August was another hot month but CFF members were able to get out and enjoy some good fishing. Thanks to everyone for contributing your fishing reports!
Here are our August reports; pictures first with the report following. Enjoy!
From Greg O’Brien: I started the month with a guided tiger Muskie trip with Mike Sturza that culminated in about a million casts with an 11 wt, 1 missed shot, numerous follows and a sore body My buddy got one though. I then floated the Deschutes with my brother and a couple other friends and got some nice trout on swung flies. Finally I switched to warm water mode and got a few bass and a 20” pikeminnow in the Willamette close to home.
From Ron Maben: Fished the Metolius River, which is new water for me. The upper skinny water fished quite well for 8in – 11in fish, on a #14 light colored elk hair caddis; it was pleasant small water dry fly fishing. Then I fished down river from the hatchery & saw fish feeding on the surface but couldn’t tell what they were taking but they seemed to be ignoring the caddis on the water. Put on a #16 quigleys cripple and instantly tied into a measured 16 + inch fish that made three strong runs taking lots of line before I could finally get it to net. When I netted the fish, people across the river applauded!
From Tim McSweeney: Spent a week on the Metolius chasing bull trout and red sides. The fishing was spectacular with bulls up to 30” from morning till afternoon and then dry fly fishing for redsides till I couldn’t see. It was a really great week fishing in many different ways.
From Dennis Murphy: August was a busy month and it was hard to find time to get out to the water. I had a couple trips, some successful and some not.
Put two weekends into fishing for surf perch along the coast near Cape Lookout. Both times I got skunked. The conditions seemed right, but even the gear guys were getting nothing. I was using my 7wt two hander to overhand cast a 30′ T-14 to 5′ of flouro with shrimp, minnow and sandcrab patterns. It was a heck of a shoulder workout and I was definitely sore after the first time. The second time out things felt much easier as I got the hang of the two handed overhand cast while wearing a PFD and stripping basket. The best part of the coast those weekends was dodging the high heat in Portland! The time of year isn’t great for surf perch so I’m holding off until they move closer to shore again.
Took one other trip up the Old Clackamas Highway on an exploratory trip with a friend. We took what seemed like an obvious trail down to the water but was more of a rock climbing adventure. After spending some time getting nibbles from small fish and eating our fill of blackberries we got ready to pack it up and head home. I decided to make one last cast into a good looking pool on the way out and got a good hit. A solid 12″ trout! Repeating the mantra “just one more cast then we’ll go” I landed a 10″ on my second cast. On the third, my fly was slammed and I was caught off guard by a 15″ trout. I made one last cast hooking up with another 10″ before respecting my mantra and heading out.
From Dave Kilhefner: Jim Bennett and his trusty dog Bob did well on smallmouth bass last month above Willamette Falls and agreed to show me & George Coutts the ropes. We put our boats in at Hebb Park and worked our way downstream, hitting several of Jim’s favorite spots along the way. Fishing was not hot but it was steady and we all ended up getting several smallmouths. Favorite flies were Clouser Minnows and Woolly Buggers fished on full sinking T-200 lines.