Siletz River Days was a very enjoyable experience for me. Our team task was to explore the Euchre Mt. fishing hole and hopefully catch some trout to discover what fish are found in the stream in May. The second part of our task was to link up with the Engineer so we could begin putting the GPS coordinates for Euchre Mt. site and The Maples on the map. The excitement of the young men from Philomath was contagious.
I personally learned a lot while we were waiting for the students to snare the big ones. For example, Ed described his travels to Borneo to teach the residents how to best log their steep terrain with the least damage to the enviroment. I learned how a "logger" and an Engineer are more interested in measuring distances and a Forester has the luxury of estimating some distances.
Students in our group learned the species of Trout currently in the stream and the diet of those species this time of year.
Hopefully, I was able to describe the traditional fishing for Salmon with a dip net, that Siletz Tribal members enjoy during the Salmon season. It would be a future field trip to consider for students to return for the Traditional fish run.
If I were to do anything different for next year, I would build in more time for laughing and sharing at the end of the day with many snacks for young appetites.
Mike Darcy
Former Siletz School Principal
