June is always a good fishing month with plenty of angling opportunities to choose from. Pictured is a shad from Willamette Falls taken while fishing with Rob Crandall a couple years ago. I’m looking forward to doing this again soon. For the sake of comparison, I went back and re-read last year’s June 2020 Presidents message and things are definitely much better this year!
Hopefully you have been able to get out and enjoy some time on the water as we had plenty of good weather and water conditions last month. The CFF May fishing reports will be posted soon and we’ve got some good stuff to share.
We don’t have a speaker lined up for June, mostly because several of us, me included, are going to be out of town when the June meeting is scheduled. Given this, we will have an informal Zoom meeting at 7pm on June 8th to share flies, lies and the talk fishing. We did this last month and it was fun and informative. I’ll get an email reminder out a day or two before the meeting.
At the Zoom meeting last month it was suggested we have a contest to guess the background location of our favorite fishing spots. If you have a photo you’d like to submit for this contest please email it to me. Once we have 10 or 12 photos we’ll get the contest set up.
The June Fish A Long will be for Shad below Bonneville Dam at the Hamilton Island Parking Area. This is on the Washington side so we’ll go on June 12th, which is a free fishing weekend in Washington. Trux Dole fished there last year and had a great day; here’s his shad fishing report from last year and I’ll email the details for the upcoming fish a long soon.
The Wilder Lake has been rescheduled for November. Same deal; everyone who paid to go in March can fish for free.
I’m sending out email updates once or twice a month and most of you are already on our email list. If you’d like updates in real time put your email in the SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL option and you’ll get an email notice every time a new blog is published, which averages 3 to 5 times per month. If you’re on a PC this option is just to the right of this post, but if you’re on a smartphone you’ll need to scroll way down a ways to find it.
If there is anything you want to see on our blog, let me know. Thanks to Jim Adams for resuming his fly tying column!
For local fishing, Summer Steelhead and Spring Chinook are in the Clackamas and Sandy Rivers. While the numbers are down, they are being caught and are the very best fish of the year. They will be in ultra prime condition from now until the water drops and warms. PGE reports they are getting a very good return of native Spring Chinook on the Clackamas and last month I hooked one but lost it. Dang! This time of year Clackamas River fishing is best early in the morning before the rafters take over the river. The Oregon Fishing Club lakes are fishing very well, especially the ones down by Salem. This will continue until the water gets too warm. The Mount Hood Lakes have all be stocked and should be good options for float tubing. Last but not least, the Deschutes is fishing well but the Stonefly hatch is winding down.
PGE advises Timothy Lake and Lake Harriet are open again. Access is from Hwy 26 only.
For several years now we have been posting monthly fishing reports. Looking back on them is a fun way to get ideas for local fly fishing opportunities currently happening or coming up. Type “June” or “July” and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
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Good fishing!
Dave Kilhefner