July was a hot one but CFF members were able to get out, keep cool and have some good fishing. Thanks to everyone for contributing your fishing reports!

Here are our July reports; pictures first with the report following. Enjoy!

From Lane Hoffman: Had great rainbow fishing on the Green River in Wyoming.

From John Silkey: Just did an epic 2 day overnight float on the S. Fork of the Snake! Amazing trip – almost entirely yellowstone cuts in our boat (others also caught rainbows, a few browns, and whitefish.) All of mine were caught either on a giant, foam golden stonefly or a golden stone emerger on a 5 inch dropper.

From Wayne Hughes: Spent a week in Montana. Fished the Clark Fork river near Thompson Falls. Caught lots of Smallmouth bass, Pike, and some nice browns. It was smoky and hot!

From George Coutts: Fished the Deschutes for three days in mid-July. Caught one Rainbow indicator fishing on day one, then six Rainbows Euro Nymphing on day two. Day three was best with two 16” Rainbows Euro Nymphing. Fished Clear Lake at the Fish A Long & managed one trout.

From Gil Henderson: Fished the Deschutes a couple times casting & stripping Sculpin patterns. Caught some nice trout and lost a few too.

From Dennis Murphy: Rhona and I met up late Saturday morning and put in a few hours on the Upper Nestucca. We managed lots of 6-8″ native cutthroats on a variety of patterns, but the winner for me was a rainbow midge. After a bit of that, I started fishing the deepest, strongest riffles I could find and managed to pull up a 12-13″ cutthroat on a size 8 egg sucking leech.We eventually ran into hoot owl hours. Water was in the low 60’s the entire day but we’re all law abiding citizens so we called it a day.

From Greg O’Brien: My wife and daughter joined me on a dory trip with Pacific City Flyfishing.  I’ve been on a trip with them every summer for a while now and it’s always a great time.  Limits of black rockfish and Dungeness crab plus one coho landed out of 4 hooked. 

From David Doble: I can’t believe it but I have no report for July. That’s not good! (note: I personally struggle getting out much in July as well! DK)

From Chris Gardener: Fished up river from Maupin on the Lower D a week ago and put a few in the net with Hopper Dropper & tight line nymphing tactics. Only fished in the AM since it hit 103 in the canyon shortly after lunch but fishing was pretty good overall. Also snagged a Caddis Larva in his mobile home. Pretty cool looking.

From Dave Kilhefner: Vickie Loftus and I hit Schmedeke Pond, mostly for casting practice but I managed a really nice size Crappie. Vickie landed a couple trout while kicking in at the end of the day. Surface water temp was 86 degrees so we released the trout as fast as possible and they quickly dove back into the depths.

From George Krumm: Spent time searching for Chinook in July in the Willamette.  Fishing wasn’t great but there were fish to be found, primarily by trolling Pro-Troll ProChip 11 flashers with size 3.5 spinners with a coon shrimp. Averaged about three bites a day fishing from daylight to 10 a.m.

To be honest the catch rate for our July Fish A Long was a little slow. But it’s important to keep the Fish A Long momentum going plus survey’s say you have a better chance at catching fish if you go fishing so that’s what some of use did! Most of us ended up catching a fish or two and having a good time doing it.

Dave K and Kevin R started early on the Salmon River at the Miller Road access. We tried Euro Nymphing in the riffles for about an hour but didn’t find any trout. We did see some salmon rolling in the big pool and this brought back some good fishing memories from my youth. Some history: this area used to be called the Gravel Pit for obvious reasons and it used to be a premier fishing area for Steelhead in Oregon. Back then the Salmon River was heavily stocked and the returns were very good. It wasn’t unusual to see over 100 steelhead in the hole back then. It was such a good spot that former President George H.W. Bush fished there when he came to Oregon (not trying to be political, it’s just something that really happened a long time ago).

If you’ve never been to this place, it’s a well marked pullout about 1/2 mile before the Mt Hood RV Resort. The road is gated and it’s about a 1/2 mile walk in. You need to cover water to score but the wading in the river is a little challenging due to sharp loose rocks and also a fair number of logs & log jams you have scramble around. It’s a beautiful area but also a popular target shooting area so it’s best to hit it early and then move on.

After finishing up on the Salmon River we drove to Clear Lake as we’ve had some good fishing there this year. At the lake we met up with George C, Kadir S and Ken M. There were lots of Callibaetis duns and spinners on the water and fish were rising regularly. Still, the fishing was tough as the lake had gotten very low, the level being about 3,488. You can see from the chart that’s within 3 feet of the maximum drawdown level of 3,485 and later in the day when people started swimming we saw a guy walk all the way across the lake and the water only reached his chest.

One bright spot was that Ken, who has a background in graphic arts, made us a nice sign and had it on display at Clear Lake. We got several inquiries and hopefully they will sign up for our website updates and join us someday.

The usual mid day wind never materialized and it started getting pretty warm, so we got off the water around 1pm and headed to the Frog Lake Sno Park to see if anyone was there to meet for lunch. No one was so several of us finished our day with burgers and refreshments at the Brightwood Tavern, which was a great way to end the day!