Chester Allen's Watery Planet

Taking the hidden trail to a nice redsides on Oregon's Deschutes River

This beautiful Deschutes River redside rainbow trout had a bit of a cutthroat trout marking.

MAUPIN, ORE. -- I'm kind of expecting to find myself driving on the wrong side of the road these days.

Why?

Well, the biggest run of summer steelhead in years is jamming into the Deschutes River, and I find myself jamming the Subaru to the water -- and then picking up my trout rod.  This kind of weirdness is cropping up more and more in my life.

Thousands of steelhead -- and some big ones -- are in the river, and just about everyone is hooking fish. Deschutes steelhead tend to be biters, and all it really takes is the willingness to cast a floating line and a decent steelhead fly -- although a black Wooly Bugger will work -- over and over again.

Sooner rather than later, steel explodes out of the river with your fly in its mouth. Your heart jackhammers up to insane pulse rates -- and there's a good chance of posing for a hero shot with 28 inches of steelhead just back from the Gulf of Alaska.

There were a lot of anglers on the river, but I might have been the only one targeting trout. 

I watched a guy hook a big steelhead on a run within the city limits of Maupin Sunday afternoon, and the fish -- at least 10 pounds -- made a full cartwheel in the air before landing on the water like a concrete cinder block.

I felt a little adrenaline sizzle through my veins, but I returned to happily easing my way upstream through a riverside tangle of alder limbs, blackberry thickets and the odd patch of poison oak. Wild Deschutes River redside rainbows -- gorgeous fish with summer-fattened, silvery sides, inky black spots and magenta blush on their gill plates -- lurked in the bankside water for big October Caddis.

The October caddis -- a huge bug that is as orange as a pumpkin -- blundered out of the trees and streamside grass and onto the water. Big trout -- up to about 18 inches or so --lashed after those bugs often enough to keep me expecting a strike on every other cast.

This is my favorite kind of fishing -- casting a dry fly to large, bank-feeding trout -- and I'll happily leave the steelhead to the eager, semi-cranky hordes. While the steelhead anglers jockeyed for good drifts -- although there are hundreds of good steelhead spots on the Deschutes -- I had the trout water all to myself.

My friends John and Amy Hazel -- owners of the Deschutes Angler fly shop in Maupin -- are world-class steelhead junkies, and this is the time of year that they live for.  I was actually surprised to see them in their shop Saturday morning -- although John did have the unruly hair, shaggy beard and beady eyes of a mainlining steelheader -- and most of their talk was steel.

I had stopped into the shop to check out their new flies -- and to buy a few for duplication during my annual winter fly-tying marathon. As I was paying for my flies, John reached into a bin and pulled out a couple giant, no-hackle Elk Hair Caddis flies with bodies made out of orange foam.

"No charge for these," John said. "Fish a little nymph under them all day -- you can't sink them -- and the trout will be nuts for them late in the afternoon."

John and Amy know my trout foibles -- and they are good friends.

Anyway, John was mostly right about that size 8, foam monstrosity of an Elk Hair Caddis. They did float a bead-head pheasant tail nymph -- and a split shot -- with no problem. But the trout ignored the nymphs and just pounded that big dry fly from the start.  The late-afternoon October caddis bite started at about 12:30 p.m.

Happiness.

I worked my way upstream for long distances -- I was looking for steep banks with lots of rocks, a foam line and some nearby trees -- which is a fair description of much of the riverbank.  I did notice that the trout were much more aggressive in weird spots -- places where the bankside current eddied against the downstream flow or where a little brush-busting was needed to reach the water. Elegant casts are almost impossible in such places, but who needs elegance when the trout are inches from the bank and are on the prod?

By mid-afternoon, I found myself hiking along the access road upstream of Maupin. The rocky, washboarded road -- an old railroad grade -- is about 20 feet above the river, and it's fun to gaze into the water as you walk. It's easy to see the trout -- black from this distance -- as you walk. Lots of anglers drive slowly on this stretch and look for rising fish.

I came to a familiar spot that looked kind of odd.

The steep angler's trail down to the run -- a mixture of soft dirt and sketchy rocks -- had suddenly sprouted clumps of three-foot-high sagebrush since my visit two weeks ago. I took a closer look, and it was clear that someone -- or a group of people -- had put some trickeration into use on the river.

The sagebrush clumps seemed to send this message: "It's kind of hard to get down here, and it will be a hassle to wind your way around the brush -- and your backcast will get tangled."

I looked across the road, and it was easy to see the pruned sagebrush that had provided the trickeration.

I felt sorry for the hacked-up sage across the road, but I felt admiration for the enterprising anglers who had taken some pains to protect a nice spot. 

I realized that I was not the only crazed trout addict fishing through a record steelhead run. I thought about moving on, but why not slide on down and make a few casts?

Three casts later, my October Caddis vanished in a big boil, my heart boiled and line melted off the reel.

Minutes later, 16 inches of gorgeous rainbow trout posed for a quick photo. I noticed that the trout had a bit of a cutthroat marking under its lower jaw -- which is fairly common on Deschutes redsides. Then I climbed up the bank -- and carefully left the sagebrush camo in place.

I didn't want to wreck up the water for my fellow trout addicts. I figured that I'd see them sometime during the weekend.

It's easy to spot anglers driving on the wrong side of the road -- and looking for rising trout.

 

Bungling my way to coho frustration -- and falling to sea-run cutthroat trout temptation

Temptation -- and redemption -- came Tuesday evening in the form of a beautiful sea-run cutthroat trout.

The road to Frustration -- and Temptation -- begins in many ways, but this particular journey started with an e-mail from my friend Greg Cloud.

Cloud, a retired biologist and mad-scientist angler, told me that big, ocean-going coho were staging off a South Puget Sound beach during the high tide. Cloud said the coho looked like torpedoes when they chased his spinner. Then he went on to suggest that casting a fly might tempt one or two of these bright, beautiful fish.

High tide on Tuesday was right around 3:30 p.m. -- a time when most productive members of our society are grinding away at work. I left the office at 3:15 p.m. -- it never pays to be late when fishing a Puget Sound tide.

So, I eased out of the office -- and then sprinted for home, where I tossed tackle, waders and even a camera into the Subaru. I was at the beach 25 minutes later, and there were indeed big, bright coho wallowing and splashing a short cast from the beach.

I tried to remain calm and focused, but my heart rate jacked up into one-hour-on-the-elliptical-trainer rate, and my hands trembled a little. Seeing a school of big coho splashing around had me cranked.

Leaving work sinfully early would pay off for sure, I thought.

But I would pay the price for my rush to that wonderful stretch of rocky, pebbly beach. When it came time to rig up, I discovered that I had left my 8-weight fly rod and matching reel at home. I did have my sea-run cutthroat trout rod -- a 6-weight -- but the matching reels and spools also were safely at home.

Perhaps I was in too much of a hurry when I stopped off at home.

I did have a reel with a floating, 4-weight "Sharkskin" line. More on that line later.

Anyway, I put the reel with the 4-weight line onto the 6-weight rod and strung the line through the guides. Luckily, I had my beach chest pack, which carries flies for Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat trout -- and coho salmon.

But my rod and reel were far too light for the 10-pound coho salmon rolling 30 feet away. I felt like I was hunting a leopard with a .22-caliber rifle. But it is better to fail trying than to slink away, so I tied on a sparkly pink Knudsen Spider and started casting.

A nice coho followed my fly almost to my feet on the third cast, and I had a solid strike two casts later. The coho flipped into the air and crashed into the water on its thick flanks. Then the fish rocketed for the far shore, and I saw my backing melting off the chirping reel. My 4-weight reel sounded like a computer spiraling into a fatal crash.

The tackle held together long enough to make me think I might land the fish. Then the coho wrapped the line on one of the old pilings that dot the beach -- and the line snapped seconds later.

I didn't get too upset, as just hooking a big coho from a Puget Sound beach on fly tackle is cool enough for me. I also figured I had two hours to hook another fish.

I checked my leader, tied on a new, 10-pound-test tippet and a sparse, pink Clouser Minnow. Coho staging off Puget Sound beaches often like a small, bright fly. I wished I had another pink Knudsen Spider, but the lost coho ran off with my only copy.

One hour -- and countless casts later -- I hadn't even gotten another coho to follow my fly. I really, really wanted another Knudsen Spider, and I knew where they were -- on top of the fly-tying desk at home. To make matters worse, the Sharkskin line, which is designed for fishing tiny dry flies to rising trout, has a rough texture.

That rough texture makes the line easy to cast dry flies, but it's hell when you're casting and stripping in streamers over and over again. The rough texture scored my forefinger -- that little crease where the line loops over the rod hand during a streamer retrieve, and it started to bleed.

By this time, the tide had started to fall, and a nice rip was going about 150 yards down the beach. A few sea-run cutthroat trout boiled in the rip, and temptation struck. I'm famous for leaving salmon to pester feeding trout.

I've always been kind of mortified at my lack of discipline about all this. You never know when a school of finicky salmon suddenly goes nuts and starts walloping flies. And you'll never hook those salmon if you've wandered off down the beach to fish for sea-run cutts.

But I did it anyway.

It's hard to resist the temptation of aggressive sea-run cutthroat trout -- especially in the fall, when they're thick and strong from feasting in Puget Sound all summer long. I just can't resist these fish.

A few minutes later, one of the best sea-run cutts of the year whacked the Clouser Minnow, and I soon had about 17 inches of gleaming fish at my feet. A couple of photos later, the trout eased away into deeper water.

I headed back toward the boiling coho. 

I showed the coho just about every waiting period fly in my box for the next hour. After a while, I put a Band-aid on my injured finger. The sunset -- gold and red through scattered rainclouds -- gleamed on the glassy water.

I didn't get another bite -- or even a follow -- from the coho. But that's OK. The memory of that beautiful sea-run cutt was enough for this evening. 

But I'm going back tomorrow with my 8-weight and more pink Knudsen Spiders.

An moonlight journey from Oregon coast surfing to Columbia River smallmouth bass

Where the long journey started....

I bobbed up and down on a surfboard and watched a small, clean west swell bend around a massive, rocky point and march into the small Oregon coast inlet.

The lines -- each a pulse of a faraway storm’s fading energy -- showed on the glassy horizon like ripples in a giant pond.

The early fall swell -- about four feet and clean -- was a reminder of the just-departed summer. Soon enough the big swells of winter -- 10-foot-high, muscled waves with cold winds and rain -- would thunder into the inlet. Much of the Northwest coast is almost impossible to surf during most of the winter, as the combination of big waves and strong onshore winds turn the surf into a heaving, crashing washing machine.

But the past two days had been perfect -- small, clean waves and no wind.

I could see sea-run cutthroat trout and some coho salmon glide through the clear water just outside of the breaking wave. The fish were waiting for the next rainstorm to fill up the little creek that flowed into the inlet. The coho salmon would swim right through a deep channel cut in the beach sand and head up the creek to gouge nests out of gravel, mate and die. 

I stopped looking at the fish swimming under my feet and looked at the horizon again. A bigger set of swells was rolling in. As the swell lines got nearer, the inlet’s shallowing water jacked them up into forming waves.

Some passed under my surfboard -- which is why I bobbed up and down -- but others had that special dark glossiness and shape that meant the peak of the wave’s energy was in my path.

One of those swells was marching right towards me.  My arms had that pleasant, weightless feeling that comes from hours of paddling for waves -- and it was time to head for the beach.

But I wanted one last wave.

I twirled my legs like eggbeaters to get my surfboard pointed toward the beach. Even as I did this, I pulled myself down onto the board.

I peeked over my shoulder and saw the swell -- taller and darker now -- about ten feet away. I made a couple of gentle paddles to get 10 feet of foam and fiberglass moving.

I could feel the wave approaching -- like a gentle finger on the back of my head.

Four or five hard paddles later, the wave picked up my board and I was on my feet.

Sliding down the face of a living, soon-to-die wave feels like riding the heartbeat of the planet. The power of the wave comes through your feet, and the surfboard rails hiss through the water.

The face of the wave crumbled into a mass of whitewater, and I turned the board to ride the last energy of the wave toward the beach.

I stepped off my board into knee-deep water and carried my board up the beach. My throat burned with saltwater.

I stripped off my wetsuit and drank a quart of water, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the waves. I kept telling myself that this may have been the last surf of the short Indian Summer.

But I had a long drive ahead of me.

On the hike out, I waded into the creek -- which was colder than the ocean -- and ducked under the water. Sea-run cutthroat trout skittered under the dark cave of a root-draped undercut bank.

Suddenly, I felt the pull of the long drive.

I hurried up the gravel path to the Subaru. I strapped the board to the roof rack, put the neoprene wetsuit, booties and gloves -- the price of surfing the chilly Northwest -- into the Tupperware bin and then poured two gallons of water over my head to rinse the salt off my body and hair.

I dried off, pulled on clean shorts and a T-shirt and started the car.

U.S. Highway 101 waited.

The highway snakes along the Oregon coast, up and down over rocky headlands and through small towns named Nehalem, Rockaway, Manzanita and Cannon Beach. The ever-present rainforest of cedar, Douglas fir and maple trees line the road and shadow the steep hillsides and ridges.

Near Cannon Beach, I caught a last glimpse of the ocean -- darkening purple with an orange-pink line of sunset glowing over the lines of swells -- before i turned off onto Highway 26 toward the human beehive of Portland.

Highway 26 rolled up and down through the woods -- and a few ragged clearcuts -- past the logging-camp sprawl of the Camp 18 restaurant.

My stomach --empty from a day on the water -- cried out for chicken-fried steak, but i had a ham sandwich in the cooler. I didn’t need a big meal weighing down the long drive.

I ate the sandwich and drank a full bottle of water while inching the car through Portland traffic.

Even as i drove past tall buildings, i felt the rocky cliffs of the Columbia River Gorge pulling at me.

A full moon on the rise hovered over the Gorge as I raced past Troutdale’s neon glow of gas stations, truck stops and fast-food drive-ins.

Then the road was dark --except for the light of the full moon reflecting off the huge Columbia River. Dense stands of Douglas fir trees crowded Interstate 84, and hid the steep slops of the Gorge.

As I drove, I thought about the Cascade Mountains -- solid, basalt rock waves that tower thousands of feet into the air -- and how the Columbia River cut through the mountain range over thousands of years.

The river’s cut through the rock left the gorge -- a stunning corridor of rock and water and trees.

The sky brightened as the road neared the floodlights off Bonneville Dam.

After Bonneville, the road grew dark again.

The Columbia River -- often whitecapped from strong winds funneling through the Gorge -- was calm on this night, and the moonlight gave the glassy water the look of ice.

I thought of steelhead trout swimming up the Columbia toward the Deschutes, John Day and Klickitat rivers, and my heart raced for a second or two.

The road took me past Hood River and The Dalles -- and then past the mouth of the Deschutes River. The lights of steelhead anglers camping in the state park flashed by in a moment.

I stopped in Biggs -- a cluster of truck stops and a bridge over the Columbia River to the Washington side -- for a Coca-Cola. The cold soda fizzed in my mouth as I drove over the bridge.

Then, suddenly,  I was in the rolling hills and steep cliffs east of the John Day Dam. Hundreds of huge windmills perched on the bluffs reflected the moon, and a small red light blinked on each tower.

The moon turned the rolling, brown folds of the land into silvery swells, and I felt as though I was traveling through a motionless ocean.  I stole glances at the Columbia River -- still glassy under the moon -- and thought about casting a popping bug for smallmouth bass at dawn.

Dawn was just a few hours away when I pulled off the road at a cluster of trees and drove up a long driveway through acres of apple and cherry trees. 

The air carried the sharp, sweet scent of freshly picked apples.

A house with one light shining waited for me.

I stepped out into the moonlight, the door opened, and Heather’s warm, strong arms were waiting for me.

Catching more than fish on an early morning sea-run cutthroat trip on Puget Sound

A sunflower star glows in the shallow water of a South Puget Sound beach during Thursday's falling tide.

PUGET SOUND -- A cold, early fall rain splattered on the skylights of my Olympia home early Thursday morning.

I knew that a nice falling tide was happening at some of my favorite sea-run cutthroat beaches -- and I knew that few anglers are pestering these wonderful fish right now.

Most Puget Sound anglers are charging after some of the best coho salmon fishing in a decade. The beaches I planned to fish aren't famous for coho -- although a few coho do show up from time to time.

I did hope for a nice coho on the short drive to the beach. As it turns out, I got a couple of small coho -- and so much more.

I got to the beach, rigged up and found a nice rip right away. Sea-run cutthroat trout and small coho salmon were flashing in the seam between fast and slow water, and I dropped one of Greg Cloud's simple olive marine worm patterns into the fast water upcurrent of the rip.

I stripped in line like a madman as the fly drifted down into the rip, and a 10-inch cutthroat whacked the fly and flipped into the air.

The catching -- for once -- was hot and heavy, and it was clear that these fish haven't seen much pressure for a few weeks. The coho were small -- about 12 inches or so -- and they clearly weren't fish returning to a local stream this fall. I moved to another rip, as I didn't want to shorten the life of a coho that I'd love to catch in a year or two -- when they're measured in pounds -- not inches.

Quite a few sea lice were hitching a ride on this nice little sea-run cutthroat trout.

As I moved, I almost stepped onto a purplish sunflower sea star -- and then I noticed dozens of the hubcab-sized creatures moving around on the rocky, barnacled bottom. I have never see so many sea stars in one spot.

A couple of the sunflower stars were moving around. These creatures seem slow -- they seem to ooze over the bottom -- but they are actually pretty fast. I would watch one for a few seconds and then make a few casts. They had moved quite a distance -- sometimes almost two or three feet -- when I found them again.

A few of the sunflower stars were a bright, glowing orange. 

A short distance away, a cluster of spiny pink sea stars moved at a more stately pace. 

There were dozens of sea stars in a very small area, and I wondered what had attracted so many to one spot.  Was this a spot for sea star romance? I know that some sea stars don't need partners to make new sea stars.

Or maybe some kind of sea star migration was happening. 

I do know that I had to carefully pick my way among the sea stars as I cast into the rip, which grew and shrank as the falling tide flowed over different bottom depths and ledges.

Dozens of sea stars -- in shades of pink, brown, purple, magenta and orange -- glowed through the clear, shallow water. I kind of felt like I was in a "Star Trek" episode crammed with new life forms.

But I didn't want anyone to beam me up to the ship. 

Rain showers spattered my hat -- then slid away. A few sea-run cutthroat trout hit my fly -- and many others moved in and out of the ever-changing rip. I couldn't see any other anglers -- and I didn't see any big coho salmon. I'll take solitude and nice, wild sea-run cutthroat trout over crowds and big coho salmon any day.

I didn't catch any big sea-run cutts, which, to me,  is a fish longer than 16 inches.

That may make me a small-time slacker. If so, I'll happily live with my lot in life. Few mornings on this planet beat standing in clear, flowing Puget Sound saltwater and casting to bright, eager trout -- especially when countless sea stars dot the bottom.

I used to fish with a great guy who loved fishing in saltwater.

"You never know what you're going to catch or see," he would say.

I've fished these inlets for years, and each trip onto this big, seething Puget Sound brings new sights and sounds and feelings. I never get tired of it.