The Associated Press: Oregon Man Back Fishing Pointless

The Associated Press: Oregon Man Back Fishing Pointless: "STEAMBOAT, Ore. (AP) — Back in 1998 Lee Spencer did two things that changed his relationship with the big steelhead of the North Umpqua River. He agreed to become the first full-time FishWatch guardian of the Big Bend Pool on Steamboat Creek, where as many as 400 large steelhead spend the summer in startlingly plain sight after swimming up the North Umpqua to spawn. And he started cutting the points off the hooks on his flies. Even people who know Spencer wonder why he would want to spend summers on Steamboat Creek 12 miles upstream from the nearest pay phone watching fish wait. 'No one else would do it,' said Joe Howell, owner of the Blue Heron Fly Shop in Idleyld Park. It is even harder to understand why the 57-year-old would cut the points off his hooks and file the wire stump smooth — denying himself the satisfaction of controlling, touching and ultimately setting free something so wild and beautiful. 'I was uncomfortable fishing,' Spencer said. 'I like these fish too much to kill them, even accidentally, or even to stress them out, unduly. 'It took me a month or a month and a half to not want to see the fish up close,' he added. 'I am not proselytizing fishing pointless, but my fishing is as good or better than it ever has been, as far as my own satisfaction.'"