- [Narrator] Lee Spencer begins each morning
like many of us,
but that's where any similarities
between what Lee does, and what most people do ends.
- The first year I came up here, I lived in a tent
for the seven months I was here.
And about three years later I decided to upgrade
the trailer to an Airstream,
and right now it's as comfortable a place
for me to work as any place I know, or really ever have had.
- [Narrator] Lee's Airstream and a creekside workbench
are his office, and what Lee does here is watch fish.
(birds chirping)
But if not for Lee, these steelhead might not be here.
- This pool below me here holds hundreds of wild steelhead,
and it used to get terribly poached, including dynamiting.
It's known to a lot of local people as the dynamite hole.
In 1993, there was a final dynamiting event.
After that, people all got together and said,
"we've gotta get a volunteer presence up here
to make sure this doesn't happen again".
And of course for every dynamiting,
there were 20 or 30 snaggings of other types.
- [Narrator] The dynamiters targeted one of
the most productive steelhead spawning areas around.
30% of North Unguja steelhead spawn in this tributary.
This vandalism threatened to destroy the steelhead runs
that make the Unguja River famous.
Lee stepped up to make sure these fish had a future.
- My agreement is to spend 12 of every 24 hours at the pool,
which includes every evening.
Basically just being here is enough to dissuade people
who would be interested in poaching I think.
- [Narrator] These steelhead began their lives as tiny trout
emerging from Steamboat Creek.
From there they descended to the North Unguja,
dropping over raging falls,
and navigating long reaches of whitewater
to enter the ocean near Reedsport.
They spend years at sea, dodging fishermens' nets
and sea lions, only to return as adults
to spawning beds at the place of their birth.
But here's the mysterious part,
before they reach their spawning beds
they come to the dynamite hole.
A pool that's kept cool by inflow from surrounding creeks.
The fish stop, not for days, but for months.
- They need to have a temperature refuge.
If they're at ease, if they're not spooked,
they're holding very still, and they're trying
to use as little energy as possible
because they're not feeding.
- [Narrator] The steelhead will wait here up to 10 months.
When spawning season comes around in February,
the rest of the creek is cool enough that the fish
can then comfortably move upstream.
But for as long as the fish feel like sticking around,
Lee will be here watching over them.
- This is my ninth year, and my whatever 200 days a season,
my 1,800th day or something like that here,
and it's a delight.
- [Narrator] Lee does take advantage
of the perks of the job.
Mainly the access to the fly fishing paradise
of the North Unguja, just down stream.
- The things that draw steelheaders to this river,
fly anglers to this river, is it's a long tradition
of fly angling goes back more than 50 years.
The fish average three to four pounds heavier
than the average for summer steelhead
in this part of the Northwest, and there are
very large steelhead in this river, 20 pound fish.
- [Narrator] Lee doesn't really care if the fish don't bite.
Likewise, success on the job at the dynamite hole
is judged by what doesn't happen.
- I decided after the first day of deterring poachers
there had to be a little bit more than that to it,
so I pulled out a notebook and I jerry rigged
a platform to sit at and I just started taking notes
about the wild steelhead, which have burgeoned
into notes about the creek,
about other animals on the creek,
about the interactions of them all.
King fisher just flew by.
I learned to appreciate the fish more
as a curious creature that's aware of the world around it
in an intimate scale, and watches the world around it.
- So will this pool get completely full of salmon?
- No.
I'm regularly asked, so you count the fish?
And I do keep track of how many fish are in the pool,
but my purpose here is a little more fundamental than that.
It's to make sure the people don't harass the fish.
- It's a bit different to our jobs,
which are working in offices, and dealing with telephones
and computers, and it must be just amazing
to watch a pool of fish instead of a computer screen.
(laughing)
- [Man] You can't do anything but admire it.
- It's a good, positive, simple way to do something
for the world that I've lived in for the last 57 years.
It has allowed me to read books that I would not
otherwise have read, to watch very interesting creatures
interact with their environment, to give my dog a good life,
and to occasionally go down to the river
and cast a fly for steelhead.
I think it's a good life.