Just thought I’d drop a report on the upper Deschutes.I was able to get out for a while on Monday for a few hours. I was above Crane Prairie Res. fishing for brook trout with my 3wt.It was a great time.I caught around 8-10 brookies before I had to leave. I was using caddis, tilt wings and adams for dries and soft hackles for my nymphs.On the way back, I hit the Fall River.I caught a few fish on dries and called it a day.I was using caddis there.The road to the Fall is under construction and a pain, especially when coming from Cascade Lakes Hwy.You have been warned.If you want more details on my trip, stop by and chat.
RECORDED:65 °FISHING: Great Thu and I took a three day weekend and joined Rick & Cheryl, some friends of ours who were camping at Big Lava Lake.We just picked up a new tent trailer and thought the weekend camping trip to the lake would make a good shake down cruse. So we packed up the trailer, a couple of float tubes, food and the necessary beverages for the weekend and headed to the lake. When we got there 45 minutes later, we quickly set up camp and joined our friends for dinner. It’s great to live so close to so many beautiful places.
The next morning the wind was up with the oncoming thunderstorm, so Rick took us out in his boat to join the line of boats that were wind drifting across the lake trolling sinking lines with bugger patterns. The fish were pretty active giving us strikes every 15 to 20 minutes. Not all of the hits were hook-ups, but we did manage to land 6 or 7 feisty trout. If you haven’t fished Lava, The Rainbow trout average 13 to 16 inches with a good number of 17 to 20 inch and a few fish that go up to 5 or 6 pounds. No matter what size fish you catch, they normally hit hard and fight like the dickens, especially when you get them close to the boat. So it’s a good idea when you fish Lava to bring a good net along. If you plan to catch and release, the new rubber nets are the best ones for both you and the fish. Your fly or hooks won’t get caught in them and they do the least harm to the fish.
After a big lunch and a nap it was out for the evening fish. You can fish the lake all day this time of year; I just like the big lunch and nap part. Anyway I jumped in a float tube and kicked out to the southwest corner of the lake and started casting and stripping a small green Crane Bugger. In the next couple of hours, I hooked a dozen fish and landed 8 of them. Most were very respectable fish, but one that I lost close to my tube was easily 24+ inches. The funny thing was that the next morning, I fish the same area again for 3 hours and only caught one fish.
On Monday morning the weather had cleared up and it was a bluebird day out. We ate a quick breakfast and kicked out on the glassy waters enjoying the morning sunshine.The fishing was slow at first, but about 9:00 the lake turned on for us and we were hooking fish every couple of minutes. We were fishing the southeast part of the lake and although there were a lot of them, with the exception of a few most were smaller than the fish were catching the days before. With great weather and lots of action, what else could you really ask for?
After lunch and breaking down camp we made the short drive home, talking about the fun we had and where our next outing would be.Maybe the North Santiam for steelhead???I’ll let you know soon.
RECORDED:74 °FISHING: Fair Thu and I went down to the North Umpqua this last weekend. We had a couple of reasons for making the trip. The first was to buy a tent trailer from a friend that lives in glide, and the second of course was to fish. Any excuse to fish the North Umpqua! Now there’s not a lot of steelhead in the river this time of year and the water can be on the high side, but the North holds some fish every month of the year. So we figured, why not, we haven’t swung a fly in a couple of months. The water was running at about 2,700 cfs through camp water, but was clear and had been dropping. The eerie part is to have nobody on the water fishing. It’s really weird to walk into camp water at 7:00 am and have no one around and the water to yourself. We split a large run in the middle of camp water, Thu taking the lower part and I started up higher. As I made my first cast, I was thinking that I had caught steelhead in almost every month of the year on the North Umpqua, but I couldn’t remember ever catching one in May. Just then my fly hit the water and I made the appropriate mend, and a steak of silver flashed across the pool and hammered my fly. Not being quite ready, my rod almost jerked from my hand as the fish hit and bolted into the current and down stream. As the fish came to a stop and I applied pressure to feel the weight of the fish, and my dreams of a May steelhead were gone as a 17 inch cutthroat jumped from the water with my in his lower jaw. I landed and released the beautiful fish and with wishful thinking thought this might be a good omen for the day. We didn’t spot of hook any steelhead the rest of the day, but we still had a great day enjoying the perfect weather and swinging unfettered water.
If you get a chance, get down there this time of year. Everything is super green and water seems to pour out of every crevice. The waterfalls in the area are unbelievable and accessible with short hikes through the lush forest.
Thu and I stayed in a nice rental house located in the fly water that we will be booking through the shop. Call us at the shop for more information.
RECORDED:65 °FISHING: Fair Thu and I thought we might try the Middle Deschutes again this past Saturday, after having such a good time there last week. We arrived around four in the afternoon and dressed quickly since the day was moving along faster than we would have liked. All geared up, we headed down the trail with visions of last weeks hatch and great fishing still on our mind. As we walked along the river we saw bugs flying and birds working, but were little disappointed to find no fish rising for dries. Every once and a while we would see a nose poke the surface, but nothing like we encountered the week before. Thu still wanted to fish a dry fly (she loves to see the take), so she tied on a mayfly thorax pattern and started working the water. I tied on a couple small nymphs and an indicator and started to work upstream through a set of riffles. Thu caught a couple of small browns on her dry which made her happy, mostly because she proved my “ I would go with nymphs to catch fish because they are not eating dries” speech before she started fishing, to be wrong! I didn’t do much better, only landing two small rainbows and a fat whitefish on my nymphs. We still had a good time and enjoyed the hike out as the sun went down ending another afternoon of fishing in the beautiful Middle Deschutes canyon.
RECORDED:65 °FISHING: Good Thu and I set out to get a little fishing fix on Sunday (last Sunday) afternoon and with a late start to the day, we decided to fish someplace close to town. We drove to the Middle Deschutes just north of Tumalo. It was a beautiful day with lots of sun and no wind, which makes casting in the brushy canyon of the Middle D. a little easier.
We started out with some nymphs, but soon after we started fishing, fish started to rise dimpling the water with regularity. So Thu switched over to dry flies and immediately started hooking fish. Now this area of the Deschutes is not known for it’s monster fish, but where it lacks in size, it makes up for it with numbers of small wild Rainbows and Brown trout that are eager to chase down a fly.Thu’s first fish was a 12-inch Brown trout that ended up being the big fish of the day. She hooked and landed a half dozen other fish on dries that afternoon, split about even between Browns and Rainbows. I tried fishing a crayfish pattern along the bottom of a deeper pool looking for a bigger trout hiding in the depths, but none were to be found. We had fun and got our fishing fix for a few hours on this beautiful little stretch of river and then headed home for dinner once the sun left the canyon.
It’s great to live in a place that has so many options for a quick fishing trip so close to town.
RECORDED:84 °FISHING: Good Just got back from a trip to sunny LaManzanilla Mexico, where the weather was great with daily temperatures in the eighties.
This is not the best time of year for fishing the inshore waters because of the cooler ocean temperature, but every day we still gave it the old college try. We fished the inshore waters from the beach and boats, but with limited success. The fishing from the beach was as predicted, pretty slow with occasional action from small Jacks and a few Sierra. One day from the boat we covered miles of coastline trying to tease up some fish, and the only beach we found fish on was the beach in front of Boca De Iguanas where we were staying. We did have some exciting action on some small Jacks, landing a half dozen of them before we had to call it a day and head back to the marina. I was glad to finally get into some fish because our captain, who understood our concept of baiting fish in with a hookless lure and switching them on to a fly, was not convinced that the bait & switch technique would work. But after the third or fourth fish we teased in, hooked and landed on a fly, our captain shook his head with a smile and said “ It Works”.
The fishing highlight of our trip was the exploration of a large mangrove lagoon that a local told us about. He told us about how he would go into the mangroves at night with a headlamp on and spear big Snook and Pargo while they were sleeping. The next day we had our local friend meet us at the lagoon to show us where to go and rent us his little boat to get around the lagoon and fish from. He was really happy when we gave him 200 pesos (about $16.00 US) for his efforts and the use of his boat. This of course happened before we actually saw the boat. The boat was about ten feet long and looked like a wide canoe that was cut in half. The oars for the boat looked like 2 X 6’s with the sides cut out to make them look like paddles. The important thing is that the boat floated and I was glad I had brought along a couple kayak paddles to use. We made our way out into the lagoon and started working the mangrove edges, coves and open water to see what we could catch. We worked top water baits with spinning rods, deceivers and clousers on sink-tip lines and poppers with floating lines, but no takers to anything we had to offer. As soon as the sun got low in the sky and shadows started to fall across the water, things started to pick up. Pargo and all snapper species prefer to feed in low light conditions, so we concentrated on fishing shaded water. I got my first explosive take on a top water bait and landed a nice Pargo. I quickly switched to my fly rod and a popper and started working the edges of the mangroves. It was like someone flipped a switch once the sun was off the water and every couple of casts a fish or school of fish would attack my popper. The fish that I caught were between one and four pounds, but where you find little fish, you usually will find big fish. Every once in a while you would hear a big splashy explosion from a bigger fish somewhere in the lagoon.
The unfortunate part is that we found this lagoon on our last day. So I’ll have to wait until the next trip to check it out again. I wish I had checked it out earlier; I would have been out there every night!
I had to take care of some things out in Redmond on Monday: tax stuff, return some books on tape, grab a burrito at my favorite Mex place La Taqueria.After that, I decided to take the long way home and run up the Crooked.It was around 1:30pm when I made my first cast.I started nymphing with a copper john I tied with a hare’s ear for a dropper.I caught a couple of whities right off the bat.At around 2pm or just after, the BWO’s started poppin like crazy.It was perfect conditions with temps around 45-50 and high clouds.I switched over to a BWO dry with an emerger as my dropper.The trout were rising like mad just below the riffle I was fishing.It was great.I hooked and landed four trout.The only reason I didn’t land more was the fact that the darn sun came out and ruined everything.As soon as the sun hit the water, the BWO’s disappeared and the fish followed suit.I tried nymphing again, but my heart just wasn’t in it.I packed up and drove home.It’s much more fun to catch fish rising.
The Crooked is at a great level running around 160cfs.That’s twice the size it was a week ago.The fish seem to enjoy having a little more breathing room in which to swim around.
RECORDED:48 °FISHING: Good During the last couple of weeks, I’ve gone to the North Santiam for two different one day trips and to the North Umpqua for a two day trip and all the while this little skunk was following me around from river to river making sure I didn’t catch any fish. I was determined to get this skunk off my back, so I got up really early a couple days ago and didn’t turn on any lights or make any noise. I tip-toed out to my truck, which I had packed the day before in preparation for the escape and rolled out of the driveway and down the street without the headlights on. I made some quick turns and a few double back maneuvers to make sure I wasn’t being followed, then headed for the North Santiam. I arrived at first light to a fairly warm day with overcast skies and no wind. I dressed as fast as I could, and headed through the wood to my first run. I would check behind me every once in a while, just to satisfy my imagination, but I was pretty confident that I had lost the skunk.
The water was in perfect condition and it felt really fishy as I swung through one of my favorite runs on the North. As I finished that first run, a light but steady rain started to fall. After grabbing a rain jacket, I headed to my second run of the day still feeling that this was going to be the day. Turned out it was, right in the anticipated spot or bucket of the run, a nice 28 or 29 inch wild fish grabbed my fly and started taking line down and across. She put up a good fight, giving and taking, but eventually she came to hand. After a few seconds of catching her breath, she slid from my hands and off into the middle of the river. I fished the rest of the day without a pull, but I didn’t care, the skunk was gone and I didn’t have to look over my shoulder anymore!
I still don’t think there’s a lot of fish up the river, but it’s a great place to spend the day looking for one. I was fishing my Sage 7136-4 Z-Axis with a type 8 sink-tip and my marabou stinger fly.
Two words of advise; first, the pizza at the little pizza place in Mill City is pretty good. And second, if you pre-pack your truck quickly the day before in an effort to loose the skunk and you pack hot dogs for lunch, make sure you pack your little grill to cook them!
RECORDED:32 °FISHING: Fair Thu & I had the itch to swing a fly last weekend and see if we could find a winter steelhead on the North Umpqua River. We got to the river on Saturday afternoon and the water was looking really good running around 1300cfs and cool with just a little bit of color to it. Just the way we like it! The weather was crazy during the weekend while we fished, defining the “wait 5 minutes for a change in Oregon weather” saying. It sprinkled, it sleeted, it rained, the sun would come out for a little while and then it would snow so hard that you couldn’t see across the river. That all sometimes happened in an hours time.
We fished Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday morning and never even got a bump. Thu and I covered a lot of our favorite water and fished up and down the river, but no steelhead were to be found. Not by us anyway, we did talk to a few angler that had hooked a fish or two in the last week. Thu and I still had a great time on the river, it’s beautiful this time of year with every nook and cranny gushing with runoff water. The water just went up with that shot of warm weather, so it might be a few days before it starts to drop into good shape again.
We didn’t have optimum viewing weather, but I checked a few of the gravel bars for spawning fish and didn’t see any yet. But they will be on them soon, so if you go, watch out for them and stay away from the spawning beds!
The highway crews are clearing downed trees from the side of the road and hillsides, so be careful driving.
RECORDED:45 °FISHING: Good Hey all you fly guys and gals, Jay here with a little fishing tale to tell.I went out on Tuesday afternoon to get a line wet.My intentions were to catch my first riser of the year.So I packed up and headed south per Reeds suggestion hearing that fish were taking BWO’s on the Fall River.Well, I got as far as Lava Butte.I was driving straight into to blizzard conditions.I thought, “Forgging Reed.”Now I am willing to endure almost any conditions for steelhead, but for trout…not quite.I turned the truck around and headed to the Metolius.It was a good call.When I got to the spot I wanted to fish, the sun was out and the bugs were poppin.There were big mayflies coming off, size 14’s and 16’s.They were very light in color, very similar to a PMD, so I put on a PMD with a PMD emerger.Right as I finished rigging up, dark clouds moved in and it started to hail.That lasted about two minutes then stopped instantly, and in the calm that followed, the fish started to rise…like crazy.I positioned myself and made about 10 casts before the first fish.A nice 14 inch rainbow.Then about 15 minutes later, another rainbow around 16 inches.They both took the dry.After that, the hatch was over as quick as it began.I nymphed the rest of the time and hook about a half dozen more fish but only landed two of them.You gotta love the challenge of fishing small barbless flies.The best dry fly was a light colored mayfly.As for the nymphs, a hares ear, pheasant tail, bright green rockworm and golden stones all worked.Hope this encourages you to get out and go fish.And remember, the best part of living where we live is that if one direction doesn’t look promising, turn around and go the opposite direction.You never know what might come of it.
