Photo: Ryan Peterson
Camille Egdorf is 19 year old. Every day of every summer of her life has been spent on Alaska’s Nushagak River where her parents, Kim and Dave, run an amazing flyfishing camp. Alaska has always been her summer home, with the ballance of the year spent trout fishing and bird hunting at the Egdorf family ranch on Montana’s Big Horn River.
She’s been here in Redding for the past 6 weeks, interning at The Fly Shop before heading off to college in Bozeman. During that time she’s taken up residence in our spare room.
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October 28, 2008. Camille rolls into town from Montana. First impressions: She seems genuinely sweet and way mature, wise even, beyond her years. Maybe some shyness or nervousness that would come naturally to anyone moving away from ma and pa for the first time. We’ll see how this goes. Justin [roommate] and I are a couple of fishing idiots who have our slacker, fishing-rules-everything bachelor domestic program down pretty tight. There’s not much room in here for people involved with the real world. Having a precocious teenage girl thrown into the mix raises the sitcom factor to an all time high. We can only hold our farts for so long.
October 31 – November 2. Frank Smethurst is in town. If Frank is in town, there’s no way I’m not gonna kick it with him, even if I should more properly be playing host to a houseguest. So here goes. Let’s see how well she can hang. “Camille, a friend and I are going steelhead fishing this weekend. Wanna come?”
“Hell yeah!” she squeaks.
“Ok, but you need to hear the standard steelhead disclaimer first; it’s probably going to rain all weekend and there’s a real good chance we won’t catch anything.” She gives me a puzzled look like, why are you telling me this? I just told you I’m in. (Note to self: Do not underestimate Camille’s enthusiasm again.)
She’s so excited. I can see it in her eyes. Excited about steelhead, a fish she’s heard her guide bros up in AK talking about for years, and excited about learning to spey cast. But I don’t just mean excited like you get excited for your favorite tv show, I mean like giddy, all grins, can’t sleep, night-before-Christmas excited.
A pre-trip tying session ensues and Camille crafts very beautiful things.
Classic Northern California steelhead fly, tied by Camille Egdorf. Photo: Ryan Peterosn
Low water winter steelhead fly, tied by Camille Egdorf. Photo: Camille Egdorf
We roll up on the water and I do a 3 minute casting demo. “Anchor stroke (swish), d-loop stoke (swish), forward stroke (swish.) Now you try. [Camille taking rod, wading out into position, me still talking] Spey casting is not intuitive like overhead casting. Don’t get discouraged if it takes a while to figure it out. It takes practice and time and muscle memor-”
“(swish, swish, swish)” She throws a laser.
“[Jaw agape] Damn. That was, uh, really good.” It’s the quickest lesson ever. Five minutes. Done. Two hours later she’s throwing more and prettier line than most people ever will.
It rains all weekend, we catch no steelhead. (Frank does get to meet his hero though.)
Why they call it a D loop. Photo: Justin Miller
Photo: Justin Miller
FACT! Camille’s email address starts with “flyfishchick.”
November 4. It’s a quiet, downbeat evening. I’m working on my computer. Camille is peckish, perusing the pantry, which is full mostly of canned and dry goods and leftover camp food. She asks if I mind if she grabs a box of cheese macaroni for dinner. “Go for it,” I say, not looking up from my work, “have anything you want.” Ten minutes later the pasta is done. When she adds the cheese powder, the whole slop turns a reddish brown and gives off a not-pleasant smell. Camille gasps and I spin my head in time to register horror in her eyes as they move from the pan, across the counter, to the empty mac & cheese box. She grabs it and turns it on end. “OH MY GOD, DUDE! The expiration date on this is April 4, 2004!”
November 8 – Camille, Eric and I hike into one of my favorite unnamed steelhead runs in all of California. After a bushwack over boulders and through blackberry bushes we burst into a clearing where, sitting on top of a lone boulder, is a clear plastic fly box stuffed full of marijuana.
This pool will now forever be known as, “The Marijuana Run.”
November 10 – Blaze down to San Francisco where Camille has been invited to present on her family’s AK camp to the Golden West Women Flyfishers club. She styles it, speaking with touching passion and humor about something she obviously holds dearer than anything else. There could not be a better ambassador for Alaska and for our sport. I’m proud of her.
Afterward we go deep into the city for cultural orientation. Camille, having been raised in the tiny town of Hardin, Montana (and the non-town of the Alaskan bush), admits her previous experience in cities is, “Denver once, when I was little.” She doesn’t know what to make of a hundred Chinese people doing synchronized Tai Chi in a park at 8am, nor of transvestites.
FACT! Apparently, in Hardin, MT, and Hardin, MT only, you can get someone’s attention by making a sound like, “chsht, chsht!”
November 12 – As we approach my car in a parking lot at night in Redding, Camille notices the engine is smoking. Readers may recall my complete ineptness with motors. Thankfully Camille, fresh from a learned summer of boat engine repair in AK, was there to get busy with a diagnosis. “Geeze! Look at this puddle,” she says as I stand by idly, helplessly. She puts her finger in the liquid oozing down from the engine, smells it, and examines its color in the headlights. “This is coolant. Let’s look under yer hood.” I lift the hood. She’s all business with a flashlight. “Probably coming from the radiator. Oop, yep, look here. You got a leak. See how it’s coming out from here and splashed all over your bumper? Definitely the radiator.”
The rig’s in the shop now getting a radiator replacement. If she hadn’t been there, I probably would have driven around until it blew up.
FACT! Camille Egdorf does not cuss.
November 24 – Camille’s new license plates arrive in the mail. She is, “SO STOKED!” [I’m purposefully trying not to use the word “cute” in this post because it just seems too obvious.]
Photo: Ryan Peterson
November 26 – Camille catches a crazy big brown trout in a river not known for crazy big brown trout.
November 29 – Camille catches her first adult steelhead. When she shows me the picture she points at the adipose fin and says, “Look! Wild!”
December 3-4 – Justin and Camille “go coastal.” Winter-returning steelhead of the short coastal rivers of California and Oregon are probably the greatest prizes in all of steelhead flyfishing, if only because they are exceptionally rare. Their numbers have been so decimated over the past half century by mines, de-forestation, water diversion and dams that, as a general rule, it’s impossible to catch one on a fly. That being said, most winter fish are still wild, not having been screwed over by hatcheries like their summer-run relatives, so each prize is big and strong and mightily symbolic of how extraordinary the Pacific Northwest rivers once were. For that they’re worth it.
Photo: Justin Miller
Photo: Camille Egdorf
Photo: Justin Miller
December 8 – Out of the blue Camille gets an email from a major flyfishing gear manufacturer, asking if she’d be interested in field testing and reporting back on an array of the company’s equipment and clothing. Nobody’s lapdog, she follows up with questions about what, specifically, the business arrangement would entail. Her contact at the company writes back that it wouldn’t be any big deal or require much extra work on her part, but they’re always looking for diversity on their field-tester roster. They’re interested in involving women, young people, and any active, serious flyfishers other than the usual “20-something, male, I-deserve-it crowd.”
December 13 – Camille’s last day. Her mom flies into town and together they set off on a mother/daughter roadtrip back home to Montana. On her way out Camille gives all her new California friends small tokens of appreciation for the time she spent here. I get cheddar cheese popcorn. Mmm.
We miss you already, Camille. Study hard and come back to our rivers soon.
FACT! Camille Egdorf was a cheerleader in high school. If prodded, she will, with gusto and accompanying handclaps, go “S-P-I-R-T! Spirit! Let’s hear it!”
Lookout Bozeman, you’re about to get graced.
UPDATE!: Camille’s rocking her own blog now: RIP LPS
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Camille and her family’s Alaska camp were featured recently in the award winning film, “Red Gold,” a documentary about the proposed Pebble Mine, a horrifying threat to Bristol Bay’s fish, water and lifestyles. Check this clip from the film by clicking on the image below. [By kind permission of Felt Soul Media.]
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the big pull 