Thanks to everyone that attended our September 25th Fish A Long for Coastal Sea Run Cutthroat. This was an “exploratory” trip for our club, meaning most of us had only a vague idea of where to go or how to fish for Sea Run Cutthroat Trout. However, by the end of day we had a much better handle on what to do to be successful as you’ll see.
My day started early, waking up at 4am to finish packing and pick up George in Sherwood for the drive to the coast. We arrived in Tillamook just as it was getting light but had no idea where to start, so we drove around for about 45 minutes checking out various fishing access points along the lower Trask River. We eventually settled on the OFC #2/Burdick location a few miles above tidewater. There we were soon joined by Rich and his son. Since Rich actually knows how to catch Sea Runs, having him arrive at the same place as us was a confidence booster.
Rich and his son went downstream and George and I went upstream. We saw a few salmon rolling and a few guide boats pulling their way thru the super shallow riffles. The water was very low at only 74 cfs, gin clear and probably in the mid 60’s. After the warm summer the rocks were super slippery too so you had to move slow while wading. We saw a few cutthroat jumping in the deeper water close to the bank, but being new to the game couldn’t get into casting range without spooking them. We later learned from Rich it’s important to do your wading on the shallow side, then be stealthy as you cast to the far bank on the deep side then strip your fly back pretty fast; and keep moving! I walked upstream on what felt like a slip & slide and found a pool that allowed me to fish the correct way and connected with a small feisty Cutthroat. Downstream Rich got two nice Cutthroats in the 16-18 inch range. Around mid morning we decided to go to the Sollie Smith Bridge area on the lower Wilson and it was pretty much a repeat of our Trask experience: Rich got a couple nice ones and the rest of us got a small resident trout or two.
As I mentioned earlier, this was an “exploratory” Fish A Long. I received a few texts from people wondering where to go, but as I said earlier I didn’t really know where to go thus couldn’t really offer any advice better than “somewhere along the lower river would probably be best.” Sorry for my lack of knowledge, but our club made big strides on this fishery and next year will be better!
This fish a long was well attended and over a dozen of us met at the Wilson River Footbridge Trailhead. Our club has a new sign that Ken generously helped design so people can find us when we are out in the boonies chasing fish. It was fun to trade fish stories from the day and nearly everyone got fish, but to be unusually honest for a fisherman not all were Sea Run Cutts! But, it was a very nice day and good times were had by all. Thanks again to everyone that helped make this fish a long a success. I’m sure we will do it again next year!
It was good to receive Dave Kilhefner’s email about our upcoming fish-a-long on the Wilson and Trask Rivers for Sea Run Cutthroat Trout. According to some anglers, Sea Run Cutthroats (aka Blue Backs, Harvest Trout, Cutts, or Cutties) are arguably the best overlooked trout fly fishery in the state. So overlooked that even Dave K. says he has never targeted sea run cutthroats! (What a shock! I didn’t think there was a fish species in Oregon that had escaped being searched out by Dave.)
As their name implies, Sea Run Cutthroat trout divide their time between fresh and salt water. Unlike their relatives, the salmon and steelhead, they do not migrate far from their home rivers and return there in late summer, entering the estuaries in July and August, eventually working their way farther upstream. Cutties are aggressive predatory feeders and are known to be eager in going after artificial fly patterns.
I stopped in at The Royal Treatment fly shop looking for flies and sea run cutthroat information. Randy Stetzer, author of the book called “Flies: The Best One Thousand”, told me that you should keep moving if you are not finding fish. If the fish are there they are likely to be going after your fly. They like cover, so be fishing for them around logs, large rocks, root wads, cut banks, and shady areas. Josh Linn put me onto two fly patterns that seem to be on the go to list of many anglers: the Borden Special and the Reverse Spider.
Borden Special (developed in 1961 by Bob Borden, founder of HareLine Dubbin)
Recipe— Hook: TMC 3761 #4-10, or equivalent 1X long hook Thread: black 6/0, 8/0 Tail: yellow and pink hackle fibers Rib: small silver tinsel Body: hot pink rabbit or synthetic dubbing Wing: white arctic fox or other suitable white hair Collar: wraps of saddle hackle or schlappen; hot pink in front of yellow
Tying Instructions for the Borden Special— Click on the following link to see Jay Nicholas tying his version of the Borden Special. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpVhdjSU5ag
Reverse Spider (more of a style of fly than one specific fly pattern)
Reverse spider tied with Lady Amherst tippet Reverse spider tied with mallard flank
Recipe— Hook: TMC 3761 #6-10 Thread: color of choice 6/0,8/0 Tail: feather fibers, or no tail at all Rib: silver tinsel Body: synthetic or natural dubbing; or chenille; color(s) of choice Hackle: Lady Amherst pheasant tippet, or mallard flank fibers, or rooster or saddle hackles; color of choice; tied in with the fibers in reverse style, facing forward over the hook eye
New club member Keaton Andreas is excited as he looks forward to his first fish-a-long. He forwarded some information to Dave Kilhefner about his experience in August with a guide on the Nestucca River fishing for sea run cutthroats. Keaton indicated that the fishing got better when he fished a reverse spider that was weighted, allowing his fly to get down to the fish. Try to track him down at the fish-a-long because he says he is going to tie up as many as he can and that he is willing to share them with others.
Keaton’s weighted Reverse Spider
Here is Keaton’s recipe for the weighted reverse spider he used: Hackle: Chartreuse Lady Amherst Tippet Head: Black Nickel Tungsten Bead Body: Medium Light Olive Chenille Tail: Chartreuse Lady Amherst Tippet
For more details about fishing for Sea Run Cutthroat trout check out the following links that Jay Nicholas posted on the Oregon Flyfishing Blog:
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.
What a difference a year makes! The picture above is of Marty Sheppard scouting for sheep in the smoke during last years wildfires. While our wildfire season is difficult, it’s not as bad as last year, at least in our region.
Here’s some potentially great news! The High Rocks meeting room is open so we will be having a regular “in person” meeting Tuesday, September 21st. Josh Linn will be our speaker and his subject is Euro Nymphing, something he is very knowledgeable about. Josh will be donating a box of flies plus a leader for our raffle.
Our last meeting at High Rocks was February of 2020, about 18 months ago. It’s been a long road!
More on the meeting: given the changing COVID situation I’ll get an email survey out to the membership soon to see how everyone feels about attending an in person meeting.
This month’s Fish A Long will be Saturday, September 25th. The location is still to be determined but with the weather cooling down there are good options are available. The Fish A Longs schedule has its own page on our website. Also, I’m sorry we didn’t have a fish a long in August. To be honest with all the hot weather changing the fisheries, I couldn’t find a place to go that would accommodate a fish a long.
Brad Jonasson want’s everyone to know the Fly Fishing Challenge is still open and to sign up if you haven’t already.
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 “September” in the search box and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
If there is anything you want to see on our blog, let me know. Thanks again to Jim Adams for resuming his fly tying column!
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
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.
Great news everyone! The High Rocks meeting room is open so we will be having a regular “in person” meeting September 21st (for our newer members, we don’t have meetings in August as too many of us are out of town). Our last meeting at High Rocks was February of 2020, about 18 months ago. It’s been a long road!
This months Fish A Long will be Saturday, August 21st. The location is still to be determined but given the hot weather it will most likely be on the Columbia or Willamette chasing Smallmouth Bass. The Fish A Longs schedule has its own page on our website.
I’ll get our July fishing reports out soon. As summer progresses hopefully you have been able to beat the heat and enjoy some quality time outdoors. The picture above is my daughter Kelsey kayaking the upper Sandy.
Brad Jonasson want’s everyone to know the Fly Fishing Challenge is still open and to sign up if you haven’t already.
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 “August” in the search box and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
If there is anything you want to see on our blog, let me know. Thanks again to Jim Adams for resuming his fly tying column!
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
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!
CFF President Dave Kilhefner has announced that the July 24th fish-a-long will be at various Mt. Hood area lakes.
One of the more effective fly patterns you should have in your stilllwater arsenal is the Seal Bugger, a fly that was developed by Denny Rickards over 30 years ago. Denny is a noted stillwater fly fisherman on his home waters of Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon where he developed the Seal Bugger.
Denny thought that he could improve on the longtime favorite versatile fly that we know as the Wooly Bugger. By altering the materials and construction he came up with a fly that is famous for enticing trophy trout which is quite evident if you have ever watched any of his videos or presentations. The Seal Bugger looks much like a classic Wooly Bugger except Rickards’ version uses seal fur (or a substitute) dubbing instead of chenille for the body. Other differences include a reduction in the amount of marabou in the tail and also a reduction in the amount of hackle wraps on the body.
The Seal Bugger can be tied in many color variations. Denny’s own website lists 12 different combinations of tail, body, and hackle colors. Tied usually in sizes 8 and 10 and fished on intermediate sink lines the Seal Bugger is a must-have fly for your arsenal when you are heading out to stillwater fishing locations.
I once saw a list that Denny Rickards made of the flies that he would use if he was only allowed to fish with six flies for the rest of his life. The Seal Bugger was number one on the list!
Dave Kilhefner mentioned to me that Lane Hoffman had been tying seal buggers on euro nymph jig hooks and that they were “awesome”. In verifying that with Lane, he says that he has been tying them on jig hooks and “they have been very effective!”. So I would say that it would be interesting to experiment with wooly buggers compared to seal buggers, compared to jig hook seal buggers. Tie up some of each in your favorite colors and report back to the rest of us about which works best. They are probably fished best with intermediate sink lines, varying the depth and retrieve until you find the right combination.
SEAL BUGGER RECIPE (for both the Lane Hoffman and Denny Rickards versions) Hook: For Lane Hoffman’s version use a size 12 or 14 euro nymph jig hook with a 60 degree bend; (For Denny Rickard’s version use a Tiemco 5263, or Mustad 9672, or Daiichi 1720, size 8,10) Weight: For Lane’s version use a 7/64 or 1/8 inch black slotted tungsten bead; (for Denny’s version use 20 wraps .020 lead). Tail: marabou (fluffy fibers from the side of the marabou feather will give more movement); tied more sparse than wooly bugger; color of choice (Lane prefers olive); add 2 strands pearl flashabou or flash of choice; Body: Simi Seal, or equivalent (angora with ice dub); color of choice (Lane prefers olive) Hackle: 4 wraps saddle hackle; undersized compared to wooly bugger; color of choice (Lane prefers olive or orange) Rib: small copper wire
SEAL BUGGER TYING INSTRUCTIONS (for both the Lane Hoffman and Denny Rickards versions)
For Lane’s jigged version, place the slotted bead onto the hook and secure it with thread wraps.
For Denny’s standard seal bugger, wind 20 wraps of .020 lead wire around shank of hook. The wraps should start about one to two hook eye’s width behind the eye of the hook. Secure the lead with numerous thread wraps. *** Steps 3-12 are the same for both Lane’s jigged seal bugger and Denny Rickards standard seal bugger.
Tie in a marabou tail, making it a bit more sparse than for a wooly bugger.
Add one piece of pearl flashabou to each side of the tail.
Tie in a piece of copper wire for ribbing at the base of the tail. Leave it hanging out back of the fly.
Tie in the saddle hackle feather by the tip at the base of the tail. Leave it hanging out the back of the fly. ***(Prepare your dubbing material at this time.)
Form about a 5 inch dubbing loop at the base of the tail. Wind your bobbin to the front.
Load the dubbing loop sparsely with dubbing material and spin the loop tight. Wrap the loaded dubbing loop forward, forming the body of the fly. Anchor it with thread wraps at the front.
Wind the hackle forward, making four wraps of the hackle. Anchor the hackle at the front of the fly with wraps of thread.
Counterwrap the copper wire ribbing forward, taking care to move the wire back and forth to miss the hackle fibers. Anchor the wire with thread wraps at the front of the fly.
Whip finish and add head cement.
Pick out body hair fibers with a bodkin, brush, or velcro. Take care to not damage the hackle.
As our fishing reports proved, last month was exceptionally good with many different fly fishing opportunities to choose from. As we roll into summer hopefully you have been able to beat the heat and enjoy some quality time outdoors.
We don’t have a speaker lined up for July but will have another informal Zoom meeting at 7pm on July 20th 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.
And speaking of meetings, here’s some big news. It looks like we will be able to have a meeting at High Rocks in September!
This month I had hoped to have an outdoor meeting centered around fly casting at a park like Westmoreland but couldn’t get it put together. However, I’m always game to throw some line so if anyone needs some casting pointers or practice send me an email and we’ll do it.
The July 24th Fish A Long will be on Mt Hood waters. Just like last year, we’ll spread out on various waters and meet for lunch at the Frog Lake Sno Park at 1pm. The Fly Fishing Shop has been putting out some excellent information on the local fishing opportunities, along with a summary of the Hoot Owl regulations in effect this month.
The Wilder Lake Fish A Long has been rescheduled for November. Same deal; everyone who paid to go in March can fish for free.
PGE advises Timothy Lake and Lake Harriet are open. Access is from Hwy 26 only. Lane Hoffman advises the road over Lolo Pass to Lost Lake is pretty bad and you’ll probably need to take the long way around thru Hood River.
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 “July” or “August” and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
If there is anything you want to see on our blog, let me know. Thanks to Jim Adams for resuming his fly tying column!
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
Another great fly fishing month with lots of good reports to share. As always, pictures first with the report below.
From George Coutts & Dave Kilhefner: We booked a dory trip thru Pacific City Fly Fishing and got really lucky with perfect weather and good fishing. We came home with limits of Black Rockfish, Lingcod and Crab.
From Ryan Callahan: Did a four day float on the Smith River in Montana. We had great weather but the visibility in the river was poor so the fishing was slow. I caught the Brownie in the picture on a large black streamer. Overall we did well on streamers and redhead prince nymphs.
From Wayne Hughes: Floated the Willamette river for Cutthroat and Rainbows. Not a lot of hatches that day but found lots of cutts that were interested in some swinging soft hackles.
From Tom Phipps: With restrictions lifting I was able to make the annual trip to Cape Cod to fish for stripers with friends from Eugene. The weather was more cooperative than usual but the fish were picky and not as big as they have been some years and conditions were a bit challenging. We all got fish and it was great to be out and about.
From Mike Shiiki: Took my sons and nephew on our first trip to Timothy Lake in our float tubes. We fished across the lake from North Arm Campground. Temps got up in the 80’s and fish were hitting all day. We trolled with intermediate sink lines with black, maroon, white and olive buggers and leeches. A few even hit a brown size 8 skulpzilla. Most caught were fat 16-20” hatchery rainbows, with a few big natives.
We were worried that the fish might be stressed from heat/warm water they weren’t. They all recovered well and we did our best to release them asap. The best location was “the channel” across the lake from North Arm Campground, and very few people fishing.
From Brad Jonasson: David Hopkins and I explored Oregon with a mid-June trip to Lake County (Ana and Chewaucan rivers) where the Chewaucan near Paisley was particularly beautiful and productive. Then over to Harney County where a few big rainbows (16″, 17″) were nymphed from the Malheur River at Riverside. Finally the Owyhee where a few Browns were caught early evening (PMD’s) despite the hoards of Idahoans.
From Dave Doble: June started with a trip to Trillium when it opened up. That was a good trip with lots of fish landed, including that huge trout my daughter caught on spinning gear with a small kastmaster and 6 lb test. We caught a lot of fish that day on fly gear as well, mostly on buggers. With the new fish, anything shiny worked.
Had a blast at the Shad Fish A Long, it was great to break in my new 4 wt trout spey rod and get to work on my two handed casting. And those shad are great fighters on light gear! The shad were also a new species for me. I returned to fish shad two more times and had a blast.
We made one more trip to trillium before the heat wave started. Fishing was slow for a while. I broke out a bugger I started tying a few years back. I tie it specifically for that lake. Trillium has that whiskey tint to it. I put together a standard bugger with brown marabou, gold wire rib, a root beer sparkly chenille body, and a brown hackle. The key is, tying in a pinch of orange crystal flash alongside the marabou tail. It gives a shimmering emerald flash in that water that drives the fish bonkers. That fly was the ticket!
From Darryl Huff: I’ve been hitting the Deschutes at first light and the trout are feeding on top water caddis until about 7:30. Also took the granddaughters to a local pond and had a great time!!
From Tim McSweeney: Spent Father’s Day weekend (Fri-Sun) canoeing around Timothy Lake trolling Buggers and Leeches for stockers with my Wife and Daughter. We caught 2 dozen or so through the weekend with a handful used as examples for teaching my girl how to clean and prep them for the cast iron. All and all it was a great weekend of fishing and eating.
From Dennis Murphy: With hoot owl hours in effect now fishing close by has become important for me to maximize my time on the water. I’ve been hitting McIver Park before sunrise to get a few hours on the water these days and the fishing has been a learning experience. There’s a good lane the salmon/steelhead run up right by the disc golf course that I’ve been fishing and while I haven’t caught anything, but I’ve seen them! Figure it’s a matter of time before I get one of the very, very few steelhead that are coming through. I’ve been fishing a variety of tube flies and muddlers in pinks/blacks/chartreuses/reds but continue to mix things up. If you want to catch something else, there’s plenty of pike minnows, whitefish and a few 10-12″ trout.
I was invited on a trip to the Keys with three experienced anglers from my company. We put in three solid days in the hot, humid, and unfortunately overcast weather only to come up mostly empty handed. The only one of us that had any luck was taken into back waters to hunt for baby tarpon. On the first night I had couple shots at some tarpon that came through but they weren’t eating what I was throwing (Palolo worms). The next day we stopped for lunch and just as I got my rod put away and my sandwich unwrapped, a school showed up. I tossed my sandwich in the cooler and got everything out as fast as possible, but it was too late. I decided lunch wasn’t worth it and from then on out focused on fishing, subsisting off water and snacks. While we didn’t have good luck it was a great time and we are already planning a return trip next year.
From Greg O’Brien: My main June event was fishing the South Shore of Massachusetts during outer trip to visit my in-laws. We had a good day catching lots of schoolie sized stripers. Nothing over 28” but fun fly rod fish! My cousin fished swim baits and we each ended up releasing about 20 fish.
From Dave Kilhefner: Cheryl & I traveled to Minneapolis to help my son move back from college. On the way home we spent a few days in Emigrant, MT which is just north of Yellowstone Park. It was a fun road trip and we saw lots of sights and did a little fishing too.
