FEATURED ARTICLE 

When Dreams Come True

by Jack Teece

Benjawan Onruti was born one of six girls in a family of seven.  Her home in Trang, Thailand was only 7 degrees above the equator, but by an early age she was already dreaming of going to a foreign land that had mountains and snow.  Almost 90 % of Thailand is Buddhist, but by age 18 Wan had decided that Christianity was the true religion.  What was up with this girl who didn't follow the status quo?  Her family and  friends thought that her dream of living in a foreign country was just a whim, since meeting a foreigner to marry in her Southern Thai community was next to impossible.  In a local population of 200,000 there were only a dozen or so white faces and they mostly stuck with their own communities.  

Enter Jack, an American and the newest local high school teacher in the English Department.  He was introduced to her by another American teacher that had met Wan at her family restaurant in Trang.  Although she told Jack from the beginning that she already had a boyfriend in Denmark, Jack was interested.  Six months later they were married and the Danish boyfriend was history.

Wan and Jack were a natural pair as she had an adventurous nature, but growing up and helping  her family didn't give her any time for recreation.  Jack on the other hand lived by the saying “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”.  He was an adventurer and an avid outdoors man.  Thailand had adventures, but not much in the way of hunting, fishing or camping as he had been used to while living in the Pacific Northwest.  It didn't take long before Wan decided that she would like to reopen the house Jack owned in Enterprise, Oregon and experience a different culture complete with recreation opportunities.

Wallowa County, where their home in Enterprise, Oregon is located, is truly a scenic wonderland.  The county is comprised of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, Oregon State Forest, Eagle Cap Wilderness and the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.  Nicknamed “Little Switzerland”, the area against the 10,000 ft. peaks of the Eagle Cap Wilderness is rich in wheat fields and pasture lands of Joseph and Enterprise.  Remarkably, the county population has only totaled around 6000 local residents for the past 20 years and this is due to lack of jobs outside of the farming and ranching profession.  Used to be that there were three sawmills, but that all changed with the environmental movement and the desire to leave the pristine area off limits from further large scale logging operations.  A vibrant art community and the natural beauty makes tourism an important part of the communities now and life goes on.

Her first day in Enterprise welcomed her into a strange new world.  After seeing the nearby mountains with white peaks surrounded by a deep blue sky, she ran outside and to her amazement she saw her breath in the morning cold.  This was quite a surprise for a person who grew up near the equator and had never been in temperatures colder than 70 degrees Fahrenheit!  Wearing a coat and hat was another thing she needed to adjust to   and as the days turned into months she adjusted well.

Soon she looked for work and realized that driving a car was necessary, so she studied and passed the Driver's License test.  Next she found a job that was perfect for her; working as a cook.  Although she had been a cook and baker in Thailand, this was a different challenge having to cook American food, which she had no prior knowledge of.  She would read the recipes and ask questions before tackling meals with the same expert performance she mastered in her own country.  Her positive attitude, good cooking and friendly smile soon made her a well liked employee.  Adjusting to her new home and job left only the question of what to do with her time off.

With 30 years of outdoor experience in the Wallowa County back country, Jack was only too happy to show Wan what there was to do when she wasn't working.  Winter time involves  hunting ducks and geese, sturgeon fishing plus snowmobiling.  Spring brings steelhead and chinook salmon fishing along with ground squirrel shooting in later April.  As soon as the temperatures stays above freezing, pulling the travel trailer out and spending a few days hunting mushrooms in the forests adds to the fun.  Later in the Spring and throughout the Summer is the best time to take the boat to the lake or down into the Hell's Canyon area and the Snake River.

Contrasts both in climate and elevations make Wallowa County a joy to recreate in.  One day in winter you could go snowmobiling above 6000 ft. and the next day steelhead fish down on the Imnaha River at 700 ft. elevation!  Again in the summer you could go to  nearby Wallowa Lake, which is 4000 ft. elevation to fish for salmon and trout and the next day take your boat to the waters behind the dams in the Snake River to fish for bass, catfish or crappies, where the heat makes you look for shade after 10 AM.  

Wan's outdoor experience grew quickly and soon she was learning new skills and adapting well.  Of all the activities she enjoyed, it was fishing that made her the happiest.  Trolling, to put it precisely, is the fishing method she enjoys the most.  Although sport fishing isn't a typical Thai hobby, she thinks it's the best thing to do because she almost always brings home fish and that helps pay her back for her license fee.

Apart from trolling for kokanee on Wallowa Lake she did find still fishing for sturgeon on the Columbia River the next most exciting thing to do.  This past January was her first taste of hooking onto really big fish.  At first she didn't quite have the knack for setting the hook once the sturgeon started “mouthing” the bait.  It took more than a few misses before one hooked itself while her rod was still in the holder.  She had to ask for help to get it out of the holder because her pole was bent over. She had never had that type of force on her pole before.  Once she got used to the power of fish over 40 inches it wasn't long before she was mentioning that she'd like to hook a really big one.  On a trip with a friend a couple weeks earlier, Jack had seen his friend land one that measured five feet, but bigger ones were possible.  His friend warned that if you hooked one bigger than his that you'd need to be able to unhook the boat from the anchor so that the fish would have to pull the boat instead of all of the force being on your arms and back.  With that in mind, Jack made sure that he had a float attached to his anchor rope, just in case, when he took Wan along.

Wan's wish finally came true during her second day of sturgeon fishing when at 3:30 PM she set the hook in what she said  was a “big one”.  Jack had heard that before and her fish had only measured between 40 – 45 inches so he kept fishing until he heard the drag on her reel whining.  He turned to see her pole locked in her arm and almost bent in half. Suddenly Wan says that the line on her reel is almost at the end and so Jack instructed her to let him hold her rod while she unhooks and throws the anchor buoy over the side.  Upon closer inspection of the reel Jack discovers that the reel is almost out of a light colored line, but another 160 yards of a darker line is still left.  Wan takes back the reel, but stopping the big fish's run isn't possible so Jack unhooks from the anchor and they go on a wild ride with the fish.  Once the fish realizes the  full weight of their 16 ft. boat it starts going in a big circle before pulling them across the large river and then down stream.  Amazingly, that fish pulled the boat for 40 minutes and about 1000 yards before letting out a few large air bubbles and then slowly allowed itself to be pulled to the surface.  At the surface it just rolled over on it's back with it's big mouth loudly sucking in air, just like an athlete after completing a marathon.   The legal limit for keeping sturgeon in those waters is between 43 – 53 inches and this fish was almost half the size of their boat!  Unhooking the barbless hook from a mouth bigger than a human's was an awesome experience and watching one swish of it's tail take it back down into the deep will never be forgotten.

Even before Spring 2010 had arrived, Wallowa Lake was generating interest.  Seems that the summer before a man had caught a new state record kokanee salmon and there had been ice on the lake for only a short while this winter so some were fishing earlier than normal.  Temperatures were still chilly when someone caught yet another state record kokanee in late February and tied the national record this time.  Wan asked Jack when they'd be trying the lake.  So on March 23 Jack called the Sports Corral in Joseph to make sure they had bait in stock.  Shirley answered and said that there were only two  containers of maggots left and so Jack asked her to hold them for him to pick up in the morning.

The morning of March 24^th was partly cloudy with temperatures around freezing when they stopped to pick up their bait and head to the boat launch.  Larry and his son Brad Snook, who own the sporting goods store, gave Jack words of encouragement and recommended using a jig similar to the one used to catch the latest state record.  Purchasing one along with the bait, Jack rejoined Wan and drove to the boat launch only a mile away.

There were already two boats in the water when they arrived and the lake was calm.  They put in the water and used their regular kokanee trolling gear which consisted of a Jack Lloyd flasher with a Double Whammy hook setup.  Fishing for kokanee this early in the year was new to Jack, but he had heard that the fish were staying in around 100 feet of water so that would require more weight than normal.  Not being sure how much weight to use, he instructed Wan to use 2 ounces of lead while he used 4 ounces.  Whichever rod caught fish first would tell them which weight to use.  Fishing was very slow with only an occasional nimble and as the minutes turned to hours they had to just sit back and enjoy the beautiful scenery surrounding the lake.  Around noon Wan noticed her rod tip showing a bit more action than just the regular rhythm of the flasher blades turning on her line so she got her rod out of the holder in readiness to set the hook.  One more little tug and she pulled back hoping to set the hook.  When you retrieve a lure with that much lead attached to flashers it is difficult to tell for sure if a fish is still on.  She stopped her retrieve long enough to notice a definite pull and then broke into a big grin saying that “ it feels like a big one”.  Having her previous experience with sturgeon, she kept the line tight and didn't give the fish much time to fight before she had it up to the boat.  Unlike the rubbery lips of sturgeon, kokanee have a very soft mouth so Wan was lucky not to have pulled the hook out with her quick retrieve.  Jack had the net ready and Wan backed into the boat just like they had practiced many times before, but they needed to wait a bit more to be sure that the big fish was through fighting before finally netting it.  Once it was in the back of the boat they looked at each other in amazement after noticing that the line had broke from the hook once it entered the net!

Wan had caught a 23 inch kokanee the year before but they hadn't thought of breaking the state record and didn't bother weighing it.  This one was a bit larger so they tried weighing it on their hand held scale, but it ripped the jaw where the hook was because of it's weight.  They tried one more time and before it fell off again Wan said that it was   between 8 – 9 pounds.  That would be a new record so Jack asked her if she wanted to let people know about it.  He explained that although it would bring notoriety to herself it would also bring more fishermen to her favorite lake.  She said that she wanted to make her family proud of her so it was decided to have it checked at the Sports Corral before getting the weight certified.

When they stopped at the sporting goods store they were greeted with “how'd you do?”. After Jack explained to Brad that he thought he had a new record kokanee, they went into the back room and weighed it again.  Sure enough it was over 8 pounds and immediately there were requests for photos.  Larry soon joined in the well wishes and suggested that Wan and Jack go over to the local grocery store and have it weighed on their certified scale before sending the info into the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to apply for the new state record.  He also suggested stopping by the state fish hatchery and showing her fish to them.  They drove there and met with Bill Knox who is the state biologist.  He congratulated Wan and gave her the proper paperwork to submit for the state record.  Bill liked to fish for kokanee also but had to admit that the big size may be reason for concern.  According to him, the small shrimp that had been planted in the 1980's to produce large kokanee also produce bigger Lake Trout or Makinaw which feed on young kokanee.  Once the big kokanee spawn and die there will be a long delay before the Wallowa Lake fishery recovers, giving anglers less kokanee to catch.

Once the ODFW determined her catch to be the new state record they made a press release which was picked up by the Associated Press news agency and spread world wide.  According to the press release, her fish not only was the new state record, but the largest kokanee ever caught in the Untited States!  The only larger one ever recorded was the world record caught in Canada which weighed 9.50 pounds. 

Wan is living her dream now and after catching the fish of a lifetime she looks forward to more of the same.