For the love of fishing

Tom Farnam’s work — and play — takes place on area rivers. - Submitted photo

If you run into him at happy hour and ask how the fishing was, he will show you pictures of the day’s success. A day of fishing isn’t over when the waders are hung up and the gear is secured. There are stories to tell.

Wallowa County draws fishers from all over the country for both steelhead and trout. Farnam has regular clients from places like Chicago, and Darby, Mont., who return year after year to fish with him.

Farnam’s easy-going nature belies his intensity. He focuses on helping his clients not only catch fish, but enjoy the surrounding terrain, a good lunch and a beer at the end of the day.

Based out of Joseph, Farnam has been a guide for more than 25 years. A La Grande native, he has been fishing on the Wallowa and Grande Ronde rivers most of his life. When he’s not guiding, sometimes he takes off for Mexico — to go fishing.

Naturally drawn to the river life, Farnam worked for the BLM on the Deschutes and John Day rivers as a river ranger for 12 years. In the off-season he worked as a guide.

River rangers’ responsibilities are three-fold, he said. First, they provide education and information for boaters. Second, they patrol the river and tell people how to run rapids and explain the regulations. This includes overseeing the BLM’s outfitters guide program.

“Three percent of any commercial company’s gross revenue is paid in fees,” Farnam said.

Unlike the Wallowa and Grande Ronde, floating the Deschutes requires a daily use fee permit on the lower 100 miles of the river, paid by both commercial guides as well as self-guided trips.

“These fees pay to keep up with the garbage and the toilets,” Farnam said.

“The lower 100 miles of the Deschutes can be a floating city with up to 4,000 people on the river from Maupin to the mouth,” Farnam said. “It’s a madhouse of paddle rafting, giggling, partying.”

The third part of his job with the BLM was swift water rescue. Farnam acquired training for water rescue from both the BLM and through private rescue classes.

Besides extensive training, Farnam said, “I got knowledge through knowing lots of river people on the Deschutes and John Day rivers.”

Two years ago, Winding Waters Rafting acquired the fly fishing guide business run by Rob Lamm of the Joseph Fly Shop. Tom has been working with Winding Waters owners Paul Arentsen and Morgan Jenkins ever since.

“It was a natural fit,’’ Arentsen said of buying the fishing guide business. “We were already taking people down the river and we kept getting calls for fishing.”

During peak trout season in late summer and into steelhead season in the fall, Farnam often guides by boat on the Wallowa River between the Lower Wallowa Valley and Minam.

In the winter, when steelhead fishing is at its peak on the Wallowa and the water is low, he takes his clients to where the fish are, usually a short walk from the highway.

This winter, Farnam was asked to use his expertise as the guide on the Steelhead Spectacular — the fishing train that takes fishers from Minam to Rondowa along the Wallowa Union Railroad. Fishers are dropped off at any number of sites along the nine-plus roadless miles between the confluence of the Wallowa and Minam rivers to where the Wallowa meets the Grande Ronde River.

The Steelhead Train was started in 2005 by Chuck Fleser, then owner of the Minam Motel. Fleser served as the guide for the fishing train until 2008. He died in May of that year. Beau McLendon of La Grande guided fishers on the train for the 2009 season.

Farnam’s familiarity with both the Wallowa River and his long-time friendship with the Fleser family made him a perfect fit for the job.

“The whole steelhead thing has been fantastic. It’s been a banner year,” Farnam said.

Saturday his client and he caught 36 steelhead. “We lost at least as many, all in 30 feet of water. They were thick in there.”

On Tuesday, Farnam, Arentsen and his wife, Penny, took one last train ride for the season along the Wallowa and up the Grande Ronde to Elgin to fish for steelhead. They were accompanied by a film crew from Comcast.

“It was a beautiful day,” Farnam said. “Paul caught a lot of fish. The filming went very well and the crew got a lot of good footage. I think they are very happy with it.”

Steelhead season is winding down and officially closes April 15. Soon it will be time to switch gears to trout fishing. “In the summer I’m guiding on the Wallowa just about every day,” Farnam said.

“Tom is our man on the streams,” Winding Waters co-owner Jenkins said. Jenkins has been a licensed guide for 12 years, but said, “I’m not a guide, I just take people fishing.”

Despite his humility, Jenkins is a well revered guide, river trip host and fisherman. He knows rivers so well he feels water has its own consciousness. He and the rest of the crew run a tight ship while providing every creature comfort possible for their clients in a relaxed atmosphere.

When guiding a multi-day trip, Farnam raves about the support from the Winding Waters team.

“The boathouse can be pretty busy in the summer,” he said.

When he launches for a trip, he has confidence that the staff responsible for shopping and packing the gear has remembered everything, “including the capers for the spaghetti on the fourth night of the trip.”

Farnam said trout fishing reservations for the summer are starting to fill in. “When the weather warms up, people start thinking about trout fishing. The whitewater reservations are filling up pretty good too,” he said.

Winding Waters offers trout and bass fishing guided trips on the Snake and Salmon rivers, besides the Wallowa and Grande Ronde. Arentsen said the best bass fishing is in August and September. They concentrate their guided trips between Boggans Oasis and the Snake River, but bass can be found as far south as Rondowa, Arentsen said.