This October Fish A Long is one for the record books! Besides landing hundreds of trout and whitefish, the weather was exceptional with clear skies, temps in the low 80’s and very little wind. We even hooked a couple steelhead & landed one.
To top it all off, we burned lots of firewood and barbecued lots steak. Plus the road had been freshly graded and there were plenty of bighorn sheep putting on a show across the river.
While nymphing tactics worked best, in the evening Rich threw dries and was rewarded with some dry fly action.
The eggstravaganza should hold up for a while as the salmon spawn is in its early stages. I’m already looking forward to returning for the November 11th Fish A Long!
September is always a good month and this year was no exception. We’ve got some great reports to share; pictures are first with the written reports below.
From Joe Warren & George Krumm: Fishing was pretty good on the Naknek last week. Best fish was 33″! These trout are just like steelhead! Three of our 4 angler group landed trout in excess of 30”. Caught my first arctic char, 28″. I definitely want to go back!
Three of the four anglers in the group landed fish in excess of 30 inches. If you’re interested in going, email George at gkrumm@gci.net.
From Dave Kilhefner: Rich Harvey and I hit the Clackamas above North Fork Reservoir. Fishing was slow but we got a few. The river was lower than ever before and wading was very slippery.
From Lane Hoffman: There are some good reasons to get up early!
From Craig Kerschen: Laurence Lake has fished well all summer. The stocked rainbows are very healthy with 16″ fish fairly common along with small Bull trout and cutthroats. Afternoons will usually have a good Calibaetis hatch. Fishing the west end in float tube on the west end is my favorite approach.
From Dave Kilhefner: managed to combine business with a fishing trip to the St Joe River in the Idaho panhandle for Cutthroat & Whitefish. Fishing was off and on but when it was on, it was on!
From Chris Gardiner: spent 3 nights camping on the Metolious with friends at Lower Bridge campground. Fished between the Hatchery and LB campground. Tons of bug hatches but picky fish for the dry fly action. Picked up all my fish euro nymphing. The big ‘Bow pictured put up a hell of a fight with some screaming reel moments. Fun stuff!
From Matt Baker: I was able to find a few sea run cutthroat on the Wilson with the help of a few past trip reports. The water was low and fishing somewhat slow but there were a few willing to bite. Also went up and explored Fish Creek a bit; water was very low but I can confirm there are a few small fish in Fish Creek.
From Ian Porteous: a mid September personal best coho!
Thanks to everyone for contributing reports this month!
The guy at Camp Sherman Fly Shop summed up the Metolius River perfectly; it’s the prettiest river in Oregon but also the hardest to fish. The water is super clear and the trout are educated and picky! We all got fish, but had to work hard for every one.
Special thanks to Josh Linn for his presentation on fishing the Metolius before our trip. His info was spot on!
Green Drake dries and Euro Nymphing tactics produced the best. Rich even had a big bull trout rise from the depths of a deep pool to grab a rainbow he was fighting. It was a sight!
The water temperature averaged 46 degrees. Thick winter socks under your waders made long wading sessions comfortable.
Five of us camped at the Lower Bridge Campground. On Friday we enjoyed a fun dinner at the Three Creeks Brewery after hitting The Fly Fishers Place for the hot fly patterns.
Overall we had good weather but mornings & evenings were chilly. Fortunately we had plenty of firewood and good times were had by all.
In spite of another hot, extra dry summer August was a good month to get out on the water. As always, pictures first with the reports below.
From Tim McSweeney: Sorry I’ve been so MIA this summer, been fishing a lot! Excited for the next meeting to catch up and swap summertime fish tales. Spent the last week fishing for bull trout on the Metolius and caught a whole bunch of angry fish.
From Matt Isham: McKenzie was straight up good trout fishing! Chernobyl and dropper or skating a dry fly produced action.
From Chris Brehm: Got out for a few Tuna trips plus a limit of Salmon at Buoy 10.
From Greg O’Brien: Brother visited and I took him out on the Willamette for bass on the fly. We got a few; always fun and close to home.
From Jim Behrend: Went to North Santiam once which was not rewarding, and to the Wilson a week ago. It was low and fishing was not great. Hopefully rain will help.
From Dave Kilhefner: Went out on the ocean out of Depoe Bay with Joe Warren. We had good fishing for Rockfish and Tuna plus landed a couple silver salmon. Double limits of crab was a great bonus too!
Harriet Lake was freshly stocked and the fishing was on fire! As you’d suspect most of the fish were in the 10-13” range but a few 15 to 18” trout were landed. The hot techniques were trolling small dark leeches on an intermediate line or the lake standby, suspending Chironomids (or small nymphs) under an indicator.
We chose Harriet as the water stays cool thru the summer. This weekend is was 48 in the morning and got up to 52 in the afternoon. Also, the water is extremely clear and will all the trout swimming around it was like fishing in an aquarium. We had a good turnout with 8 club members fishing on Saturday.
Five of us camped out at Shellrock Creek campground, a semi primitive first come campground about ten minutes from Harriet. We were blessed with perfect weather and good times we’re had by all. Thanks to everyone for coming!
This months Fish A Long was about more than fly fishing. Besides catching fish in a beautiful coastal forest setting, we had a steak lunch, camp fires plus some very good weather.
Several of us decided to have a long weekend, starting off with a late lunch at Copper River in Hillsboro on Thursday before hitting Howell Ponds for Bluegill. We fished for a few hours then headed to Rainier Lakes, arriving about 8pm, pitched camp and started a fire.
On Friday we slept in then enjoyed coffee and conversation around camp. There didn’t seem to be any reason to rush as the early morning anglers were not catching anything, so we eased into the day and started fishing around 10:30 then quit for lunch at 2:30, all of us doing pretty good on Chironomids, both cast & slowly strip or dangled under an indicator. With the warmer weather many of the trout were six to eight feet down in the cooler, deeper water near the dike.
We made a run to Longview and had a late lunch at this great place called Porky’s then picked up a few supplies for our Saturday lunch at Fred Meyer.
On Saturday I went down the hill to open the gate, made coffee and waited for people to arrive from 7:45 to 8:30 while listening to an Audible book. It was a relaxing way to start the day.
With the warm weather all week the bite was a little slow but everyone got fish.
The best flies were Red V-Rib Chironomids, Brown Snow Cone Chironomid and an Olive Chironomid w/red tail, all around size 12-14.
Our steak lunch was a big hit and we had a perfect day for it. Afterwords several of us had a strong case of food coma. This lead to the invention of a new effective technique; dock nymphing. This is nothing more than being too lazy to put back on your waders and fins to float tube, so you sit on the dock, soak an indicator rig close by and tell jokes & lies until a cooperative fish comes along. It’s surprisingly effective!
The weather turned cooler on Saturday evening. Sunday dawned cool & cloudy. We each caught a few in the morning before packing up and heading home.
Thanks to everyone for coming and making this months Fish A Long a success!
For the most part April continued to be unseasonably cool but good times were had and nice fish were caught! Pictures first with the reports below.
From Dave Kilhefner: finally caught a winter steelhead on the Sandy!
From Chris Brehm: hit Lake Billy Chinook for bull trout with my brother Stevie.
From Rich Harvey: had a very nice day on the Deschutes at Maupin in early April. Found this really cool old CFF hat at Northwest Fly Fishing Outfitters. The OFC lakes are really picking up with the warm weather; Dave Hopkins and I did really well on our first trip to Turner Lake throwing streamers. Later in the month we went back and they were taking a red chronimids about 3’ deep in 5-6 ‘ of water.
From Darryl Huff: got my granddaughters out fishing at Commonwealth Pond by Beaverton.
From Matt Baker: Got out the west fork of Dairy creek, Williams creek and some other creek. We had a number of strikes on all three creeks and were able to land a few using elk hair caddis and blue wing olives. Be prepared for LOTS of stinging nettles. Here is my friend Ben on the un-named creek with a fish and another with him walking along Williams creek.
From Ian Porteous: Carp season is on. It’s seriously fun fishing, I’m hooked!
MB42MY Midge (Chironomus plumosus) emerging from pupa. Female imago of non-biting midge in the family Chironomidae
Our fish a longs are starting to morph into some first rate guys weekends! Rich came up with idea to head out Friday & camp at the lake. But first we’d stop at the newly opened Smokehouse Chicken & Guns in Gales Creek before hitting Howell Pond (we didn’t want to soremouth the fish in Schmedeke before the fish a long). It was a great place to fuel up before fishing.
Fishing at Howell Pond wasn’t hot but we all got some nice fish up to 19 inches. Rich stuck to throwing small “no see um” dries to match a hatch of small dark midges while Dave & I got our fish on leeches.
After fishing we had good burgers at the Gales Creek Tavern before driving to Schmedeke Pond to camp for the night.
Saturday dawned a little misty with drizzle off and on thru the morning.
Woke at 7am with a call from Chris B who got to the lake early. His extra effort paid off with a 27 inch piggy rainbow that took a brown balanced leech in the morning.
The afternoon weather was very pleasant with little or no wind and the perfect amount of cloud cover to keep the fish focused on the surface. The trout rose all day to larger sized “bomber” midges, but they were very picky! Rich solved the fly pattern riddle and got 18 fish on dries. A Midge Cripple was the best pattern with Griffitts Gnat a close second.
Midge pupa patterns fished close to the surface produced too but it was a grind. Most of the trout were good sized and we all agreed the effort was worth it.
Since the weather was nice Rich & I decided to stay one more night. The next day we ran into some locals that had the bomber hatch wired using a foam “suspended” midge pattern that hung vertically in the surface film. Those picky fish loved them.
This fish a long was very well attended. It was great to see everyone having a good time on the water. Thanks to everyone for coming!
March continued to be unseasonably cold but good times were had and some really nice fish were caught! Pictures first with the reports below.
From Mike Henderson: I got in a trip in late March on the Hoh chasing steelhead and hooked into a really nice 25lb buck. Overall not a lot of bites but a few bigger fish. The OFC ponds are starting to wake up a little; had a great day two weeks ago at Blue Den throwing bugger patterns.
From Josh Marsh: Good day at OFC’s Shauna Pond!
From RJ Desnoyers: Floated the Clackamas from Barton to Carver with Dave K. It was the first time rowing my new driftboat on a river! Did good rowing and hooked one steelhead on my spey rod that came off. Next time!
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
From Bob Beswick: Made a quick visit to the Metolius in between snow last week. Just a few fishermen out, and managed to hook a couple of fish.Beautiful and worth the drive to the Lower Bridge area.
From Mike Shiiki: SPRING BREAK! WHOO HOO!! Hit the Owyhee with my son Nathanial. Once again March is a good time on Owyhee, although chilly temps from upper twenties to highs around 40 plus cold winds…and a little snow, my son Nathaniel and I did well all through the river in the deeper slower pools and tailouts where the browns seemed to be holding. We spent 2 and half days on the river, one day we did great during a post lunch hatch, using a double dry setup with a larger “sighter” dry, followed with size 20/22 dry midges. Streamers on an intermediate line was a good strategy too.
From Rich Harvey: Turner Lake is starting to get active. Had good action stripping streamers. Later in the month Dave Hopkins and I hit Big Tree and caught some nice fish. When the weather is warm the fishing heats up too.
From Lane Hoffman: Had couple good days on Rocky Ford Creek, not in terms of numbers of fish but size was good. It was cold and windy!
From Darryl Huff: found this old guy at Oxbow in late March.
With all the cold weather this winter some of us had a good case of cabin fever and decided to have a multi-day camping trip rather than a one day fish a long.
Rich got the river on Thursday afternoon and enjoyed some good fishing, getting a couple nice sized redsides on streamers before the afternoon wind blew him off the river. I arrived about the time the wind was in full force so I found Rich and we had an early dinner at the Riverside. The big news was tonight we were able to see the Northern Lights. I’ve never heard of them being visible this far south before, but according to NASA the sun emitted the strongest solar flare in the past five years and the Northern Lights were visible as far south Phoenix, Arizona.
On Friday the fishing was dead; as in totally dead. The big winter storm front rolled thru and nobody touched a fish. Darryl got a take down that didn’t stick. That was it for the Friday crew. Fortunately Rich and I thought ahead and made dinner reservations at the Riverside and we all enjoyed a well earned hot delicious meal after battling that epically slow bite, chilly weather and a strong Deschutes canyon wind.
Saturday was much better. In addition to the six people camping out at Harpam Flats on Friday night four more showed up. The winter storm that shut down the bite on Friday also made driving conditions a little sketchy going over the mountain so most people drove up the gorge and dropped down from The Dalles. With the water temp at 45 degrees the morning bite was pretty slow but it picked up in the afternoon and the fish got interested in a decent Blue Wing Olive hatch. Darryl got one on a dry but everything else was a subsurface show. Afterwards we had dinner at The Rainbow.
Sunday dawned sunny and calm. A couple of us considered fishing the whole day but the wind came up early and personally, I was glad as it got me home at a reasonable hour. Looking back it was great to get out of town, catch a few fish and enjoy some good restaurant meals. It was another fun and successful Fish A Long, thanks to everyone for coming!
