The water levels and weather this May were a little crazy, but as you’ll see from this report CFF members were flexible and found plenty of good places to fly fish. As always, pictures first with the reports below.
From John Silkey: Spent last week at Guide School on the S. Fork of the Snake in Idaho with Worldcast. Amazing experience! Got to dive deep into all things fly fishing for a week and spent most days on the water learning how to properly and safely pilot a drift boat while guiding clients. (Even got to do a little fishing and got this nice Yellowstone Cutt.)
I don’t own a boat yet but am looking to practice more, so if anyone needs an oarsman I’m keen to spend time paddling and getting to know area.
From Mike Shiiki: Lost Lake in the coast range: First time there and it was recently stocked with a bunch of hatchery rainbows and some steelhead. The rainbows hit all day, all were hatcheries from 8-12″. We trolled #14 black/red Half-Wit leeches on an intermediate line from our float tubes; this technique is still killing it! My friend Christian was using float line, no indicator and stripping a long leader with leaches/buggers. Steelhead could be seen near the surface and occasionally rise. I ended up landing two that hit leaches; the first was 26″ and the second was bigger. It’s an easy lake to get into, has a parking lot, bathroom and a hiking trail around it. Worth checking out.
My son Nathaniel and I made our first trip to Harriett Lake May 28th; the road from Timothy to Harriet is under construction AGAIN, but the detour is clearly marked & adds 15 min to the drive. It was worth the trip! We were the only ones out on the lake and we found some big fish by the inlet. Nathan caught a couple nice browns and an 18″ and 20″ rainbow, plus we found ALOT of 16-17″ hatchery rainbows down stream from the big orange barrier and into where the lake widens up. It started pouring rain from about 12:30pm – 3:00 but the bite didn’t slow down at all. Trolling black hal-wits on an intermediate line was the ticket.
Went back Monday 5/31 and it was a good day again, but not like the previous trip. My friend Paul landed a 19″ rainbow and I landed a couple 18″ers. There just aren’t many people making that drive up there, so now’s a good time to go.
From Chris Brehm: I was able to spend a day on the Big D with my brother Steve fishing the Salmon Fly hatch. Fishing near Warm Springs and Dry Creek, we caught multiple fish up to 17″ on nymphs in the morning, then on big bugs from late afternoon til dark.( Steve’s shirt is off after falling in)
I had two trips on the ocean for Halibut. The first was 40 miles out of Westport WA, but was cut short by engine problems after quick limits of Lingcod. One might think that a 15 hour trip which featured an 8-1/2 hour return (limping back to port at 5 knots) would cure me of long ocean runs, but 3 days later out of Newport I landed a 46″ Halibut near the “Rockpile”. Three of us limited on Halibut plus a few rockfish.
From Wayne Hughes: Fished Rocky Ridge lakes with Jim Teeny. We caught and released a lot of really nice fish in the 18-22” range. Of course all our fish were all hooked on Teeny Nymphs; Jim’s new size 14 leech in blue/black with silver bead and natural size 12 leeches were best. We used Jim’s 5’ ghost sink tip line and in the deeper part of the lake, the T-130 sinking line.
CFF Board Retreat: We had our annual board retreat at Rocky Ridge in early May. 15 to 25 mph winds made for a tough fishing day and Jim got his pontoon boat pinned against the rocks at Mules Ear when the wind was blowing especially hard. In spite of this we all got fish in the 18” to 22” range, landing about 10 fish each. Leech flies on an intermediate line worked the best by far.
From Dave Kilhener: I’ve been spey fishing the Clackamas for summer steelhead without any success. It’s a super slow year plus the crazy water levels haven’t helped but its fun to get out when the weather is nice plus you can’t catch them if you don’t try! On the first trip out I got my spey rod stuck togther and it didn’t seem like it would ever come apart again. I read up on various ways to get it apart and tried them all. After a couple weeks I tried packing the ferrel in ice & salt, let it sit for an hour and that did the trick.
To put a bend in my fly rod I made a couple trips to the Oregon Fishing Club. The fish were finicky and my standard long tailed woolly buggers & half wits produced mostly short strikes, so I put on one of Phil Hager’s size #8 brick leeches and converted those short strikes into hookups!
Thanks to everyone for providing these reports!