Formal Introduction

I've already been posting, but I should take time to introduce myself to the forum.

Here's a photo from 1954 showing my Dad and I fly fishing the Rio Grande River in New Mexico while he was working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory...



The name is Ralph Robbins. I live in Houston, Texas where I run AvianQuest Ecosystems, a company that does wildlife habitat restoration and wildlife management. Most of my work is for waterfowl and upland birds, thus the name...

http://www.avianquest.com/

I've always been active in conservation issues including helping to form the Gulf Coast Conservation Association which evolved into the Coastal Conservation Association as the cause went national. My proudest achievement was helping to end the commercial harvest of spotted sea trout and redfish and give them game fish status.

My son is head biologist for an environmental company and is on a project that has taken him and his family to the Goldendale area for 6 months or so.

We visited them back in May which was quite a change because I was doing habitat research in the steamy tropical rain forests of Belize and Guatemala and then was soon getting snowed on while traveling through the temperate rain forest on the way from Seattle to Yakima and on down to Goldendale.

Washington is a beautiful state with a fascinating geological history!

As it turned out, we caught some great air fare deals and have trips booked for July, September, October and November. The current trip will have us landing in Portland on Wednesday the 21st. We are taking the long way in order to drive up to Woodland and then through the Gifford Pinchot National Forest passing close to Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams and down to Trout Lake and then to Goldendale.

We are bringing our other grandson with us on this trip, so with a 10 year old and a 5 year old, we will be trying to find a good place to take them fishing. Don't know if my son and I will be able to do much serious fishing on this trip but I'm bringing two new Temple Fork Outfitters outfits with me, a 5 and an 8 weight.

My son and I are both experienced fishermen, but sadly we are total novices with fly rods. I've waited way too long to try to master fly fishing, but I'm making the commitment now.

We have been talking about getting a float trip booked for October, but in the meantime we going it alone. If anyone has any tips or leads, we are all ears and it would be much appreciated.