Ah yes, the Pacific Northwest...many memories. BIG trees, lots of mosses, ferns, and lichens...and pretty little coastal cutthroats! Oh, and don't forget the rough-skinned newts, Pacific giant salamanders, red-sided garter snakes...and slugs everywhere! It's a very lush, green, wet place...and if you need snow, just drive up into the Cascades.
I lived in Coos Bay, OR for a year, '92 - '93, right near the bay and a mile inland from the Pacific. Used to fall asleep listening to the crashing of the surf off in the distance...and I had a great job doing field biology, collecting aquatic insects, electroshocking fish, measuring trees, ID-ing plant species, hiking up little coastal creeks or mountain-biking old logging roads (many of which we had to brush out with machetes) to get to more remote parts of our Research Reserve to save time (2-hour walk vs. 1-hour ride).
I'm a bit envious, Jason. It's a very nice part of the world. But, I'm pretty happy here too - the only thing we don't have is mountains, and our "ocean" is Lake Huron! One of my friends has a t-shirt that says:
TAWAS BAY - No Salt - No Sharks - No Problem
Enjoy and keep posting the photos, including other flora & fauna!
Jonathon
No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere...