Last Saturday the Clackamas Fly Fishers board members went on their annual board retreat to Rocky Ridge Ranch. The weather was nice but breezy, the company was good and everyone had a great time!
We all caught fish plus we were able to catch them by our favorite methods! For me, that is casting and erratically stripping a little devil streamer on a floating line. Lane Hoffman did well throwing small seal buggers on an intermediate line. Jim Adams found a willing pod of fish and caught a ton of them on dark-colored snow cone chironomids fished a scant 2 feet under an indicator. At the end of the day the wind died down and Henry was catching fish on top with ant patterns.
The upper lake (Mules Ear) had the highest concentration of fish and that’s where most of us spent our time after lunch. We all started at the middle lake (Wild Rose) after breakfast and while we caught fish it was a little challenging. The lower lake (Mullein) had a lot of small bass but the few trout that were hooked were big!
Some data: the water temperature was in the upper 50’s with good visibility. By the time we have the May 19th fish-a-long it will be in the low 60’s and that should bring out the damselfly nymphs that trout love. The best patterns this trip were #6 green devils, #6 or #8 olive seal buggers and #12 or #14 dark colored chironomids with a white bead head (snow cones). 3x and 4x tippets (6lb to 8lb) were needed to hold the larger trout and we got a few that exceeded the 20” mark.