I've got a few first-edition copies of my book, "Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat," and I'll happily sign and send a copy to readers of this blog. The price is $25.
If you're interested, send me an email to [email protected], and we'll get together on the details, such as whether you want an inscription and so on. I only have a few books, so this is a limited-time offer.
This Deschutes River rainbow whacked our mystery fly with gusto.
So, another weekend -- at the very start of June -- and the Salmonfly Madness still lingered on the Deschutes River. Well, there were actually many more golden stoneflies in the trees and bankside brush, but plenty of salmonflies were still hanging around.
On the Deschutes, like many other western rivers, golden stones -- the slightly smaller and more yellowish cousins to the salmonflies -- tend to hatch towards the end of the Salmonfly Madness. The trout eagerly switch over to the smaller bugs, but it pays to carry a variety of salmonfly and golden stonefly patterns. If a fish refuses the salmonfly, tie on the golden stone and see what happens.
Never show a Deschutes trout the same fly after a rejection. Change! I sometimes carry two rods if I'm fishing alone, which makes it easier to switch back and forth. If I'm fishing with a partner, we put a salmonfly on one line and a golden stone on the other. I still carry two rods, but the third rod is rigged for smaller caddis or mayflies.
Yeah, you never know what you're going to find out there.
Anyway, the catching was great. Conventional wisdom has it that trout gorge on big salmonflies for a day or two during this hatch -- and then wander back to deep water to digest the feast. Truth is, these fish will stuff themselves with big bugs every day -- as long as the big bugs keep flopping into the water.
The fish do get very picky after they've been hooked and released a time or two. Now, this is the cool thing: I suspect the trout are kind of like people, and a few of them always get the word a little later than the majority. So, it's possible to find dumb fish even as the hatch is dwindling away.
So did this one. What is the name of the fly?
I hiked well away from other anglers when I first got to the river. I found sections of the river that didn't have any big bugs at all -- but other areas, usually the ones with lots of trees and brush -- crawled with bugs.
I found my first fish when I heard a big, gurgling rise as I was sitting on the bank tying on a new 1X leader. I got up, looked around the back of the tree, and saw spreading rings. I thought I heard a burp, but that was probably my imagination.
Another bit of common wisdom is that Deschutes rainbow trout like to eat golden stones more than salmonflies. Some anglers claim the smaller bugs are tastier, but I've never had the stomach to find out for myself.
Anyway, I suspect the trout like the more plentiful bug. I saw more goldens than salmonflies, so I opened my box and looked at Chubby Chernobyls, Norm Woods Specials, Clark's Stones and scads of other flies tied to mimic golden stoneflies. I have another box with salmonfly frauds.
I saw a fly parked in the corner, and I'm not sure how it got there. I don't even know its name. I did like how it looked, and I liked the idea of showing the trout something a little different this late in the Salmonfly Madness.
So, I tied it on. It worked great. I like rubber legs on big bugs, and these quivered in the water after each cast.
The mystery golden stone fly -- in all its chewed-up glory
The fish believed this fly was the real deal, and I happily showed it to them for several hours. Each fish was a delight -- but also an ordeal, as I didn't want to lose the fly. It's clearly an offspring of the Chubby Chernobyl School of Fly Tying, but I really want to know its name.
I don't know why this is so important to me, but all this came during Salmonfly Madness, and rational thought went overboard a few weeks ago.
So, I'll send a free, signed copy of my book, "Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat," to the first person who can help me with the name of this fly. Send your replies to [email protected].
A Deschutes River redsides with a Chubby Chernobyl it found floating under an out-of-the-way tree
Going fishing on Memorial Day weekend is always a tricky decision.
Crowds are a problem everywhere -- and you can expect a double-whammy of fellow anglers when the salmonflies and golden stones are careening around Oregon's Deschutes River.
Yet, all the anglers are there for a reason: the big bugs attract big fish. Salmonflies and golden stones bring big redsides rainbow trout -- some of them the dry fly trout of the year or a lifetime -- to the shallow water along the banks for a few days.
So, we've got the perfect storm of an epic hatch, big fish and lots of people. Sounds like a perfect vision of Hell on the Water -- unless nature steps in. That's what happened this year. A massive storm rolled into Oregon from the Pacific Ocean, shouldered over the Cascade Range and poured torrents of rain onto the usually dry Deschutes River Canyon.
Fly anglers are a tough lot, but a couple days of heavy rains will send most tent-dwellers scuttling back home -- and the RV campers soon get tired of the sticky mud. The rain also bollixes up the big bugs, as they tend to stay in the trees, tall grass and brush during cold, wet weather. The best fishing happens on warm days, which get the big bugs thinking about sex -- and flopping into the river to lay eggs.
Big, two-inch long bugs splashing into the Deschutes is a trout version of a Thanksgiving Day feast. There is more food than you can eat, but you don't stop eating until you feel sick.
So, I found myself pushing the Subaru Outback over the Mount Hood pass last weekend, even as a steady parade of rained-out campers shot by in the opposite direction. I was swimming against the tide, mostly because lots of water was falling from the sky. It felt like the right thing to do.
Heather came along, and she brought Berkeley, our fishing fanactic Labrador Retriver.
Strangely, the rain tapered off when we arrived at the Deschutes, but we found nice trout eagerly rising to a caddis hatch. Yes, Deschutes trout love a warm rain, and they'll happily switch to smaller bugs if that's all there is to eat. Humans will pout if the Thanksgiving turkey suddenly vanishes, but trout will eat little bugs if the big bugs don't show up. Trout are kind of like teenagers -- pizza is always good, even if turkey with all the trimmings was on the printed menu.
We found a long, rocky bank that doesn't get a lot of fishing pressure. Why? Well, it's kind of a long walk from the car, and the steep banks down to the water are tough to navigate. Did I mention the rattlesnakes and poison oak?
Trout that live in easy-to-reach spots get graduate-level educations in angler behavior, fly design and cynicism during the salmonfly and golden stone season. But the trout that live under that dinky alder tree just off that steep bank -- you know, the one with the loose rocks, thistles and grabby blackberry vines -- are still in kindergarten. The banks hiding behind walls of trees, weeds, brush and spider webs are where the silly fish hang out.
We crept down one bank and rigged up. Berkeley stared at the water and wagged his tail, which is always a good sign. This is the kind of fishing where you take turns casting. This is fun, as you have two rods, which lets you quickly show different flies to the fish. Deschutes trout will ease away if you give them a second looks at a fly refused one cast earlier. The person who isn't casting at the moment is often changing the fly on the second rod.
John and Amy Hazel, of the Deschutes Angler fly shop in Maupin, will provide more Deschutes trout tips here.
Heather quickly hooked and lost a monster fish that tipped and sipped on a size 16 X-Caddis. Lots of little bugs -- caddis, Pale Morning Dun mayflies and craneflies -- drifted by on the current. The trout ignored the big salmonflies and golden stone flies. Why? None of the big bugs were on the water.
Then the sky cleared some more, the day warmed up, a light upstream breeze blew -- and big bugs flapped and lurched through the air. I peered under an overhanging alder tree and saw a golden stone blunder off a branch and fall into the water. A big trout snout poked up and chowed down.
Heather cast a Norm Woods Special under the tree -- it took a few tries with a sidearm cast to get it in the right drift, which was right along the bank while still floating under the tree canopy. Once the Norm Woods was in the right spot, the trout exploded on the fly and Heather was hooked up.
"It's a lot like fishing grasshoppers," she said as the fish shouldered into the main current and ripped line off the reel in long, lunging runs.
And that's how it went all weekend. The water fell from the sky, more people went home and we found fishing rising to small bugs. From time to time, the sky cleared, and the big bugs came out. That's when we headed to the jungle and looked for big heads.
It was never Trout-O-Rama, and we lost more fish than we landed and released. But we wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else on a mostly soggy Memorial Day weekend.
A very pretty wild Crooked River rainbow trout caught on a size 20 Sparkle Dun
Well, I'm back. I've been pounding away on my next book, which is a tour of fly-fishing waters throughout the western United States -- and Mexico. I explore how each water taught me something important about hooking -- but not always landing -- fish on flies.
Anyway, I now have the time and energy to put at least one post a week up on this blog, which makes me really happy.
Actually, this is coming to you from beautiful Central Oregon, where I lived for several terrific years -- my daughter was born in Bend. I love fishing Central Oregon, and I'm on the Crooked River this weekend. The Crooked is The Place to pester wild trout in winter, and this is a popular spot this time of year.
Why? Well, there are a lot of wild rainbow trout from Bowman Dam -- which is a short drive from the town of Prineville -- for more than 10 miles downstream. The Crooked is a tailwater, which means that the water flows from the bottom of the dam, so means it's a bit warmer and keeps the fish active all winter. A tailwater is often a man-made spring creek, and the Crooked sure looks like a spring creek, which long stretches of weedy, flat water. A long and hard cold snap will freeze over parts of the Crooked, but those episodes never last very long.
The highway follows the river from Prinveville to Bowman Dam, so access is very easy. Don't tresspass on the privately owned -- and fenced -- sections. First, it's wrong to do that, and you just might find yourself sharing a pasture with a big, cranky bull.
I came here hoping to find trout rising to blue wing olive mayflies, and I wasn't disappointed. Central Oregon often gets a warm spell -- with afternoon temperatures climbing to the high 50-degree range -- in early March, and that's what's happening on this trip. This warmth gets the bugs moving a little faster, and size 20 blue wing olives have been hatching -- and vanishing into the greedy mouths of rainbow trout.
The fish are really looking for the mayflies, but scud flies swung in the soft, slow water -- and dead-drifted in the riffles -- are working very, very well when bugs aren't hatching.
I'm at the Crooked, but I find my thoughts drifting toward fishing sea-run cutthroat in Puget Sound and Hood Canal. Chum salmon fry are starting to wiggle out of the stream gravel and head downstream to the saltwater of Puget Sound. This is a great time of year to prowl a pebbly beach near a stream mouth and cast streamers that imitate baby chum.
You can find lots of posts on fishing baby chum on this very blog, but I noticed that I have never talked about the cast that I use to put these heavier flies on the water. My favorite chum fry fly is Bob Triggs' Chum Baby, and it comes with a brass or gold bead at the head. You almost have to use a double-haul cast to get the line speed needed to cast these heavier flies more than 20 feet. I rarely use a double-handed rod for cutts, and I rarely cast longer than 50 feet or so, as these fish usually hang out in the rips and dropoffs near shore.
That said, a double-haul is the best way to zing these flies -- or salmonflies or hopper flies -- around with some authority.
My friends at Redington recently sent me some cool instructional videos, and this one is a terrific introduction to the double-haul cast:
A few thoughts about this video:
Did you notice all the bugs flapping around? I doubt that I could have concentrated on demonstrating a cast when there were probably nice fish rising.
Second, I often use a gentle double haul when I'm casting any fly farther than 30 feet or so. The double haul lets me cast without working too hard -- or thinking too hard -- about getting my fly out there.
Finally, I would recommend practicing the double haul -- if you are new to this cast -- for 10 minutes or so each day for about a week. At the end of 60 or 70 minutes of practice on your lawn, this cast will feel natural. I also would start out practicing with a short line -- no more than 30 feet or so. Timing is more important than distance when learning this cast.
I really learned the double haul when I was still a kid and watched Lefty Kreh demonstrate it at a big fishing show. I was fishing poppers for bass quite a bit back then -- I'm still addicted to fishing poppers for bass -- and I found that the double haul worked great for turning over that big fly and putting it on the target. In a sense, fishing bass poppers really taught me the muscle memory for the double haul.
I love October on the Deschutes River, especially when banks of dark clouds roll over the rimrock and a gentle rain drizzles all day long.
The Deschutes flows through a deep desert canyon, and the long, dry summer had drained the landscape into a mix of olive-green sage and brown, crackling grass -- except the narrow, lush strip of green next to the big, clear river. As the rain misted down, the clean, spicy, sharp scent of wet sagebrush filled the air. I love the scent of wet sage in October, as it usually means the Deschutes' wild redsides rainbow are in the backeddies scarfing down on crippled caddis, midges and blue wing olive mayflies.
October is also steelhead time on the Lower Deschutes, but I wanted to see my favorite sight in fishing, which is nice trout sharking around an eddy and porpoising in achingly long rises that first bring the head out of the water, then the back and dorsal fin -- and finally -- the tail. These rises make a 15-inch-long trout look 24 inches long.
Other anglers flexed long spey and switch rods and fired long casts into tailouts and the bucket water of long, rolling runs. I guess I'm just kind of a small-time angler, as I can't ignore scads of rising trout -- some of the best fly fishing of the year -- in hopes of hooking some steel.
All this means that I had most of the prime eddies and bank water to my own greedy, trout-addled self.
Just as I was rigging up -- 4-weight rod, floating line and 9-foot leader with about 24 inches of 5X tippet -- a mighty whooshing and chugging racket drowned out the ever-present rustle of water moving over rock. A steam engine pulling passenger cars barreled around a sweeping corner on the other side of the river and muscled up the modest grade in billows of black and white smoke.
It was the old Southern Pacific 4449 Locomotive hauling one of its special passenger trains to Bend.
I grabbed my camera and started shooting. The western bank of the Deschutes has a rail line -- the eastern bank once had rails as well -- and it's common to see several freight trains each day. But seeing an old-school steam locomotive pulling passengers was like traveling back in time 60 or 70 years, when almost all the trains ran on steam. Back in those days, affluent anglers from Portland, Oregon would board a special car in the city and ride in comfort to a special siding, where the car -- complete with beds -- was left for a weekend's fishing. Another train would pick up the car on Sunday evening and get the anglers back in the city in time for work on Monday.
Trains are part of the Deschutes, and much of the east bank's trail system feeds off the old, trackless railroad grade.
After SP 4449 vanished -- it's hard to believe it was built in 1941 -- I started inching down the back to a favorite eddy, where wild rainbow trout rode the gently swirling current and rose with the steady calm of cows chewing their cuds. These fish hadn't been bothered in a while, and I watched them rise for a few minutes. I always assume that October rains will bring up blanket hatches of blue wing olive mayflies in size 18 to a very dinky 22, but a lot of caddis were fluttering over the water, and I didn't see one mayfly.
I bent over and almost put my nose into the water, so I could peer along the surface. No mayflies at all, but lots of caddis pupa and crippled adults were awash in the surface film. Most were a size 16, and some were olive, some brown and some gray.
I tied on an X-Caddis and made reach casts -- downstream at a angle with a little bit of slack -- toward the fish rising on the edge of the swirling eddy. Fishing an eddy is tough, as the currents move the fish around all the time, and those same currents instantly drag a tight leader and turn your fly into a fish-spooking motorboat.
Sometimes it helps to put on a longer tippet and get a few wiggly coils onto the water at the end of the cast. In this kind of fishing, one or two more inches of drift can mean a lot, and I don't mind cinching on up to four feet of 5X -- or even 6X if I'm using a size 18 or smaller fly. Yeah, landing a good trout on 6X is tough if the fish rolls out of the eddy into the fast current, but it's better to hook and lose fish than to never hook fish. Besides, many trout will stubbornly stay in the eddy. All this said, I use 5X whenever I can, as I like to play trout quickly and get them back on their way.
The downcurrent reach cast lets me feed line into the drift, which gives the fly more time to interest a trout. It usually takes me a few casts to catch the pattern of the eddy. On this day, I probably made more than 15 casts before my fly rode the currents into a trout's mouth.
That first fish ran all the way across the eddy and launched into the air. Just one wild rainbow trout like this pours light into the day --even when rain drips off the bill of my cap.
Every bankside eddy seemed to have some rising fish, and I slowly worked my way up the bank and crept into position in each eddy. The trout were waiting.
Not all the fish were big, and I managed to bungle quite a few rises, but each fish was perfect and beautiful. Sometimes, you'll hook a 15-inch redsides, and it will roll into a current seam and line will just ripple off the reel. The fish and current feel like 20 inches of trout, and I'm always amazed to see 14 or 15 inches of spotted, shining perfection finning at my feet.
It rained all afternoon, and the trout rose until dusk. I hiked back to the Subaru and felt rainwater run from my soaked cap through my scalp and down my back. I stopped at a huge sagebrush and rubbed my hands on the fragrant leaves.
I smelled the wet, spicy scent of the Deschutes in October all the way home to Hood River.
A nice Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat trout on a early fall ebb tide
One month from now, it will be a lot colder and wetter in the Pacific Northwest. Snow will be piling up in the Cascades, some rivers will blow out into turbid, coffee-colored torrents and many trout streams will be closed to angling.
But right now -- I'm writing this on October 3 -- through Halloween brings some of the best fly fishing of the year, especially on Puget Sound. Coho salmon are rampaging up and down beaches, ravenous, aggressive, dime-bright sea-run cutthroat are prowling rips and dropoffs and the first thuggish chum salmon of the fall are shouldering onto the scene.
And the weather -- cool evenings and mornings, with warm afternoons -- is spectacular.
I got out onto Puget Sound last weekend. I fished Saturday morning's falling tide from a favorite beach and fished Sunday morning's falling tide with my great friend Greg Cloud.
The cutthroat trout were on the feed both days, and I hooked really nice fish. I even landed a couple. Big sea-run cutts shake their heads like dogs when they feel the hook, and they often shake a barbless hook right out of their mouths -- especially if the hook has a bead head to give leverage.
I got into a pod of cutts feeding on sand lance on Saturday, and the fish were silly for Les Johnson's Wiliams Point Sand Lance. A bunch of sand lance were trapped between the beach and a current rip that was peeling off a point. I could see the boils as I walked down the beach, which is always nice.
The tidal flow was fast, as the water level dropped about feet between 7 am and 1 pm. I like a big falling tide on this beach, as the upper reaches of the inlet are almost completely dewatered, and everything that still wants to stay wet has to swim past my feet. So, lots of bait and lots of cutts were on the move.
The cutts hit the fly like linebackers. I lost one really big fish, which might have been a coho. This fish slammed the fly in a big boil and shot off downcurrent. No head shaking here -- just a fast run. The whole deal ended when the fish planed sideways in the strong current and the fly just came free.
I should have been running down the beach and following that fish, as that would have given me a better angle -- and might have prevented the fly popping out. Instead, I stood in the same spot -- much like a pier piling -- and watch line zip off my reel. Dumb, dumb, dumb....
I really like days when the fish are feeding hard, as frequent bites make my inevitable blunders more bearable.
Many of the cutts sported bumpy sea lice on their flanks, which is normal for fish that have spent the summer in South Puget Sound.
The ebb tide petered out at about 1 pm, and I then headed to my friend Joe Uhlman's house in Olympia for Doug Rose's Second Annual "Cutthroat Clan" potluck and general celebration of these wonderful trout.
The event started last year to celebrate Doug's 25th year of outdoor writing. I missed that luau, but I was tickled to get an invitation to this year's party. Joe and Jo Marie Uhlman are old friends -- and wonderful hosts -- and it was great to see so many friends and talk cutthroat. Life is good when you're eating Joe's famous baked beans and talking to Don and Jane Freeman, Jeffey Delia and so many other wonderful anglers. Jack Devlin's collection of flat-wing streamers was an eye-opener.
It's always terrific to hang out with Doug and his wife, Eliana. I met Doug years ago when he did a slideshow on fishing the Olympic Peninsula at a South Sound Fly Fishers meeting. Doug is a great writer and advocate for wild trout and salmon. His books, especially "The Color of Winter: Steelhead Fly Fishing on the Olympic Peninsula" and "Fly-Fishing Guide to the Olympic Peninsula" are terrific reads -- and a must for every Northwest fly angler.
Doug is doing a seminar on winter steelheading on October 6 at the Bellevue Orvis store. Leland Miyawaki's Orvis bashes are legendary -- free food and drink, along with lots of great programs -- and few anglers know the Peninsula like Doug Rose.
I ended up spending the night at the Uhlman's, and Joe kindly woke me up in time to meet Greg Cloud for another morning on South Sound -- this time in Greg's boat. Greg is one of the great friends of my life, and sharing our recent news as his boat skimmed across the glassy dawn water made the cold breeze bearable.
We pestered some big, ocean-going coho that were splashing around, but we only got heart-pounding follows -- no strong takes.
It was easy to zip off to a favorite stretch of shoreline, where the cutts were eager to bite our flies.
Any day fishing with Greg is a good day, and I could only laugh as I bungled another nice cutt. So it goes.
The important thing was being out there during the best month of the year. One of these mornings -- sometime in November, if we're lucky -- we'll wake up to rain pounding on the roof and a cold wind rattling leaves off the trees. That Northwest rain will haunt us for most of the next six months.
Every one of these sunny fall days is a gift, especially when they're shared with friends and sea-run cutts.
Books for Sale: I have a few first-edition copies of my book, "Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat," and I'll happily sign a copy and send it to you for $25, including shipping. If you're interested, send me an email at [email protected].
This nice Deschutes River Redsides Rainbow trout sipped a tiny X-Caddis drifted inches from the bank.
It's always cool to see a river -- and the trout -- shift gears, and I got to see that happen a couple days ago on Oregon's Deschutes River.
Early summer is a weird time for the trout on the lower Deschutes. The stumbling, bumbling swarms of salmonflies and golden stoneflies are history, with only a few dried-out nymphal husks remaining in the bankside brush and trees.
All those huge bugs got the trout looking up, but the river suddenly shifts to the smaller hatches, such as Pale Morning Dun and Pale Evening Dun mayflies, craneflies, midges and swarms and swarms of many different types of caddis.
Most Deschutes anglers will tell you that the river is a caddis river, and it's hard to argue with that on the still summer evenings where clouds of caddis hatch or return to the river to lay eggs. And I fish caddis nymphs, dries and emergers -- lots of emergers -- all summer long.
I suspect that trout struggle a bit during the change from mega-meal stonefiles to smaller bugs, although the fish happily eat big, dark stonefly nymphs all year long.
Anyway, fishing was a bit slow when I got to the river a few days ago. Some fish rose to a sputtering Pale Morning Dun hatch, but I didn't see many fish up tipping and sipping -- not even in the backeddies.
I loped along the bank for several miles, just checking out particular spots and trying to find a good bunch of feeding fish. That was tough to do until late in the afternoon. I was sitting on the bank drinking water and wondering if I would see a good rise of fish that day.
Then I started watching the ripply, bouncy water just downstream of an overhanging alder tree. Trout were quietly rising -- without any splashes or swirls. The fish were just casually nosing into the surface film. I crept closer and settled down to watch some more. Bugs -- dark, size 20 microcaddis, larger tan caddis and craneflies -- were falling from the branches at a pretty good clip, and the trout were grazing away.
I tied on a size 20 X-Caddis and let the upstream breeze help the fly line waft the fly to the edge of the branches. The trout were interested right away, and I hooked and released three fish before I bungled the cast and spooked out the pod.
It seemed like a good idea to creep upstream and carefully check out the water below each tree. Not every tree held a pod of willing trout. I noticed that the good spots all had moderate current, were at least knee deep, had an appealing foam line -- and were all close to deep water. Trees are bug -- and trout -- magnets on many rivers, and it's fun to watch the insects skitter around in the cool, dark caves between the branches and the water.
Most of the rising fish were 12 inches or so, and I wondered where the bigger fish were lurking. I never found them during the three or so late-afternoon hours of tree-hopping. I will never complain about an afternoon spent hooking foot-long wild trout, but the Deschutes has plenty of bigger fish.
It turned out that the bigger fish were waiting for the evening caddis emergence. I went back to the first tree and ate crackers while waiting for the long shadows to creep over the river. I could have rigged up a wet fly and swung it downstream in riffly water to hook a few fish, but I wanted to cast a floating fly.
So, I waited it out. A family of raccoons ambled over the rocks on the far side of the river, and I watched them until swallows began banking over the water. Trout began to rise out in the current, and I wondered whether I should leave my tree and chase risers. Choices like this can make or break an evening's fishing, as I love to find bank risers, but there are usually more fish rising out in the current seams.
Evening bank risers also tend to be big and picky on the Deschutes, and I have frittered away a few fishless evenings over the past 20-odd years casting to tough fish while other anglers hooked plenty of fish in the riffle seams.
A trout -- in the form of a subtle, bulging rise downstream of the tree and inches from the reed canary grass along the bank -- made the decision easy. I cast my tiny X-Caddis, and the fish rippled the water -- but did not eat -- as the fly floated over the lie.
I changed to an Iris Caddis -- the excellent, shaggy, messy emerger that the trout masterminds at West Yellowstone's Blue Ribbon Flies invented a few years ago. The trout didn't move for this fly. It was starting to look like another evening wasted on one picky fish.
Then one of the larger, tan caddis rode the current to the fish, and it vanished in a rise. I tied on a size 16 tan X-Caddis, waited a couple of minutes, and then cast. The fish poked its nose out of the water and ate the fly.
I set, and the fish zipped out to the middle of the river in less time than it takes to read this sentence. And then, right then, it was summer on Oregon's Lower Deschutes River.
I'm heading to Spokane, Washington and the big Federation of Fly Fishers Fly Fishing Fair on July 13 and 14, and I'm going to sign my book, Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat, at the author's booth from noon to 2 pm on Friday, July 13. If you don't have a copy, I'll happily sell you one on the spot.
Earlier that day, I will present a seminar -- Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout in Puget Sound and Fresh Water -- from 9 am to 10 am. I'll also sign books before or after my presentation.
Both of my events are scheduled for the Spokane Convention Center. If you want to get together sometime during July 13 or 14, I'll be wandering around the fair. Send me an email, and I'll be happy to meet you.
I'm heading for Yellowstone National Park and other nearby waters for the week after the fair, and I can't wait to fish in my favorite place on the planet....
Why we drive to the Deschutes and brave the crowds every spring.
The peak of the Deschutes River Salmonfly Madness was long gone when I hiked along the Warm Springs to Trout Creek stretch on June 2.
I had fished the water a week before -- and found dense, seething swarms of golden stoneflies and salmonflies in the bankside alders, canary grass and wild roses. I also found dense, seething swarms of eager fly anglers, but that's how it is when the big stonefly nymphs lumber from the water, split their backs and emerge into giant, winged insects the size of my thumb.
And, yes, the wonderful Deschutes River redsides trout notice all that juicy food flopping all over the place. They also notice all the anglers flopping all over the place. All this makes the trout act kind of funny -- and how we don't expect them to behave.
We expect them to line up in soft current seams and gobble down all the dumb protein flopping and splashing downstream. After all, that would be the most efficient way to do this, and that's how these very same trout often behave during an evening caddis hatch in July.
But salmonflies and golden stoneflies freak out the fish. Lots of good anglers are on the river, and many of these fish -- especially the big ones -- have bad memories connected to big flies in late May and early June. Those memories are all about scarfing down a juicy-looking bug that suddenly bites back and then drags them around the river before some weird, clammy hand lets them go.
Some people will tell you that fish are dumb, but those tiny, pea-sized brains are paranoid, and the trout change their behavoir when the big bugs arrive.
Sure, you'll find big redsides acting silly and reckless during this hatch, but we don't usually see it, as these fish are under the water's surface and scarfing down on the giant nymphs lumbering along on the migration towards shore. Fishing a big stonefly nymph along the bank seams before the big hatch starts is the easiest route to Salmonfly Trout-O-Rama.
I have seen all-out blitzes on the surface, but they don't last long -- and they never seem to happen at the same place the next day.
But we all really want to catch these big trout, and especially see a big head poke out of the water and hoover down our big battleship of a dry fly. Salmonfly time -- along with October Caddis in the fall -- is when the really big redsides rainbow trout come out of the deep seams and eat dry flies. But these fish are cagy, paranoid and picky.
They're also not usually out in open spots where it is easy to wade and easy to cast. These fish find spots where most fly anglers will not go. The big, smart trout are usually close to the bank, but they're also often under trees, in little buckets along rocky banks, near snaggy logs or anyplace that has deep water nearby and tough wading along the bank.
So, when I got to the Deschutes, I immediately headed away from the clumps and clusters of other anglers and looked for the painful water. I found a spot where the bank had caved away during high water. Young willow and alder trees were sprouting along the bank. I watched two anglers walk along this mini cliff and flip casts down into the water -- but they didn't bother to find a way down to the edge -- where they could sneak upstream and poke casts right along the bank -- or into the slot between an overhanging willow tree and a bleached-out log sticking out of the current.
So, I walked downstream and found a way to get to the water -- and then I started slowly, slowly, slowly wading upstream and firing my Chubby Chernobyl -- this year's hot dry fly for salmonflies and golden stonefiles -- along the bank and right under the overhanging willow branches. My favorite pattern for Deschutes redsides during salmonflies is the fabulous Norm Woods Special, but it really pays to carry two or three different patterns -- just to give the fish a choice. This is important.
So, this year I'm carrying the fashionable Chubby Chernobyl, the Norm Woods and the classic Clark's Stone, which often works when the trout reject the other two flies. If you're fishing on the Deschutes and a trout comes up -- but does not eat your fly -- change to a different fly right away. If you show that picky fish the same fly again, it will probably just ease away and vanish into that nearby deep water.
Amy Hazel, longtime river guide and co-owner, along with John Hazel, of the terrific Deschutes Angler fly shop in Maupin, Oregon, tells anglers this all year. Amy and John fish the river all of the time, and they know what they're talking about.
I also carry these flies in larger, orangish versions for the bigger salmonflies and slightly smaller, more golden versions for the small golden stoneflies. Sometimes the fish decide they like golden stones more than salmonflies.
I didn't get any strikes for the first 100 feet or so on this bank, and it felt dicey to wade along the shallow ledge right next to deep, fast water. But I knew the fish were around, and I really wanted to drop some casts into that slot between the bank and the bleached-out log. So, I slowly worked my way up to the spot in a cast, cast, step rhythm.
I got within casting distance of that little slot, and I managed to hit the spot on the first cast -- probably because I got about 50 practice casts before that money cast.
I got lucky, and the trout walloped the fly as it bobbed on the surface between the steep willow bank and the log. My heart jacked into high gear.
The fish vaulted out of the water, but he was too portly to jump very high. Then he slid into the fast water and burned downstream into my backing. I have a time-tested system for coping with big fish. Here's how it works:
First, I tell myself that it's great to hook the fish -- especially if it is a nice fish from a tough spot.
Then I tell myself I just want to get a good look at the fish before it gets off the hook.
Then, in the rare case when things are going pretty well and I've gotten a good look at the fish, I tell myself to stay calm and just enjoy the excitement.
So, even if the fish slips the hook, my knot fails or some other catastrophe happens, I feel pretty good about the whole deal.
Trouble is, I really wanted to land this fish and take a photo or two. This kind of greed is a part of being human, but I sometimes get disappointed with myself.
Anyway, the hook held, and I worked the fish back to me -- only to see it rip downstream again. I like to land my trout as fast as possible, as the best moment is the actual hookup and I don't want to stress the fish too much. I use 1X and 2X tippet during salmonfly time, but I was worried that the barbless hook would work free. Luckily for me, Paul Di Napoli arrived on the scene and deftly netted the fish. Paul, who is a cool guy, also grabbed my camera and took a few photos.
"Nice fish!" Paul said, and I basked in glow of catching a big trout in front of other anglers. Why is it that I try to avoid other anglers on the river, but I'm so glad to have them nearby when I catch a nice fish? I think this trait lives in the same section of my brain as the greedy part.
We talked for a bit after the fish darted away into deeper water, and I gave Paul a few flies. I hope to fish an evening caddis hatch or two with him in July or August.
Then it was back to creeping upstream and poking casts into rugged spots along the bank. I kept a wary eye out for poison oak and rattlesnakes, which are both abundant on the Deschutes, but I mostly savored some solitude. Every now and then, a fish would rise to one of my flies, but I got more rejections than hookups. That's how it is late in the yearly Deschutes Salmonfly Madness, as the fish have gotten a lot of pressure from a lot of very good fly anglers. I also bungled a couple of fish. Sometimes I get excited and set the hook too fast.
You know, this kind of fishing is a lot like fishing grasshopper flies in summer. You slowly, quietly work your way along the bank and drop big flies into tight spots. Every now and then you snag the fly on a tree branch, grass or shrub, and you spook a fish as you creep upstream to free the fly. The fishing is rarely fast, but you're happy with a nice trout every 45 minutes or so. There are slower patches when nothing much happens for more than an hour, but you keep casting, mostly because it's fun -- and you know the fish are there, and it's all about finding another biter.
The last fish of the day was a little bit of a surprise. I stumbled, crawled and waded through a very rugged stretch of overhanging trees, thickets of bankside roses and blackberry vines and lots of downed logs. Yet, I'm pretty sure a few other jungle-exploring anglers had been through the maze, as fish after fish rejected my flies in flashes, short strikes and boils
Jungle water is full of pain, but it also is full of pleasure
I found a slot between two trees, and there wasn't room for a backcast. When this happens, I use a little trick my friend Jeff Perin showed me more than 20 years ago. You flip the fly out into the current and mend line downstream until the fly floats under the branches of the downstream tree. One of two things can happen: A fish will strike or the fly will drag and go underwater.
If a fish doesn't strike, quickly strip the line until it is tight and then use a sidearm lob to tuck the fly under the branches of the upstream tree. This is just like the water haul nymph anglers sometimes use to flip their flies back upstream. You have to be quick, as you don't want the dry fly to get waterlogged under the downstream tree.
This method, along with creative mending, allows the careful angler to fish under both trees, even if there is no room for conventional casting.
It took about five of these lob-and-drift casts to finally tuck my Chubby Chernobyl into the sweet spot -- a bubble line coming off a little seam under the upstream tree. A nice redsides porpoised on the fly in a head-and-tail rise that you'd expect to see during a mayfly hatch.
A few minutes and one run into the backing later, the last fish of the day came to my hand. I didn't set the river on fire during the long afternoon, and more trout rejected my flies than ate my flies. But I got a little bit of Deschutes Salmonfly Madness out of the day.
The big flies hang out in the trees and bankside brush through the first week or two of June, and a few nice fish keep looking for them. Looking for those fish is a lot of fun, but don't forget to also carry Yellow Sally stoneflies, Pale Morning Dun dries and spinners -- and lots of different caddis patterns, as you'll often find fish rising to these hatches as the salmonflies fade into the memory of the trout -- and the anglers -- for another year.
Fly fishing for sea-run cutthroat is clearly not a fashion statement -- for me, anyway. This fish ate one of Doug Rose's Keta Rose patterns in a South Sound inlet a couple of weeks ago.
My friend Leland Miyawaki is famous for his terrific Miyawaki Popper, his fly fishing skill and his willingness to travel long distances to cast a fly rod. But Leland is also famous for throwing great events at the Orvis Bellevue store.
Leland's planning a great party for the Spring Orvis Days at the Bellevue Orvis store this Saturday and Sunday (April 28 and 29). Here's what's on tap for Saturday:
Fly fishing antique appraisals all day.
At noon, Preston Singletary will talk about Yakima River spring and summer hatches.
At 1:30, Guide Derek Young will talk about rigging up and presenting the fly on the Yakima, which is one of my favorite rivers.
Speyburn Scotch tasting and tasty snacks will start at noon and go on through 3 pm.
At 3 pm, I will join Leland for a seminar on fly fishing for sea-run cutthroat trout. I'll also be in the shop much of the day to talk and sign copies of my book, Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat.
On Sunday, Reggis Harris will lead a 1 pm seminar on fishing the easy-to-reach forks of the underrated Snoqualmie River.
At 2:30 pm, Leland will talk about fishing crippled midges for the big, greedy trout of Washington's famous desert lakes, such as Nunnally, Merry and Lenice. Don't miss this seminar!
For more information, visit here.
I hope to see many of you in Bellevue this weekend! And don't forget that this Saturday is also opening day of Washington's lowland lake trout season.
This nice sea-run cutthroat couldn't resist one of Bob Triggs' Chum Baby flies during Sunday's evening ebb tide.
Well, Chum Fry Madness is happening at many of my favorite Puget Sound and Hood Canal beaches right now, and I just can't stay away from a good tide.
I was on the way home from signing copies of my book, Fly Fishing for Sea-Run Cutthroat, at the Gig Harbor Fly Shop when I decided to stop by a new beach -- and then a beach that is an old friend. Truth is, I knew I would probably stop at one beach or another well before I got into the Subaru.
Blake Merwin and company were terrific hosts, and it was great to see old friends, such as Ned Krilich, and make new friends during my visit to this headquarters of sea-run cutt fly fishing. Years ago, it was hard to find a fly shop that carried sea-run cutthroat flies or materials to tie sea-run flies. Now, many shops --especially in the Puget Sound area -- carry scads of the right stuff. And, even better, these shops are now creative hotbeds of new sea-run cutt flies.
Local fly shops and guides have always led the way when it comes to creative tying -- after all, these anglers live close to their local waters and fish almost every day. I remember when I first started visiting Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, Montana. I was stunned at the number of creative flies that Craig Mathews and company were tying to match specific hatches for the Yellowstone National Park and nearby rivers. Blue Ribbon Flies is still a very creative shop, and I stop by several times each summer to find new flies, tying instructions and materiels.
The fly bins at Gig Harbor Fly Shop were full of interesting, creative sea-run cutt patterns, and I learned a lot. It's important to support your local fly shop, as those places offer more knowledge -- and, often, a friendly hangout -- than can be found at a big-box store or a discount online store.
Anyway, I checked the Puget Sound tide tables at saltwatertides.com earlier that morning, and a nice falling tide dovetailed into the evening hours. The sky was clouding up a bit, and baby chum are pouringinto Puget Sound from many creeks, streams and river, so conditions were perfect for Trout-O-Rama.
I didn't find Trout-O-Rama at the two beaches I fished -- I suspect it happened at both of them while I was driving between the two spots. That's how it goes. I suspect wading anglers are usually better off picking one beach for each tide -- which is exactly what I said in my seminar earlier that afternoon -- but I couldn't resist zipping over to a beach that I've been slowly learning for the past couple of years.
The water looked pretty flat and featureless when I got to the second spot, but the water level was dropping fast and the tidal current flowed at a brisk pace. By the time I got rigged up, the water level dropped low enough to get a small rip flowing off a point. Baby chum salmon dimpled in the quiet water between the bank and the rip. My heat bumped up a notch when I saw those little fish darting around.
I expected bites right away, but that didn't happen.
I cast the Chum Baby into the rip for about 10 minutes before a nice cutt whacked the fly. I suspect that it took the cutts that long to find the rip and move in.
That first fish was handsome and fat, and it gleamed in the low light of dusk. The day felt full, and I was tempted to lope back to the car and call it good. I was tired and hungry for a good sandwich. But a nice cutt boiled in the rip, and I started casting again. Call it Chum Madness....
A few notes:
My friend Doug Rose has a bunch of great blog posts about the recent Cutts and Chum seminar in Port Townsend. Check them out, as they're a great read and full of good information for sea-run cutthroat junkies.
I'm going to join my friend Leland Miyawaki for one of his famous events at the Orvis Bellevue store during the afternoon of April 28. We'll talk sea-run cutthroat fishing, and I'll happily sign my book. Leland will talk about tying and fishing his famous popper. Fishing the Miyawaki Popper to aggressive cutts is about as fun as all this gets -- which is a lot of fun.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 |
|
||||||||
