Clarence & The Black Gordon
The Following is an excerpt from Steelhead Fly Fishing (1991)
Clarence Gordon is found in nearly every seam of North Umpqua lore. He was managing the Smoke Tree Ranch, a resort in Palm Springs, California, when he first stayed at John Ewell's cabins on Canton Creek, in 1929. He returned each year, and in 1931 camped above Steamboat with his wife, Delia. Gordon imagined a real lodge and in 1934 he obtained a lease from the Forest Service. By the late 1930s, his North Umpqua Lodge was a permanent structure and a prominent destination in American angling circles. Gordon, the consummate fly fisher, acted as host, guide, and fly tyer. Guests arrived from all over the world. No other river at the time so strongly defined steelhead fly fishing.
At Gordon's invitation, Ray Bergman, the fishing editor of Outdoor Life, came to Steamboat and wrote about his experiences in Trout (Knopf, 1938). The chapter "Steelhead of the Umpqua" became my introduction to the sport. I thought the chapter far and away the most interesting part of the book.
Clark C. Van Fleet frequently visited the river, and in his book, Steelhead to a Fly (Atlantic, Little Brown, 1951), he said, "You will find in Clarence Gordon an expert on the ways of the fish in these waters, casting a beautiful fly himself and fully acquainted with all the hot spots."
In 1952, the Oregon State Game Commission passed a resolution to maintain the North Umpqua from Rock Creek to Soda Springs as "fly only" water, the third summer steelhead river so designated. This decision was accomplished only at the urging of Clarence Gordon and the Roseburg Rod and Gun Club.
Construction of a hydroelectric dam upriver at Toketee so silted the river that fishing was impossible. The dam was built in conjunction with a new river-level highway that would ultimately connect Roseburg with Diamond Lake. The roadbed was blasted out of the basaltic palisades that created the turbulent corridor of river from Idleyld Park to well past Steamboat, and it opened many new miles of river to anglers when it was completed in 1957.
Gordon closed the lodge to guests from 1952 through 1955 and leased the building to a construction company to house their personnel working on the new highway. The North Umpqua Lodge was later sold to the Forest Service and became the Steamboat Ranger Station. Today, hardly a trace of these enterprises remains.
During this period on the north side of the river, the enterprising Gordon opened up a small lunch counter and grocery, the Steamboat Store, to cater to the construction crews. When his business prospered, he was inspired to move the entire store downriver to a point overlooking the great string of pools below Steamboat Creek. The dining facilities were enlarged and a kitchen added. Then, in early 1957, Clarence and Delia Gordon sold the Steamboat Store to Frank and Jeanne Moore and retired to Seal Beach, California.
Frank Moore was a Roseburg restaurateur (Moore's Cafe), who had learned the difficult ways of the North Umpqua so well that he often shared guiding duties with Joe DeBernardi. Jeanne was experienced at simultaneously running a kitchen and raising children. "I had it easy by comparison," says Frank. They had new cabins built below the dining room and changed the name of their business to Steamboat Inn. The new highway was nearly completed as far as Steamboat, and the river again ran crystal clear with the completion of Toketee Dam. Former guests, often well-to-do Californians whom Frank had guided for Gordon in the late 1940s, were contacted and invited back. Frank was there to welcome them and to guide them once again.
The Steamboat Inn captured the ambience of the old days. A young guide and a logger had once teamed up for Clarence Gordon and hewed from a single enormous sugar pine log a tabletop of Bunyanesque proportions. This was a fixture in the old North Umpqua Lodge and integral to Gordon's celebrated "Fishermen's Dinners." The Moore’s maintained the tradition on the same great table, though in deference to their fly-fishing guests, dinner was not served until thirty minutes after last light. Photographs of Major Mott, Zane Grey, and Clarence Gordon lined the walls, interspersed with more contemporary angling photography by Dan Callaghan. Steelhead fly fishing history was literally below on the river and above on the walls. Steamboat Inn had soon so replaced the old North Umpqua Lodge in the affections of visiting fly fishermen that it became synonymous with the North Umpqua and her wonderful spring-run steelhead.
The regular guests became close personal friends: Jim and Laddie Hayden, Stan and Yvonne Knouse, Dan and Mary Kay Callaghan, Loren Grey, Don Haines, and Ken Anderson, to name but a few. It was Anderson's idea to form a special interest group of fly fishermen who would work to protect their magnificent river. Stan Knouse offered "Steamboaters" as an appropriate name for the group, and Anderson designed the club's logo. Clarence Gordon and Roderick Haig-Brown were made charter members. Initially limited to 100 members, the Steamboaters eventually grew to three times that number.
I believe that, were it not for the Steamboaters, the fly fishing-only section of river would have been lost long ago, logging would have destroyed the few fine spawning tributaries, and the native run of North Umpqua summer steelhead would be but a fine memory.
Clarence Gordon developed three steelhead patterns for the North Umpqua. The Black Gordon (pictured below) remains a local favorite and is one of a handful of standard steelhead dressings. The other two, the Grey Gordon and the Orange Gordon, are elegant and effective, but less well known. Gordon is pictured below sitting at his fly tying bench at the Steamboat Inn. Also pictured below is an image of Gordon’s Steamboat Store from the late 1950s, and an etching of the Steamboat Inn (which is hanging on the wall there today) that was used as a chapter graphic for the Northern Umpqua chapter in Steelhead Fly Fishing (1991).
Click Images Below To Enlarge
