As you’d suspect, the ice & snow put a damper on our January Fish A Long. Since we’d already bought the food, we decided to get together at Lane’s place to watch football, go through flies and have an all around fun Saturday. We’ve reschuled our spey casting & steelhead school to February 17th.
Hope everyone enjoyed the Holidays and was able to get out and do some fishing. The big news was Ed and Lane’s trip to Venice…Louisiana! Pictures first with the reports below.
From Lane Hoffman: Did well on some big Lousianna Redfish with Ed, Tom & Ken.
From Wayne Hughes: Fished Hagg lake and found some fat hold over rainbows willing to take some leach patterns fished on a type 3 full sinking line.
Spent a couple of days with the reintroduction of Chum salmon group at the Big Creek Hatchery. We helped relocate about 190 adult Chum salmon back into streams that historically had Chum runs in the past. This program might have some implications on some Willamette river tributaries.
From Darryl Huff: got a nice steelhead on the Sandy in late December. The steelhead run on the Sandy is late this year. The left max clip on this fish indicates that either the sperm or the egg came from a wild fish.
From Rich Harvey: hit Blue Den Lake for some big trout. Cool/cold weather slowed down the fishing but grinding it out with white streamers paid off.
From Dave Kilhefner: Rich & I hit Big Tree Lake for some afternoon trout fishing for our last trip of 2023. The cold water had the fish moving slow but we managed a few each. Afterwards we got some good food and a cold one at the Clarkes General Store.
Thanks to everyone for sending in your reports!
Happy New Year! I hope everyone was able to enjoy holiday festivities and quality family time.
I’m looking forward to the New Year and have a couple “fishing resolutions” to share. First is to go on 4-5 cool fishing trips and I already have a couple on the calendar. Next is to continue to improve our Fish A Longs calendar. Fishing opportunities have changed over the past several years and it’s important to change with them.
Our January 16th meeting will feature a run down of our planned Fish A Longs for the coming year. While we have a schedule, it’s not set in stone so if you have any ideas email them to me so we can discuss them at the next meeting.
Our January 20th Fish A Long will be at my place on the Sandy River for a “steelhead school” with some hands on instruction on Spey Casting plus swung fly and nymph fishing presentations. In the past we’ve had this Fish A Long at Oxbow park but it gets pretty dang cold, so we’re having it at my place so we can warm up by the woodstove if the fishing is slow, and lets face it Winter Steelhead fly fishing is always slow!
As I’m typing this the water conditions are good but the steelhead are scarce. Still, a few fish are being caught and since nobody can cast far enough to get one from the couch you gotta get out there and pound the water!
For several years now we have been posting monthly fishing reports. Looking back on them is a good way to get ideas for local fly fishing opportunities currently happening or coming up. Type the word January or February in the search box and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
It’s time to think about paying your 2024 membership fee if you haven’t already. However if you joined as a new member in 2023 it will be good for 2024 too; we are on the honor system so please let me know. Here is the membership link plus I will be sending membership notices out to everyone. If you participate in the club I will guarantee you’ll get a solid value for the $35 you pay to be a member.
January is a great month to get good deals after Christmas so get out to your local fly shop buy all the stuff that Santa forgot. 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.