pound.”
The county fair hog barn, it seems, is flush with young farmers who are wise beyond their years.
FISHIN’
In the words of the ever-wise Yankee great Yogi Berra, “It’s deja vu all over again,” this week as the drought continues to lay siege to the prosperity of our region’s fish. The bad news this week touched on everything from full grown Columbia River sockeye salmon to Green River coho smolt.
On the Green River, a tributary of the Toutle River which connects to the Cowlitz, 102,000 juvenile coho have died as a result of inhospitable water conditions which were set in motion by the drought. Specifically, the fish became floaters because of a disease that ran rampant due to elevated water temperature.
That loss equals 78 percent of the hatchery’s yearly production of coho smolt. Another 37,000 smolt on the Washougal River are currently facing the same fate. And that’s not all, as more than a dozen of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s fish hatcheries are out of whack.
“We’ve lost about 1.5 million juvenile fish this year,” Ron Warren, WDFW salmon policy lead, said in a news release. “This is unlike anything we’ve seen for some time.”
In an effort to curtail the losses the WDFW has been administering medicated feed to the fish in hopes of warding off future mass infections. The department has also been using re-circulation pumps and aerators in an effort to cool what water is available.
Sometimes those efforts fail, as they did up on the Green River at the North Toutle Hatchery, and the WDFW has looked to find orphan homes for the displaced fish. For example, the surviving coho from the North Toutle hatchery have been tabbed to be rehomed to the Cowlitz Hatchery.
When no suitable scenario can be manipulated, or located, the WDFW has been forced to release fragile juvenile fish into river systems and lakes much earlier than planned. In one instance the WDFW is slated to early-release around 107,000 fall Chinook from the Icy Creek Hatchery. That hatchery is also on the Green River and those fish equal one-third of the total juvenile population for that hatchery.
A lack of water necessitated the release of those fish after the flow was depleted by fifty percent in just one week. Those Chinook were originally scheduled for an additional year of confinement in the hatchery.
“Fish can face harsh conditions in the wild when they’re young,” Warren said, in the news release. “We’re taking steps within our hatcheries to maintain as many healthy fish as we can despite the challenges of drought.”
Big fish have been bearing the brunt of the heat as well. Hundreds of Chinook have been found dead in the John Day Middle Fork. Other salmonids have lucked out and been hand carried upstream to cooler waters by good Samaritans that would make St. Francis of Assisi proud. But the fortune of those fish may not hold out, and the luck of a quarter million sockeye salmon has already run dry.
One half of the estimated 500,000 sockeye that were supposed to return to the upper Columbia River this summer have already perished in the hot water of the mighty river. Some scientists fear that as much as 80 percent of the run could ultimately perish from disease or inability to reach their spawning grounds due to low and unbearably warm water that has reached the upper 70s in the dam pools.
In response to the mass die off of sockeye fishery managers shuttered the upper Columbia sockeye fishery on July 26 as scientists fear that too few sockeye will return to the upper river for spawning purposes. The area closed to sockeye retention is between Rocky Reach Dam and Chief Joseph Dam.
On the lower Columbia River it is coho that have received special, if temporary, treatment. That regulation change dictated that all coho caught in the lower river must be released until fall regulations take hold on Aug. 1.
The coho have been arriving in heavy numbers much earlier than normal this year. The warm river water and subsequent warm zone around Buoy 10 may be drawing the silvers in early as the water conditions mimic those generally encountered during early fall.
“We didn’t expect to see coho salmon arrive in the Columbia River in July, so our initial regulations didn’t specifically preclude catching them,” said Ron Roler, a WDFW fishery manager, in a news release. “The new rule issued today is consistent with Oregon’s regulations, which prohibit coho retention until August.”
For his part Roler was unconvinced that the drought conditions caused the early arrival of the silver salmon.
“Warm water temperatures typically slow salmon migration,” Roler noted. “Then again, this isn’t a typical summer for fish management.”
Summer rules on the Columbia are current through Friday, July 31 which means sockeye, summer Chinook and summer steelhead angling is allowed from the Astoria-Megler Bridge to the Oregon/Washington border above McNary Dam.
On Saturday, Aug. 1, fall rules take over which will open fishing up all the way to Buoy 10. An estimated run of 518,300 fall Chinook and 539,600 coho are expected to run the gauntlet of the Columbia this fall.
Last week on the lower Columbia the fishing was categorized as “fair to excellent,” by the WDFW. Most of the action has been concentrated around the mouth of cooler flowing tributaries. Boat anglers in the estuary averaged a whopping 1.52 summer Chinook per boat. Boat anglers in the Washougal area reeled in 0.24 steelhead per vessel, and boat anglers along the I-5 section of the river brought in 0.15 Chinook and 0.12 steelhead per vessel.
The most recent creel data from Marine Area 1 (Ilwaco) shows anglers catching 1.6 salmon per rod. Coho comprised 92 percent of that catch.
Up off of the Olympic Peninsula marine anglers are being limited to just one Chinook per day in the La Push and Neah Bay areas. That restriction began on July 24 after high catch rates gobbled up much of the area’s allotted king quota. Chinook retention will be closed off of Neah Bay on Aug. 2.
“Catch rates out of La Push have skyrocketed in the last month and we’ve already caught more than half the chinook catch guideline for Neah Bay,” said Doug Milward, ocean salmon manager for the WDFW, in a news release. “We decided to make this change now to try and ensure a full season of fishing.”
As of July 19 anglers in Marine Area 3 (La Push) had caught 40 percent of the Chinook guideline, while anglers in Marine Area 4 (Neah Bay) had harvested about 66 percent of the Chinook quota. Those fisheries were scheduled to last through Sept. 30.
HUNTIN’
Fall hunting season officially begins this weekend as bear season opens up in most areas of Washington on Aug. 1.
Locally, coastal and Puget Sound hunting zones will all open up on Aug. 1. The North Cascades hunting zone will also open with the flip of the calendar page while the South Cascades hunting areas will open on Aug. 15. Bear seasons vary east of the Cascades. Additional opening information can be found on the WDFW website.
Fire danger and access restrictions may give early season hunters a hard time however. Many state operated areas and private timber lands have been closed off to vehicle and recreational access in an effort to curtail fire dangers during the height of the summer wildfire season.
In light of this combustible scenario the WDFW is asking hunters to be flexible about the areas that they choose to hunt and to exercise extreme caution while hanging out and hunting in the backwoods.
“For most hunters, these conditions may simply mean they can’t have a traditional campfire,” said WDFW Game Division Manager, Mick Cope, in a news release. “But with several wildfires currently burning and with extremely dry conditions across the state, some hunters may need to find different routes into traditional hunting areas or choose different places altogether.”
According to Cope there are no hunting regulation changes under consideration at this time.
The WDFW and other public land management agencies, like the U.S. Forest Service and the DNR, are actively posting fire and access updates on their websites and comprehensive wildfire information can be found at the website, http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state/49.
Fire prevention restrictions enacted by the WDFW include the following activities:
• Fires or campfires: However, personal camp stoves or lanterns fueled by liquid petroleum, liquid petroleum gas, or propane are allowed.
• Smoking: Unless in an enclosed vehicle.
• Welding and the use of chainsaws and other equipment: Operating a torch with an open flame and equipment powered by an internal combustion engine is prohibited.
• Operating a motor vehicle off developed roads: Parking is permitted in areas without vegetation within 10 feet of the roadway; in developed campgrounds; and at trailheads.
These restrictions, including the DNR burn ban, are slated to last until Sept. 30, or until conditions improve.
“We encourage all hunters to be extra careful when they’re in the field this fall. Whether they’re on public or private land, it’s good to take extra steps to reduce wildfires,” Cope said in the news release. “Hunters should report immediately to DNR if they see signs of a new wildfire or if they see others doing something that might spark another fire.”
