The gold and silver I have come for wears fins, silver sided rainbows and gold-bronze colored smallmouth. A lead-grey sturgeon will be a bonus. Our guide Dan Fleshman is a mountain of a man. He grew up on the river at Lewiston. My companions for the three day trip, Robb Phillips of Yakima, Gary Christenson of Seattle, and Mark Bagett of Prairie City, Oregon.
Early morning comes.
We fill up on hot cakes , scrambled eggs, sausage , juice and coffee. The morning has more chill than expected. All of us reach forjackets or wind breakers as Dan powers upstream with the 26 foot jet boat. Our first stop is for rainbows. We instantly get smallmouths instead.