Last weekend the Clackamas Fly Fishers had a fish-a-long at the Rocky ridge Ranch Lakes. The fishing and comradery were great but due to blustery cold weather Saturday and perhaps the effect of a full moon the catching was just fair.

Lane did well on the Middle Lake at o-dark-thirty casting a big seal bugger, the highlight landing a trout approaching 10lbs. Unfortunately the cameraman was still enjoying morning coffee so there are no photos.

Once it got fully light out the bite dropped off sharply. However, Trout looked to be actively sipping Chironomids and we were able to do a stomach sampling from one trout and tie some flies to “match the hatch.” This usually produces excellent results but this time it failed miserably. That’s fishing! We did land more trout casting and stripping Woolly Buggers but the wind intensified as evening approached and so cocktail hour came early.

Tim returned from the fishing the Lower Lake with an excellent report, so we planned to fish the Lower Lake the next day (Sunday).

Sunday dawned clear and it seemed like a good idea to chase “the big ones” of the Middle Lake at first light. The action was consistent until the sun hit the water, then the bite stopped. One big trout was hooked that managed to break off a 10lb tippet and a couple other nice trout were brought to hand and released.

After a leisurely breakfast we took our float tubes to the lower lake and enjoyed several hours of fast action on 13” to 16” trout with a few larger ones hooked as well.

Below are some pictures from the weekend: enjoying cabin time, trout rising at sunset, Ken fighting a big trout, stomach sampling of Chironomids, early morning moon over the Middle Lake, a fat rainbow just before release and a before and after shot of Tim’s hot fly pattern.

On Friday May 6^th Lane Hoffman and Dave Kilhefner took off for the afternoon to fish Little Tree and Big Tree Lakes at the Oregon Fishing Club. The afternoon could not have been better with clear skies and a nice breeze.

Lane wanted to chase Bass with Streamers and Poppers. He was on the board first with a nice Largemouth about 3 lbs, which took his second cast close to a weed edge. He saw more bass but could not entice them to strike.

Dave started fishing Chironomids with a floating line & long leader, letting them sink for a full minute & slowly raising them back to the surface with a long slow pull & repeating. The trout found this hard to resist and he caught a lot of them doing this. Seeing the action, Lane joined in the fun and caught the biggest trout of the day which was a fat 20 incher. Most of the trout were in the 15 to 18 inch range.

The bite slowed down around 4:30. Our afternoon fishing excursion saw about 30 trout and one bass brought to hand and released.

Lane’s big trout and the hot fly patterns, epoxy buzzers tied on size 14 hooks, are pictured.

Last weekend I had the chance to fish Diamond Lake in southern Oregon for the first time. Being late April, it was a little too early in the season to experience the trout fishing that Diamond Lake is justifiably famous for as the water temperature was a chilly 44 degrees. Also, the high desert spring weather was bi-polar with sleet & snow the first day shifting to bright and sunny the next.

In spite of this, we all caught some nice trout. My friend John caught a 21” fat rainbow off the bank and I got one that was 19”. Some friends of ours brought their boats, anchored up not far from the lodge and brought some nice trout to hand as well.  Fat 10” to 12” specimens made up the bulk of the action.

Much of the lake is not very deep and so floating or intermediate fly lines worked fine. The hot flies were streamers and nymphs and a combination of a streamer in front with a nymph trailer covered all the bases. I tried chironomids under an indicator but the fish were not active enough to hunt them down before my patience with this technique faded.

Naturally, a float tube or small motor boat is best BUT fishing off the bank worked surprisingly well too. If you have a good roll cast all you had to do was reach the drop off 20 to 30 feet offshore and you were in business. The lake has a paved bike path close to the shore and walking along this while looking for likely looking structure in the form of drop offs, foam lines and fallen trees worked well.

The lodge had good burgers & such and after a chilly spring day nothing beats some good hot food in a rustic atmosphere.