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!

Thanks to everyone for contributing your reports!

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!

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.

Thanks to everyone for contributing your reports!

With the cold weather February wasn’t the easiest month to find fly fishing success but several of us got out and made a few things happen. Good times were had and some nice fish were caught! Pictures are first with the reports below.

From Keaton Andreas: Caught my first Steelhead on the Necanicum River back on February 18th!

From Darryl Huff: from early February; fishing started improving in Oxbow.

From Joe Warren: fly fished Lake Billy Chinook and Fall River with a good friend in mid February & got some nice ones. See the full write up on my Blog.

From Chris Brehm: Spent a lot of hours chasing winter Steelhead in January and finally scored in February. First was an 11lb hatchery chromer, then a week later fishing with our son Sammy, we caught and released 2 bright natives along with this bruiser. All were caught on plugs in low clear water on the Sandy.

From Dave Kilhefner: borrowed a fishing step ladder from Chris Brehm and hit Pyramid Lake with Joe Warren. See the full write up on Joe’s Blog.

From Greg O’Brien: My brother and I finally made our multi-cancelled and delayed trip to a warm saltwater location.  We went to the Grand Slam Lodge in Mexico for 4 guided days of fishing.  It was only my second time tropical saltwater fishing, and was pleased to find that my time spent casting and double hauling the 8 and 9 wts lately helped me out. It was really windy 3 of the 4 days but we caught many Bonefish and Jacks plus a few other cool species. We had a few legit shots at Permit and Snook but they didn’t eat.  Fun times, and I can’t wait for my next tropical saltwater trip which will hopefully be Christmas Island in 2024.

From Mike Shiiki: February was a little slow in the OFC lakes, but was always able to fool a couple of large ones.  Only had a couple hits at Turner Lake, but they were both XL and hanging out near the grassy banks.  Blue Den lake, did alright casting towards/near trees on that day but that place seems like they’ve been in different spots every day.  Ranier Lakes was the most productive but a couple times the Middle Lake was iced over the past couple months.  Still having success in our tubes with intermediate sink line, midge tip lines, and leeches. 

From Terry Martin: Fished Blue Den lake with Craig. Wate temp was 45 degrees and we caught fish all day long with red & black balanced leeches and black chironomids.

Fish A Long Report: with the low water the February Fish A Long fishing was very slow. No steelhead were hooked, seen or even rumored to be present in the Sandy. However, I recently recieved several donations of some very nice fly tying materials and decided to get them out and so our members could choose what they wanted. Rich and Ian both made a good haul!

Thanks everyone for contributing your reports!

Admittedly, January wasn’t the easiest month to get on the board but several of us got out and tried to make something happen. Fishing success or no, good times were had! Pictures are first with the reports below.

Lane Hoffman put on a first rate “Louisanna Boil” for new years day. Thanks Lane!

From Dave Kilhefner: Chris Brehm and I floated Upper to Lower McIver on the Clackamas. Fishing was slow but we saw one big old summer run caught plus caught a jack steelhead on a spoon.

From Darryl Huff: The lower Sandy River was OK in January. Fishing wasn’t hot but I stuck with it and ground out a few with beads.

From Dave Kilhefner: Got the boat out a few times to make sure it’s running OK and ready for February and March when the Clackamas steelhead show up in better numbers. Fingers crossed!

The January Fish A Long was a success. Many of us improved our spey game on both the casting and presention levels.

Thanks to everyone that provided reports!

We had good weather in November that helped produce some good fishing. Pictures are first with the reports below.

From Lane Hoffman: Buddy is at the Coast catching the first Chum Salmon after the early November rains. Says they are big & mean!

From Dave Vedder: got some nice trout in mid November on Rocky Ford Creek drifting scud imitations.

From Dave Kilhefner: caught a couple late Coho twitching jigs on the Icicle River with friends.

From Rich Harvey: hit Big Tree at the OFC just before Thanksgiving. There was a little ice forming on the lake but the trout were active and taking a little green midge pupa about a good under the surface. This got me motivated to finish filling my midge box; 156 patterns! The’ve worked great this fall; caught quite a few big fish on these small flies.

From Lane Hoffman: had good luck for Thanksgiving week Chum & Chinook!

From Mark Bachmann: spent the first half of November in Loreto, Mexico fishing the Sea of Cortez. When the wind laid down we had very good action for a variety of gamefish, especially Roosterfish and Snapper.

From Dave Kilhefner: got a native Coho on the Sandy while prospecting for early steelhead Thanksgiving weekend.

From Darryl Huff: found some late summer steelhead in good shape on the Sandy fishing with beads.

From Chris Brehm: I was able to spend a few days near Florence fishing for Coho in Tahkenitch Lake. A good rain had brought in some fresh fish and as they spread through the fingers of the lake. They often begin to react like Bass & in fact we caught most of them casting Chatterbaits with pink worm trailers near shorelines. My brother Steve and his pal Walt joined us for one day fishing only fly rods but only landed a few small bass.

Got an invite to go Bottom fishing out of Newport. A strong East wind made for a beautiful ocean where we caught some nice Lings and a few other assorted Rockfish. The water was so clear that in some places we could see the bottom in 30′ of water.

Thanks to everyone for submitting your reports!

The big news for this Fish A Long started with a forecast for some very cold weather but fortunately, warmer weather rolled in and Saturday turned out to be quite mild with no wind; it was a perfect November day.

The Saturday morning bite wasn’t hot but we all got fish. We broke for an early lunch, regrouped and headed back out. The afternoon featured decent hatches of Blue Wing Olives & Midges…and the fish were on the bite!

Chris and Tim hit the water below the Beavertail boat ramp and had non-stop, lights out fishing on egg patterns early then midge patterns in the later afternoon. Both agreed it was one of their best “numbers of fish” days ever & they doubled up at least 8 times!

Rich and I ventured downstream around the Macks Canyon area and did well, mostly on midge patterns. Rich hooked a couple monsters we never saw that were either big old salmon or late steelhead (or maybe one of each?).

Some general info. The water temp was 48 degrees and so the morning bites were a little slow. There were no more spawning salmon around Beavertail but still a bunch down by Macks Canyon. We saw a good herd of sheep on the canyon wall plus a lot of deer in the evenings, including a huge buck. The most unusal sight of the weekend was a seal up at Beavertail, hopefully it was chasing a huge school of steelhead upstream but given the catch reports, that wasn’t likely! The drive over the mountain was snowy with a little ice, but overall not too bad.

Thanks to everyone that made it over to the Fish A Long, it was a good time!

October is a big fly fishing month and so we have a lot of good reports to share. As always, pictures are first with the reports below. Enjoy!

From George Krumm: Naknek was very good for Bob ‘bows!

From Darryl Huff: Warm Springs grows large white fish. I marked it on my net and measured it when I got back to my truck at 21 inches. When it jumped out of the water I had no idea what it was!

From Mike Shiiki: Nathan and I tried out a couple OFC lake/ponds today: Turner lake near Dallas and Highland ponds near Molalla/Oregon City. We only caught 1 trout all day, this 20”+ Nathan landed at Highland ponds but caught A LOT of bluegills, some bass & landed my first Crappie. 

From Phil Hager: Had some great results on the upper N. Fork reservoir a couple weeks ago. Launched at the store ramp and rowed my Hobie pontoon as far up the Clack as possible and found several large gatherings of Rainbows in the 10”-15” range. The best one was coming back down, across from the gated ramp and pilings, when I tangled with a good sized one that was 32” and fat! I think it was a “holdover” from the steelhead spawn last spring. Everything caught was on my size 10, 3X long, Brick colored mohair leech. Sorry, was by myself and couldn’t get a photos. 

From Chris Brehm: A very smokey morning at Crane turned beautiful with some nice Crane Bows caught on Chironomids and Balanced Leeches. Also had a nice late fall day on Diamond Lake with some fat browns on leeches.

From Mike Shiiki: I recently joined Oregon Fishing Club and have been visiting as many of their spots as possible.  The lakes and ponds are great for float tube/canoe fishing as shown by my son Nathan and my nephew.  Also had a lot of fun on the October Beavertail fishalong trip, we were only able to fish Friday, but it was nice to meet some more members – Dave, Brad & John, and also witnessed Darryl’s steelhead landing. 

From Greg O’Brien: My brother and I went to the Klamath River to fish the Keno stretch in Oregon with a guide.  It was 100% streamer fishing mainly with 2-3” heavy sculpin patterns and floating lines.  The flows were low, the float technical with a couple tough areas where we nearly wrapped the raft.  The fishing was tough in the mornings then really turned on from about 1-3 pm then shut down again.  The rainbows here are chunky and fight hard!

From Chris Brehm: Brother Steve and I fished last Thursday along the road above Beavertail. Never made it all the way to Beavertail. Lot’s of Salmon and pretty good fishing using Darryl’s bead methods.

From Darryl Huff: A friend was camping at Beavertail in late October. Went over in the morning and fished a half day with them. Definetely more trout have moved in to the area. Spawning salmon were everywhere and did well for trout in the 12 to 16 inch range on egg patterns. Here’s a couple of my new creations.

From Dave Kilhefner: Hit the Highland Ponds at the OFC with Rich and Kevin. These ponds were recently stocked and we did OK fishing Chironomids. Best bite was in the afternoon but it died promply around 3:30.

Thanks to everyone that submitted reports!