Garth Wyatt is a fish biologist for PGE and is going to discuss fish population response to improved fish passage infrastructure in the Clackamas basin. It will be a very informative presentation you won’t want to miss!
Meeting details: https://clackamasflyfishers.org/meetings-events/
Reminder: please remember to bring in your 2019 Fly Fishing Challenge cards to the Sept meeting. Also, we will also be asking members for their thoughts about the FF Challenge for 2020.
Coffenbury Lake, located in Fort Stevens State Park by Warrenton, will be the location for the September 21st Fish-a-long. The lake contains rainbow & cutthroat trout along with warm water fish. Coffenbury was recommended by CFF speaker Jeff Morgan plus it’s due to be stocked with 500 trophy rainbow trout right before the fish-a-long.
This is a new location for us. Given the number of new float tubes at the Round Lake fish-a-long this summer, I wanted to schedule one more lake trip this year.
Those planning to attend, please RSVP to Dave@kbi-ins.com by Sept 17th so we know how much food to bring.
What: Cutthroat & Rainbow Trout and Warmwater Fish.
Were: North Boat Ramp at Coffenbury Lake in Fort Stevens State Park
When: Saturday, September 21. Meet at the boat ramp area between 8am and 9am. I will probably be there a little earlier to catch the first light bite.
Equipment: There are two fishing docks but the lake is best fished from a float tube or small boat & 4-6wt rods . The lake is not deep so a floating line is all you’ll need but if you prefer an intermediate line that will work too. The weather should be OK but rain is always a possibility.
Flies: Standard lake patterns.
Food Provided: Coffee & donuts for breakfast and CFF executive chef Cheryl will make us something good for lunch.
Directions: It’s an easy 2hr drive from Portland with paved roads the whole way. Drive to Ft Stevens Park then stay on Peter Iredale Rd to the boat ramp. There is a $5 day use fee.
From Darryl Huff: I have fished a single hand fly rod for years but had never tried the spey rod. Being a part of the Clackamas FlyFishers gave me the bump I needed to give it a try. My casting needs a lot of work but after a few trips to the Deschutes I was catching fish!
From Carson Taylor: Motivated by an internet article by Chester Allen (who spoke at a club meeting several years ago), I fished for bass on the Willamette close to downtown Portland off Macadam Avenue. Chester is working in downtown Portland and fishes for bass during his noon hour.
Fishing was not red hot, but I caught five bass in three two-hour early morning trips, mostly on leech and woolly bugger flies. It’s nice to fish 10 minutes from home instead of driving for 2–3 hours.
From Dave Kilhefner: In mid August I fished with guide Drake Radditz at Bouy 10 and caught a nice 25lb Chinook.
From Phil Hager: Spent 8 days in central Oregon with mixed results.
Link and Hand lakes, up by Suttle Lake, were slow, with just a few catches of smaller fish. Both East and Lava were suffering the “August doldrums” with only 1 caught on Lava and not even a bump on East.
Hosmer, however, was a different story. Fished the upper lake and it was like I could do nothing wrong! Using my intermediate line I lost count on catches in the first hour both times. My “Brick Leech” and black and grey TMC nymph were getting fish almost immediately with Rainbows, Cutts, and Brookies ranging in size from 12″ to about 24″ and fat and healthy. Right shoulder was tired in about 3 hours and it wasn’t from casting.
If anybody wants to go along I’m heading back up the 9/15 to camp at Lava and fish Hosmer and Lava, then over to Fall River the 19th for 4 nights (TU outing), and will hit Crane the 22nd. From there I plan on going over to the Crooked the 23rd & 24th and down to the Le Page, on the John Day, the 25th & 26th, to see how they are doing.
From Adrian Choate: Spent a week fishing SW Montana. Hit Rock Creek, the “Mighty Missouri “ and the Madison. The fish weren’t easy but managed to raise some big Bows and browns. Am considering a month in Ennis next summer!
Sorry for the late posting but there was lots of good fishing in July this year, so this is a long post with lots of pictures. Enjoy!
Mark & Patty Bachmann of The Fly Fishing Shop made their annual trip to Loreto Mexico. Here is their report: https://flyfishusa.com/blog/Loreto-BCS-MX-Fishing-Report-Summer-2019
July speaker Elke Littleleaf had a great month on the Deschutes, landing many fine redsides like the one pictured.
With the cloudy early July weather Rob Crandall has been sneaking out on the Clackamas River and swinging up a few summer steelhead.
Nick Wheeler got this awesome Bull Trout euro nymphing for rainbow trout after work.
Greg O’Brien had a great day on Trillium Lake with his daughter Abigail. Her smile says it all!
Jim Adams got away to East Lake for a few hours while at Sunriver with family.There is usually a good callibaetis hatch late morning through midday during the summer at East, although the hatch was not as impressive as last year. Caught six fish. Five Rainbows, the biggest being 18”. Also one kokanee, that put up quite a fight for its size. Unlike last year, no browns were caught but saw one about 24″ take a callibaetis natural off the surface about two rod lengths from me, which got the adrenaline going. Caught fish on three different patterns: leech, callibaetis nymph and callibaetis cripple.
Adrian Choat went camping for 2 weeks camping at Crane Prairie. Spent mornings fishing from a kayak with best results stripping black wolly buggers and small red buggers. There was very little top water action. There are some large aggressive fish in Crane and he was broken off several times on 3x tippet.
Mark & Patty Bachman have been fishing Timothy Lake. They started with float tubes, then wend to pontoon boats. The last couple outings they’ve used their jet boat, allowing them to see the whole lake as never before. Fishing was great all day, every day even though the water temperature in the morning was 69-degrees and at dark it was over 74-degrees. Most of the fish we caught were planted rainbows that averaged 10-14 inches, the largest were 15-16 inches. During the morning and most of the day small wooly buggers did the trick. Most of those fish were caught with type-2 and type-3 sinking lines while fishing in about 15-feet of water. A slow twitchy retrieve with the fly near the bottom was amazingly productive. They saw a few Hexagenia mayflies one morning around 10:00 o’clock, but the fish didn’t pay any attention to them. The main hatch started with sporadic emergence about 4:00 in the afternoon, then gradually increased until dark. Fishing emergers in the dark resulted in a fish nearly every cast for about an hour and then died.
Richard Harvey has been chasing resident Coho along the beaches on Puget Sound. They are getting very active and taking baitfish patterns.
Greg O’Brien did a good bit of fishing in July. Harriett Lake produced a few browns on emergers, Dory fishing out of Pacific City was hot for Black Rockfish plus a cool Cabezon and a few Coho all on flies. He also hit an OFC property for bass and bluegill. He also floated the Deschutes from Beavertail to the mouth; they got several grabs, caught a big bass and a few nice trout on swung steelhead flies. He also hooked & lost a nice steelhead Euro nymphing for trout, which got about 100 yards downstream and broke his 5.5x tippet.
Hugo Jim went on a family camping trip at Lost Lake in mid July. He fished both from my pontoon and from the shore, taking fish on Adams dry flies and sub surface pattern such as leeches. The Hex hatch was slow when he was there.
Carson Taylor also fishing Lost Lake with the Washington County Fly Fishers July 13th fish-along. Everyone caught a dozen+ fish, mostly around 10 inches. Carson caught a brown around 14-15 inches and a 12-13 inch rainbow; but there are some larger fish! Olive woolly buggers and callibaetis nymphs worked best. On the way home the Hood River Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum (waaamuseum.org) is worth a stop.
This year’s Round Lake Fish a long was very well attended and a lot of fun. A big Thank You for everyone who made the long drive to make this event a success.
Several of us decided to drive over Friday afternoon and camp and it was a lot of fun. John Warren’s wife Linda made a pot of beef stew and everyone else pitched in for a tasty pot-luck dinner. The weather was clear and Dave brought his spotting scope and we were able to check out Jupiter’s Moons in the southern sky.
On Saturday everyone rolled in between 8 and 9am and we enjoyed a light breakfast of hot coffee, donuts and lemon bars before hitting the lake.
Fishing at the lake was tougher than expected. One big surprise was a couple of otters had taken up residence. Otters are great fun to watch but if you’re a fisherman it’s both a good and bad sign; they know the fishing is good but they put a big dent in the fish population!
David Mullins was one of the first anglers on the lake and did well for a while on Simi-Seal Leeches that he tied at Jim Adam’s fly tying class in March. Green and brown were his best colors.
Another thing that made the fishing a little tough was the usually plentiful Callebaetis hatch wasn’t really happening. However, there were still enough of these bugs around to fake you out; they were like a small “decoy hatch” and lots of trout were jumping but it was hard to figure out what they were taking.
The most successful dry fly was discovered by Kevin Rodgers, who had good success along the far shaded shoreline by casting a Black Flying Ant close to sunken logs close to the bank and the overhanging fir trees. There were also lots of Blue Damsels flying and a few club members had some action fishing those, plus its fun to watch trout jumping a foot or more out of the water trying to snag one!
Round Lake is one of the few high lakes that have brown trout along with the usually more plentiful brook trout. One this day, most of the catch were brown trout about 12” long and we only caught a couple brook trout. Usually, it’s the other way around.
Cheryl Kilhefner put together a tasty deli sandwich style lunch and Paul Brewer helped her pack it up to the lake, where we all enjoyed good food and good company on this very fine day.
This years Kids Day was very well attended. Thank you to everyone that donated their time to make this a fun event.
Kudos to CFF’s Greg O’Brien for tirelessly manning the kids fly tying table all morning, to World Casting Champion Maxine McCormack for helping all the kids with their casting and to the Joel and the Royal Treatment staff for putting on a great Kids Day this year!
Elke and Alysia Littleleaf own Littleleaf Guide Service based in Warm Springs, offering guided fly fishing on 30+ miles of exclusive private access on the Warm Springs Reservation side of the Deschutes River.
Besides guiding on his beloved Deschutes, Elke is an accomplished fly tyer, rockhound and environmental activist. This will be a very informative presentation you won’t want to miss!
http://www.littleleafguides.com/fishing.html
Meeting details: https://clackamasflyfishers.org/meetings-events/
Royal Treatment Fly Shop is hosting their annual Kids Day on Saturday July 13th.
We have been on hand to help serve lunch, assist in casting instruction, and fly tying. Volunteers are always welcome and needed to help with the event.
This years special guest is fly casting champion Maxin McCormick. She will be on hand from 10:00 to 1:00 to help get younsters excited about fly casting and fishing.
Please contact the shop at 503-850-4397 so they can get an idea how many folks will be on hand. The hours are 10am to 3pm and you don’t have to commit to being there the whole time.
In early June Dave Kilhefner, Carson Taylor and Chris Dudley fished the Willamette River for Shad with Rob Crandall. In 4 hours of fishing we caught all the shad we could handle along with numerous doubles and six triple hookups.
Phil Hagar went up to Timothy for the June TU outing from the 5th to the 9th at the North Arm campground. It was a good trip despite some of the weather. Phil got into a bunch of 2-5 pound Rainbows and Brookies plus too many smaller fish to count. Loaned a reel with a sinking line plus a Brick Leech to Jim Teeny’s nephew then took him up by the islands, explained how to fish it and helped him catch his biggest ever Rainbow and also his first ever Brook Trout.
Jim Adams, Gil Henderson, Carson Taylor, Chris Dudley, Pat Miller and Ron Bouchard (who has relocated to Arizona and drove 1200 miles to join us) fished the Owyhee River from June 16th-23rd.
Fishing was “challenging” and while fish were caught not everyone landed fish on this trip. But the camaraderie, humorous stories, and good-natured barbs of the group made it a enjoyable and memorable trip. This group has been getting together for over 10 years.
A major weather event had preceded us. The road in the canyon had been blocked by slides and there were numerous piles of debris that had been removed from the road. The river seemed to have been scoured out of plant and insect life. None of the big hatches that we were used to seeing in previous years materialized. With no fish feeding on the surface we relied on subsurface offerings…small nymphs, streamers, and San Juan worms.
The water was off color when we arrived and the farther downstream you were the dirtier the water. The fish were either hunkered down or had also been swept downstream. On the good side, the fish that were landed were very healthy looking and seemed well fed despite the water conditions. Brown trout up to 22 1/2 inches were landed along with a few healthy rainbows.
Rich Harvey reports the Oregon Fishing Club lakes and ponds have been fishing very well this month, with the cooler weather keeping the big trout active.
Ron Woodke fished Trillium Lake in late June and did very well with Black Woolly Buggers, bringing about 17 fish to hand. Other fly patterns were tried but the trusty Black Woolly Bugger was what they wanted. Besides the good fishing, the weather was perfect and there was no wind.
Jim Behrend and his wife Pat fished the Oregon Fishing Club three times in June. They went to Shauna Pond and did pretty well there and also Blue Den Lake for the first time. They also tried the North Santiam site, which was a fun adventure, having some success with big dry flies. Jim tried Euro-nymphing with a Tenkara rod following Josh Linn’s suggestions at Royal Treatment Fly Shop. It worked surprisingly well considering it was a new technique. The rocks on the Santiam were super slippery, so be careful.
Summer is upon us and a reminder that we will not have a meeting in August, so our next general meeting will be in September.
First, regretfully, Tim Mahoney, our current secretary has tendered is resignation because of personal reasons. Tim all of us Thank You for you serving in that role so admirably and the extra contributions you made to the club.
Now we have need of a new secretary and the board would appreciate any member stepping up to take over that role. It mainly involves attendance at board meetings, preparing minutes of the meeting, filing federal and state forms once a year, and coordinating other documents and correspondence. Of course other board members are always available to help for vacations, etc. so one does not have to feel they must be at every meeting. If interested let any board member know.
The last fishing outing to the Justensen Lakes was well attended with about 8 -9 members attending. The weather was great and the fishing was enjoyable . Everyone tied into a few feisty Rainbow trout and all had an enjoyable day.
Next, we are off to Round Lake for our July outing so put that on your calendar. More information to follow.
Our speaker for July is Elke Littleleaf, a guide on Deschutes and other tribal waters. He is going to share with us the fishing opportunities on tribal lands. This a first and should be very interesting.
Remember our sponsors are they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know your appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a outing with them.
Gil Henderson