Month: May 2022

Fly Tying June 2022: Shad Fly Revisited

/ Jim Adams / Leave a comment

Here’s the only fly you’ll need for next month’s Fish A Long on June 11th, Bill Schaadt’s Shad Fly. This updated post features both written tying instructions and a video.  

Nick Wheeler, formerly at The Royal Treatment fly shop in West Linn, introduced this pattern to us while speaking to our club on the topic of Shad fly fishing a couple years ago plus was on hand to lead us during an evening of tying up shad flies. Nick is still fondly remembered for the expertise he added to local anglers’ knowledge about flyfishing for shad. Despite the good natured banter he suffered from others in the fly shop, Nick’s enthusiasm for the previously overlooked shad was infectious.

Click here to read an article on Bill Schaadt and his shad fly that is being reprised from the Clackamas Fly Fishers blog from 2018. Much of the information in the article was gathered from an interview I did with Nick, as well as his evening presentation to the club.

Below is the Recipe and Tying Instructions for Nick Wheeler’s version of Bill Schaadt’s Shad Fly:

RECIPE:

  • Hook: Tiemco 3761 #6 ; or Fulling Mill F35085 #8; or similar
  • Thread: anything hot orange; Nick Wheeler recommends Danville’s Fire Orange flat waxed 210
  • denier thread (covers well with fewer wraps); a second color of choice would be fluorescent green
  • Tail: pearlescent krystal flash
  • Body: silver mylar; size 12 or 10
  • Eyes: medium size silver bead chain
  • Head: thread; tapered behind and front of the eyes
  • Coating: head cement (or Sally Hansen’s or UV resin)

INSTRUCTIONS:

  • Lay down a thread base.
  • Tie in a tail of about 10-12 strands of krystal flash; trim the tail strands fairly short, about 1/4 to 3/8 inch long.
  • Tie in a strand of mylar at the base of the tail. Tie it down with the gold side facing up so that when you wrap it the silver side will be facing up. Move your bobbin forward.
  • Spiral wrap the mylar forward to about the mid-point of the hook, overlapping each wrap onto the previous one so there are no gaps. Tie it off and remove the excess mylar.
  • Use a few figure-8 wraps to tie in the bead chain eyes, at a distance about 1/3 of the hook length back from the hook eye. That should put the eyes at a position slightly more than halfway back from the eye to the mylar. See the drawing below. (Although not essential, anchoring the eyes in with a drop of super glue may be helpful because these flies can take a hammering during your multi-fish day of fishing! )
  • Continue wrapping the thread to form the head which will extend from the mylar to the eye of the hook. Taper the head both behind and forward of the bead chain eyes so that the head is thickest at the eyes and then tapers to the front and back. Because of the way you positioned the eyes in Step 5 the taper in front of the eyes will be slightly longer than the taper behind the eyes. Whip finish the head right behind the eye.
  • For added durability give the finished fly a coat or two of head cement or epoxy over the entire body and head (but not the tail!).
  • The bead chain eyes are not centered on the head. The taper of the head in front of the eyes should be longer than the taper behind the eyes.

May 2022 Crooked River Fish A Long Report

/ davekilhefner / Leave a comment

You’ll notice this Fish A Long report features pictures of some really nice fish and scenery. If this was a fishing show it would be easy to bend the truth and say the fishing was hot, but the reality is the fishing was tough, very tough! Rich and I fished for 3 solid days and the first two days I was pretty sure I’d get skunked and nearly did. On the last day I caught 1 trout, but it was a big enough to make all the effort worthwhile.

Rich and I arrived Thursday night. It was a cold evening, an even colder night and we burned most of our wood. As the campfire burned the stars came out and were very bright! The guys in the site next to us said it snowed a little when they were setting up camp. Fortunately the cold snap was short lived. By the time we finished our coffee the following morning it was pretty nice out and stayed that way the rest of the weekend.

The river was off color with about 2 feet of visibility and flowing at 242 cfs. The week before it was at 125 cfs and since there wasn’t a full moon to blame the slow bite on, we blamed it on the increased water flow. The water temperature was 48-49 degrees which is pretty much perfect. Everything seemed OK but as I said before, fishing was tough!

Rich got into a few and I struggled. I was well on my way to earning my skunk stripe when a whitefish rolled on my two fly nymph rig. While I missed the strike, the dropper fly hooked it in the tail and I was able to bring it to hand. While the skunk was officially off, it felt like taking a hand off at the trout farm. Fortunately we had our traditional Mexican feast at the Mazatlan Restaurant in Prineville to look forward to, and it didn’t disappoint!

Saturday dawned with a repeat of Fridays good weather and slow fishing. We had our traditional fish a long breakfast of coffee and donuts, swapped recent fishing stories and got ready for the day.

Fishing was slow again today but Rich found a good pocket close to the deadline up by the dam with some willing trout and managed to hook 9 and land 3 in a couple hours, all on his little bright red midge pupa pattern. The biggest was 20” long and fat as a pig. It was a real brute!

We broke for lunch and I tied some of Rich’s bright red midge pupa’s for myself and also the guys in the camp next to us.

Armed with the the latest hot fly renewed our confidence. We worked downstream into the pocket water by the campground. Rich was able to grind out some trout by concentrating his approach around the rocks. I stuck with my “cover lots of water” steelhead approach and had no luck. Lesson learned: work harder on picking the water apart and working the structure! In the afternoon a huge cadds hatch came off. When the sun got low the fish started rising. I put on an Elk Hair Caddis, swung it just below the surface and did well. It’s also a really fun way to fish, especially after you’ve been hyper focused on nymph fishing all day!

Saturday night we hung out with the guys in the camp next to us. Like us, they traveled over from the Portland area to do some fly fishing and enjoy the dry east side weather. We built a big fire, talked fishing and had a fun night.

Sunday was another nice day. The plan was to hit the Crooked in the morning then maybe try the Deschutes on the way home. We hiked back up to towards the dam and while crossing the river saw an Osprey dive into the water and sink it’s talons into a fish so big it could not lift it out of the water. It was a tense two minutes while we watched & wondered if the Osprey might not make it. It was a relief when the osprey was finally able to unlock its talons and fly away to seek smaller prey next timel.

We went back up by the dam and fishing was tough. After pounding the water with my indicator rod, I switched to Euro nymphing and hooked a big trout on the first cast by slowly walking one of Lane Hoffman’s red squirmy worms down the current seam. We fished the water thoroughly for another hour or so without success. At lunch we broke camp and made a quick stop at the Deschutes by Warm Springs. The big stoneflies were active but it was the middle of the day and the trout were taking a siesta so we didn’t linger very long before calling it quits and heading home.

Even with the slow fishing it was a great fishing weekend with good weather and fun fishing companions. While nobody wishes for slow fishing, it’s a good teacher and I learned a few new tricks.

Next month’s fish a long is June 11th (free fishing weekend in Washington). We will be chasing Shad up at Bonneville Dam. Hope to see you there!

CFF April 2022 Fishing Reports

/ davekilhefner / Leave a comment

After a pretty slow winter fishing really picked up in April and our members had some great fishing. As always, pictures first with the reports below.

From Joshua Marsh: Had a great trip to Xcalak, fishing out of Casa Paraiso.  We had two slams in our group (tarpon, permit, and bonefish in a single day) and lots of action throughout. It was amazing fishing in a fantastic place with bones and permit caught right off the dock.  I’m sorry to say no permit for me, but next time!

From Keaton Andreas: I don’t have a fishing report, but I’ve been working on tying a pattern that I plan to target cutthroat trout with. My plan is to test them on resident fish at the opener on 5/22 at the Wilson River weather permitting. 

From Tim McSweeney: All I’ve been thinking about all winter is figuring out fisheries that are closer to home. Between work, and family life I don’t get out nearly as much as I’d like and when I do, it’s always been LONG day trips or weekend trips.

So what did I do? Went after smallmouth; never caught one and didn’t know anything about them. Drove 3 hours to a river that was way too cold, dirty and high to be fishing for them. I had a couple friends that casually fish and wanted to get out this weekend before our Spring’s got to busy. I threw out a couple ideas and they clung to this river and spot even though I knew it wasn’t the right time of year. In two solid days of fishing all we got was 1 eat & one lethargic smallie around 10″. Regardless, it was absolutely gorgeous, and was able to catch up and relax around the fire.

On our way home we stopped for 1.5 hrs at a popular state park on a much lower stretch of this river where the water was warmer but much dirtier. In the end we landed two good, thick fish and 3 dinks. Including my fish smallie that really doubled over my 6wt. I can’t wait to start fishing for these more, especially, you know, actually closer to home.

From Chris Brehm: Started the month fishing the Lower Sacramento near Redding. Got some beauties fishing Bubble Back Caddis and Peaches and Cream nymphs under indicators.  Went to Crane Prairie for the opener and got our son into some nice Cranebows inspite of rather slow fishing. Action on  Balanced Leeches and Rootbeer colored Chironomids.

From Dave Kilhefner: I’ve really taken my lumps this winter steelhead season. Finally some showed up in the upper Sandy for a few weeks. It was fun while it lasted!

From Greg O’Brien: Another club member and I hit the lower Deschutes to swing flies with trout spey gear.  It wasn’t lights out, but we got a few decent fish on sculpin patterns.

From Darryl Huff: I was able to squeeze in three trips to Warm Springs in the first week after the opener. Fishing was definitely good with perdigons leading the way as the most productive fly. Perdigons tied with Glo Brite Floss in Fl Highlander Green #13 consistently outperform all other colors for me. Water temps reaching 50 degrees seems the magic number to stimulate fish movement into faster water and increased feeding activity. My size 14 nymphs were for the most part completely ignored. The magic combination in most water was a size 16 with a 3.5 bead on the point, and a size 16 or 18 as the upper fly with a 3.0 bead. Fish were also caught on Walt’s Worm, Golden Stone, Jimmy Leg Stone, Rainbow Warrior, and Frenchies. 

From Ed Rabinowe: This beauty took a wooley bugger at tide change 😉

From Bob Beswich: Just a quick D report, no Stone flies in the Maupin area yet. I managed to land a few nice trout in the riffles with a nymph dropper; while it rained Saturday.

From Richard Harvey: The OFC properties have been good all month with warm water fish starting to get active. 

From George Krumm: Spring Chinook gear fishing has been great in the places that are open above Bonneville.

Great job everyone and thanks for sending in your reports!

May 2022 Presidents Message

/ davekilhefner / Leave a comment

Frankly, fishing last month was on the tough side. The crazy weather unsettled the local lakes and had the river levels bouncing up and down like a pogo stick. Still, I got out fishing when I could and had a few surprisingly good days for steelhead, and these days any good day for steelhead is a big surprise! As I’m writing this the sun is shining, all the trees have leaves and the nice spring weather raises my hopes for good fishing to come; May is one of my personal favorite fishing months!

When we had that one nice day last month luck was with me I ended up being part of a future episode of Angler West TV & a Salmon Trout Steelheader YouTube video, which is online now. I’m on from 5:40 to 8:30, click the link above if you want to check it out. I’m talking about swinging beads for steelhead, which was taught to my by master angler Phil Senatra, plus you can see my crazy boat.

We don’t have a speaker for our May 17th meeting as High Rocks had a big group book the meeting room and more power to them during these tough times! We can still have an informal & fun “flies and lies” meeting down by the fireplace. The “first beer free” rule will still apply.

Our May 21st Fish A Long will be at Clear Lake on Mt Hood. The last couple years its fished very well in May and by the time we have our fish a long it will have been stocked with thousands of trout varying from standard planters to brood stock hogs. While it’s possible to catch fish from shore, its best fished from a float tube and this time of year the best patterns are chironomids & callibaetis fished slow or small leeches stripped & trolled.

Good fishing reports are startig to roll in from the Deschutes. No big bug action yet but nymph fishing has been fair to good. Darryl reports a #16 green Perdigon has been best. Rich reports the OFC lakes are starting to fish very well and besides trout, the warmwater fish are getting active. Eric & Jack at NWFFO have been getting some nice bass pre-spawn largemouths recently. Being a steelhead nut, I have foolish hopes that summer steelhead will be cruising in the Clackamas. Early summer steelhead are the best fish of the year and since most folks are either chasing spring chinook or heading to the Deschutes it’s common to have the river to yourself.

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 “May” or “June” and you’ll get all the past reports for that month. 

We’ve fixed the search funcion on the Fly Tying articles so if you type “fly tying” in the search box you’ll get all the old articles. There’s good stuff in there. Here’s a link to the Shad Fly: you’ll want a couple dozen of these for the June 11th Fish A Long at Bonneville.

Please remember our sponsors, 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 trip.  

Good fishing! 

Dave Kilhefner