Presidents Message January 2025

January 2, 2025January 2, 2025 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

Happy New Year! Hope everyone was able to enjoy good holiday festivities plus have some new fishing stuff to try out.

I’m looking forward to the New Year and have a couple “fishing resolutions” to share. First and most importantly is to fish more this winter, specifically at the OFC ponds (pic above) and local steelhead rivers. Next is to continue to improve our Fish A Longs calendar. Fishing opportunities continue to change over the years and it’s important to change with them.

Our January 21st 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 let me know (call/email/text) so we can discuss them at the next meeting.

Our January 25th 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. Last year the weather was cold & wet and it was mostly fishing talk around the woodstove with a good lunch. It was a good time!

As I’m typing this we’ve had heavy rains and the water is a little high. Before this there were a few good steelhead reports and I expect more to roll in this month.

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 2025 membership dues if you haven’t already. Here is the membership link. 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. Good fishing!

Dave Kilhefner

Presidents Message December 2024

December 5, 2024December 5, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

Hope everyone enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving and was able to get out and do some fishing with friends. Fishing last month was pretty good as you’ll see when the November fishing reports come out next week.

It’s time to think about paying your 2025 membership fee. However, if you joined as a new member in the second half of 2024 it will be good for 2025 too; we are on the honor system so please let me know. Here is the membership link. If you participate in the club I will guarantee you’ll get a solid value for the $35 you pay to be a member.

The main activities our club focuses on are meetings and fish a longs.

I’m looking for input on the 2025 Fish A Longs schedule. With the warming trends fishing opportunities are changing. Check out the 2025 fish a longs schedule and let me know if you’d like to see any changes; it’s not set in stone!

December is shaping up to be decent fishing month. My crystal ball says the most dependable fishing will be at the Oregon Fishing Club ponds for trout, especially after a warming trend (the pic above is Rich Harvey with a pig of a trout from Blue Den Lake). The key to winter fishing is to be ready to fish when a weather window presents itself. Several coastal streams get good early runs of steelhead. The Clackamas and Sandy get random shots of early winter steelhead too plus this year there are a good number of native, late running coho. Here’s a link to the PGE fish counts so you can see for yourself.

We don’t have a club Fish-A-Long in December but I’m open to helping folks with their spey casting and winter steelhead presentation basics. If you are interested in this email me and I’ll put you on the list.

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. I’ve tested it out and it works! Type the word December or January in the search box and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.

Now is the perfect time for Christmas shopping plus don’t forget to get your wish list out so you get all the stocking stuffers you want. Please remember our local fly shops and sporting goods stores.

Dave Kilhefner

November 2024 Fish A Long Report

November 14, 2024November 14, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

Our November Fish A Long was well attended. It was more of a camping trip with a good fire to sit around, eat really good food and enjoy good conversation…with a little fishing thrown in. The weather was dry and the wind was down but as you’d expect, it was a little chilly. Fishing wasn’t hot but everyone got fish. Here’s a rundown.

Most trout were taken drifting egg patterns. The salmon spawn was mostly over but good afternoon hatches of small bugs had small nymphs producing action too. Rich did well swinging small size 14-18 soft hackles in the afternoon. These shorter days sneak up on you and the bite was over around 3:30. Fortunately we had a lot of firewood for evening campfires.

We had our BBQ steak dinner on Friday night. Everyone contributed and it was a meal to remember. The moon was down early this weekend which made for excellent stargazing.

Besides fishing the local wildlife was out. There weren’t as many Rams running around as last month but we saw some every day.

Beavertail is always a good fall destination. Thanks to everyone for coming. Until next year!

October 2024 Fishing Reports

November 4, 2024November 4, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

This month we have some really good reports ranging from Louisianna to Alaska and points in between! Pictures are first with the reports below. Enjoy!

From Laura McGuill: Traveled to Louisania in mid-Oct for an amazing hosted trip in the Bayou with Simon Gawesworth of Farbank/Sage/Rio. Landed a beast of a bull redfish after a wild fight. It measured 42″ long, 28 lbs and was taken on an 8wt fly rod.

From George Krumm: visited the Naknek River in early October. The Naknek is a fantastic place to swing big flies with two handers for extraordinarily big & strong rainbows!

From Tanner Kennedy: Fished the Deschutes with Rob Crandall in early October. Put in at Mack’s Canyon and camped 10 minutes down from the boat ramp. Fishing was on the slow side unti the last day when we got into some good fish, including this beauty!

The Oregon Fishing Club finished its fall stocking in late October. Big Tree fished really well, landed several good fish with the biggest a little over 24“.

Dave Kilhefner: fished the Coeur D Alene and St Joe Rivers in the Idaho panhandle. Did OK on whitefish & cutthroat plus lucked into a big 21″ cutt. Nymphing and dry/dropper tactics worked equally well. Water was very low, clear and cooling off (51 degrees). In the evening there was a great show of the northern lights plus witnessed a school of big spawning Kokanee along the shoreline of Hayden Lake.

From Rhona Dallison: I was traveling home from Sandpointe & texted Dave K. He texted me a pin of a good location on the Coeur D Alene river and I caught a few nice cutts on a little caddis pattern fished damp in the surface film.

From Rich Harvey: Had a very fun day down at the coast & caught 11 cutts; 5 were sea runs. There was a big orange termite hatch and caught them all on a dry. Went back the following week with Lane and we did well.

From George Coutts: Just got back from the Metolius. The Fall colors are on full display. Fished for a couple of hours one day but no fish. The Kokanee are spawning throughout the river and it’s fun to see all the fish, especially while wading.

From Stevie Brehm: fish are still biting at Diamond. First time I ever tried an egg in a lake but got in to some nice brownies.

From Tom Flannery: My son and I spent the day fly fishing the Squamish River, BC, Canada last week. Fished sinking lines with colorful beadhead streamers. The Squamish water was glacial white in color.
The area we chose to fish was a clear water trough created by a clear tributary. It’s a visually stunning area! We landed 12 coho and 1 chum salmon.

From Ed Rabinowe: got a couple nice coho for the smoker on gear.

From Jay Schrader: Had an epic day at OFC’s Big Tree Lake on larger fish after the fall stocking.

From Greg O’Brien: My brother and I made it back to Alaska. Big trout all on swung leech & flesh flies using Spey rods.

Thanks to everyone for contributing your fishing reports!

Presidents Message November 2024

October 29, 2024November 3, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

November is the month fishing transitions from fall to winter. It presents many good opportunities for big trout putting on the feed bag for winter plus it can be the best month to catch a steelhead on a fly rod.

With the holiday season upon us we will have the Fish A Long early on November 9th so it doesn’t conflict Thanksgiving weekend. Once again we will be at Beavertail Campground on the Deschutes River. Several of us usually go a few days early and camp out. It can be chilly so bring warm clothes and some extra firewood.

Several members have asked about Chum salmon fishing on the coast. We used to always go there in November but the unpredictable fall rains or droughts prompted too many cancellations the last 6 years. That said, if you want to catch one of these bruisers in the fly the best option is to head over as close to the November 15th season closure as you can and be ready for crowds. For more info hit one of our local shops or type “Chum Salmon” in the search box to get our past reports and fly patterns.

Our November 19th meeting at High Rocks will feature George Krumm talking about swinging flies for Togiak Kings with two handers in Alaska. As always, social hour starts at 6pm and the program at 7pm.

It’s time for someone to think about becoming the new club president. I’ve been the club president since March of 2020 and can continue for another year or two, but not forever. If you’re interested in talking about this let me know. Naturally there are some obligations but it’s also alot of fun and has it’s perks too.

Speaking of transitions, Henry M is stepping down after many years as our club treasurer and Tim M has volunteered to take his place. A big thank you to both of them!

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 “November” or “December” in the Clackamas Fly Fishers website search box you’ll get all the past reports for that month.

Good fishing!

Dave Kilhefner

October 2024 Fish A Long Report

October 23, 2024October 23, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

This months Fish A Long was well attended. We had good weather, good food but somewhat challenging fishing conditions with a huge full moon (the pic below was taken at night!) and a spike in the water levels. Everyone got fish, but we had to work for them. Here’s a rundown.

On Wednesday afternoon I met Rich at Beavertail. Unfortunately the fire ban was still in effect. Thursday was a nice day but it was very windy in the afternoon. We hit the Macks Canyon boat ramp area and each got about a dozen fish. With the chilly wind we decided to drive into town for dinner.

Friday was another nice day and no wind. Perfect! People started arriving around noon and we hit the river. Then we had a fancy fireside dinner of fried potato’s, chili and grilled steak.

Saturday we got lucky with a second day of no wind. Ken brought delicious homemade egg rolls that we decided to have for breakfast. Since everyone is staying tonight we moved our steak lunch to dinner.

Fishing was good but not hot and we worked for our fish. I had a double on redsides and Rich got a 5lb steelhead down at the Macks Canyon ramp but these fish didn’t cooperate for the camera! It warmed up and the afternoon temp hit 70 degrees.

The bighorns were active in the canyon and put on quite a show. One strange coincidence is that 4 people needed jumps this weekend…lots of dead/dying batteries.

As expected the hot flies were smallish egg patterns in red, orange or pink. Ken had this cool new beadhead pattern called a Shlush Jelly Egg that worked well.

Best tactics were indicator nymphing with standard fly tackle and for euro nymphing drop shot rigs worked best. With the extra current and slippery rocks covering water was challenging but it did pay off.

Thanks to everyone who came and made this a great October Fish A Long!

September 2024 Fishing Reports

October 8, 2024October 8, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

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 reports below.

From Lane Hoffman: got this big rainbow sight casting in 3 feet of water below Fontenot Reservoir.

From Chris Brehm: fished Paulina Lake with my brother Stevie and we got several nice trout.

From Rich Harvey: hit the upper Blackfoot River over Labor Day weekend after fishing Rock Creek. Place is very remote. Did well on 10-12” trout in the evening.

From Darryl Huff: Good day on the lower Deschutes. Hooked 10 – six on bead, four on spinners. Landed 5 wild steelhead and one nook.

From Mike Shiiki: Saturday on Lake Harriett… Nathan landed an 18” and 17” brown… biggest we’ve seen there. I landed more browns than rainbows.

From Darryl Huff: We spent a week in the Glacier National Park area. Spent multiple days fishing the Flathead River. Very little aquatic life on the river so the fish feed on beatles, grasshoppers, ants, etc. Quite a few smaller Cutthroat were caught, but only a few in the 12 to 13 inch range. Scenery was beautiful!!

From Matt Baker: Fished Marion Creek on the way home from the fish a long. Great little creek, a dozen fish in an hour. Good times. Got some fly tying help this month too!

From Rich Harvey: got some big bluegill at Howell Ponds in late September.

From Chris Brehm: was able to hit the Bighorn River this month.

From Wayne Hughes: Fished the upper Willamette river for Silvers and found success again this year. Also caught lots of both Largemouth and Smallmouth bass on surface poppers.

From George Krumm: Fished the Naknek River for rainbows then went bear viewing at Brooks Camp.

From Rich Harvey: Fished the Gallatin and the Taylor’s fork of the Gallatin, Upper Firehole and the Gibbon. It was super cool to fish with my brother and nephew again

From Amanda Justesen (Justesen Ranch Lakes): We are now open for fall fishing and reports this week have been good. We are restocking several lakes this week.

Thanks to everyone for contributing reports!

Presidents Message October 2024

October 1, 2024October 1, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

Summer is officially over and the cooler days of fall are upon us. These are some of the best times to spend on the water and CFF has some great Fish A Longs coming up.

Our October 15th meeting is at High Rocks. Social hour starts at 6pm and the program at 7pm. We don’t have a speaker lined up yet but I’ll have one soon and let everyone know by email.

This months October 19th Fish A Long will be at Beavertail Campground on the Deschutes River. This is one of our most popular Fish A Longs. It’s become a tradition that several of us go a few days early, camp out and have a steak BBQ. Hope to see you there!

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 “October” or “November” in the Clackamas Fly Fishers website search box you’ll get all the past reports for that month.

Good fishing!

Dave Kilhefner

September Fish A Long Report

September 23, 2024September 23, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

Rich and I arrived on Wednesday afternoon. That evening we were greeted by the Harvest Moon, one of two “supermoons” to appear in 2024. While a full moon is great for camping, it’s been known to shut down the daytime fishing. Thus, we expected the fishing might be a little slow and were not disappointed!

After a good nights sleep Thursday morning dawned brisk and sunny. We had some coffee then went to the Camp Sherman store to talk flies & lies at the fly shop counter, check out some premium tackle then get a breakfast burrito. After that we found some unexpected entertainment by watching 18′ to 22″ trout slam Cheetos drifted under bridge. Then we drove into town as the hatch really doesn’t get going until the early afternoon. We got back around 2:30 and a few fish were rising. Fishing was on the slow side and after missing some trout on emerger patterns, Rich decided to throw his Kelly Galloup “Triple Articulated Boogieman Streamer.” A huge bull trout crushed it on the 4th cast and promply broke a 13lb tippet off. We think a sharp rock may have helped it!

I spent Friday morning drinking coffee and organizing flies. I decided to stick with dry flies today. Haven’t done that in a while so it took a while to find the groove. Had about a dozen misses & refusals on drake emerger patterns. By the end of the day I had 3 respectable trout in the 14” range. A very fun afternoon!

Friday evening we had a good turnout that made for fun evening conversation. We couldn’t have fires so we sat around Riches lantern. Not as nice as fire but on the bright side there was no smoke to dodge.

Saturday morning was chilly; the overnight temperature got down into the 30’s. We walked down to the rivers edge by camp and discovered a couple nice trout working under the trees & brush. It was impossible to get a cast in there, but by wading carefully and feeding line into the current it was possible to drift a foam beetle into the zone and a healthy 17” specimen gobbled it down. It was the kind of catch that makes the whole trip worthwhile.

Hatches were sparse today but managed a few whitefish euro nymphing egg patterns. That’s about as down and dirty as you can get and still be fly fishing!

Rich and Dave hit the Bend Whiskey Fest in the afternoon and said it was a lot of fun. Then they fed more trout with Cheetos at Camp Sherman on the way home.

Sunday was another nice day. We had coffee, talked about the fishing then went down to look at the river. That nice trout from yesterday was back under the trees sipping on whatever the current would bring it. It was hungery for everything except our flies. Another time!

Thanks to everyone for coming and making this another great Fish A Long!

Best Flies:
Whitefish: #12-14 Red Glo Bugs, #12-14 Olive Hares Ear
Resides: #12 Green & Grey Drake Cripples, #14ish Foam Beetle
Bull Trout: Big articulated streamers (6” +)

August 2024 Fishing Reports

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 / davekilhefner / Leave a comment

This August had good and varied fishing so we’ve got lots of good reports! The photos are first with the report below.

From Tom Phipps: landed my first steelhead on the Deschutes about 45 minutes into my first ever attempt with a two handed rod. And everyone kept telling me how hard it was!

From Timothy McSweeney: backpacked and fished for 32 miles thru Yosemite.

From Dave Kilhefner: hit the Pacific Ocean out of Depot Bay with Joe Warren & Lane Hoffman for Black Rockfish, Lingcod and Crab.

From Rich Harvey: Sea Run Cutthroat are making an appearance in coastal streams.

From Dave Kilhefner: the Coeur D Alene River had steady fishing for cutthroat trout plus a few whitefish.

From Chris Brehm: my brother Stevie and I fished with Joe Warren out of Depoe Bay for Rockfish.

From Chris Brehm: got some good beetle action on Hosmer Lake. Weather was cool and fish were looking up! Caught a few good sized Redbands in Agency Lake on leech patterns; thanks to Lane Hoffman for the tip! East Lake produced some nice browns right before dark on Beetles. Closed out August with a Euro Nymphing lesson from Chris Gardner on the Deschutes. He outfished me big time but we had fun!

From Rich Harvey: made a late August trip to Rock Creek in Montana. Water was low & clear and afternoon temps were in the 90’s with bright sunshine. Fishing on the lower creek was slow so moved upstream and did pretty well. Got to wave at a Grizzly Bear as it crossed the creek about 75 yards above me….Yikes! Most fish were 10″ to 12″ but did get a couple 16″ to 17″. Had a dang red fox come into camp, sit down about 12 feet away and watch me eat dinner. I shared a little of my chicken, which he enjoyed.

From George Krumm: had some good gear fishing for Chinook in the Columbia Gorge.

From Bob Beswick: spent a couple of days fishing East Lake with my friend Tom. Had some luck with nymphs and chironomids below surface film with some wind aid. Hooked a brown that I never saw on my 4 weight.

From Matt Baker: It was another productive month fishing small creeks in the Mt. Hood national forest. Lots of fish and a few surprises.

From Mike Shiiki: Nathaniel and I had a couple good days at Crane Prairie with some nice Cranebows and a bunch of little bass landed. Nathan also caught an XL whitefish that we weren’t expecting. On another day I was tossing poppers for bass at one of the OFC lakes and caught a few nice rainbows instead! That was the first time I’ve had that happen.

Thanks to everyone for contributing your reports!