Euro Nymphing

July 25 Fish A Long Report

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One of the big challenges to hosting a fish a long is finding a place that will accommodate approximately 10 anglers. With the pandemic it’s at least twice as hard to find a good place as the great outdoors has become a lot more crowded and the Mt Hood Lakes were especially crowded this weekend!

Earlier this month we brainstormed and came up with a new format for having a Fish A Long; basically we pick an area with several fishable waters close by and agree to meet somewhere for lunch. If possible we keep in touch with a group text. While it’s not perfect, it was was reasonably successful as we were able to spread out and have a fun fish a long. We had 11 members attend and while we didn’t catch a ton of fish, it was a really nice day and we all fished some beautiful waters. Here’s how we did:

Tom was supposed to start at Timothy Lake but couldn’t make it. This was probably for the best because after lunch Paul & Lane tried to show new members Rhona & Laura places to fish at Timothy and also the Oak Grove Fork but it was too simply to crowded.

Dave & George hit Clear Lake first thing in the morning. The water was very low so they opted to fish from shore by the dam after talking to two anglers that used Tenkara rods to dapple flies over the weedbeds with fair success. Dave got a fat 23” rainbow on a Green Devil down by the dam.

Anglers were putting in float tubes at the Clear Lake boat ramp so we went
to see if it was anyone from the club and ran into Greg and Hugo, who were
camping with their families.

When the sun hit the water the fish activity died and we went to check out
Frog Lake. It was pretty crowded so we headed out to find Paul & Lane at
Barlow Creek.

Paul & Lane started at Barlow creek and got some small but colorfully marked trout on dries. Then Paul, Lane, Dave and George spread out along the upper White River by the bridge but didn’t have any success. After this it was time to meet everyone for lunch.

Jim Adams tried Clear Lake in the morning and said no matter where he took his tube, the water was very shallow. Clear Lake has been drawn way down due to irrigation demands.

New members Rhona & Laura fished the Salmon River at the rock climbing wall a few miles up the Salmon River Road. It’s a beautiful spot. 

New member Jim Bennett tried Clear Lake and then Frog Lake.

Red hit some small creeks and got several small trout on dry flies.

The Frog Lake Sno Park area was incredibly crowded at lunchtime so we opted to head across the road where the chain up area offered reasonable parking, plus we could put our chairs in a shaded old growth forest rather than a baking hot parking lot. It was a good move!

Next month we are talking about having a get together at the Westmoreland
Casting Pond plus we are also looking at places for our August Fish A Long.
Suggestions are always welcome!

March 17th Speaker Josh Linn

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Josh Linn of Royal Treatment Fly Fishing will be CFF’s guest speaker Tuesday, March 17th.

Josh’s presentation will be on the popular technique of Euro Nymphing: Learn about the flies, tackle and techniques used in Euro Nymphing to increase your trout fishing success.

Josh will also be teaching a Euro Nymphing class at our Crooked River Fish A Long on Saturday, March 21st.

It will be a great presentation you won’t want to miss!

Meeting details: https://clackamasflyfishers.org/meetings-events/

Royal Treatment Fly Fishing  http://www.royaltreatmentflyfishing.com/

January 2020 Fishing Reports

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From Tim Morton: Last month I was able to go on a bucket list trip to Patagonia. The Brown Trout is from the World End Lodge, and the Sea Run Trout is from Las Buitreras Lodge. The sea run trout was 13.5 lbs.  Didn’t get the weight on the Brown,

Fish a long Report: You can see from the river level screenshot that we had some higher than normal water for our Fish a long. While this didn’t impact our spey casting, it did put a damper on our Euro Nymphing as it was hard to find any decent nymphing water. On the good side, for January we had a surprisingly warm and dry day. This made it easy to set up for morning coffee plus Chef Cheryl’s delicious lunch of homemade soup, Texas toast and salad. Thank you for everyone that came out!

From Ed Rabinowe: Duck season ended and my got a new knee. I think I have a fishing rod somewhere!

From Dave Kilhefner: Got lucky on my first steelhead trip of the year with this 12lb hen; she was a jumper! The following week I fished the Oregon Fishing Club ponds and caught a nice trout dragging a Booby Fly along the bottom. Saw another angler doing OK fishing a woolly bugger under an indicator.

Brad Jonasson and David Hopkins had a good outing to the Deschutes River by Maupin.

From Greg O’Brien: My brother visits once or twice a year to go steelhead fishing and we hire a guide to get to water we normally can’t get to on foot.  We fished 2 days on the Sandy, floating from Dodge to Dabney with Travis Johnson of All Waters Angling. Monday was tough with just one solid pull & no hookup.  Tuesday was a slow morning but landed a big wild hen around noon, followed by another nice wild fish in the afternoon.  

From Darryl Huff: A nice wild steelhead caught just before New Years.

From Greg O’Brien: Hugo and I hit the Deschutes for a trout spey session and I got this nice one.  It ate the caddis emerger dropper of a swung 2 fly rig.

From Henry Muehleck: fished the north coast with Gil Muhleman.  We were gear fishing and had a great day. I hooked 8 and landed 3. Two of these were 14 to 15 pound natives. Gil is a great guide and definitely goes the extra mile to get you fish! 

From George Krumm: Fished the lower Sandy with gear. Landed a couple, a smaller hen and this nice buck. The buck went to the broodstock program.

January 25th Fish A Long

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This month’s Fish-A-Long will be held Saturday, January 25th on the Clackamas River. We’ll meet at the lower boat ramp at McIver park at 8am.

Please RSVP to Dave Kilhefner (Dave@kbi-ins.com) so we can get a head count for food.

What- Winter Steelhead Spey Casting plus Winter Whitefish Euro Nymphing

Where- Clackamas River

When- 8am until lunchtime, Saturday, January 25th

Steelhead Spey Equipment-

  • Spey or Switch Rod
  • Skagit Line & sink tips
  • 15lb tippet material
  • flies: bright patterns and dark patterns
  • waders & wading staff
  • rain gear
  • warm, layered clothing

Euro Nymphing Equipment-

  • Euro Nymphing Rod or standard 9’ 3 to 5 weight outfit
  • Small Nymphs
  • I will have plenty of leader material to share

Directions- go to McIver Park. Take the 1st left and drive down the hill. There will be a few turn outs—just keep to the left until you reach the lower boat ramp area.

We will have coffee, donuts and lunch. This fish a long will focus on (1) spey casting and swung fly presentations and (2) Euro Nymphing. Questions; email Dave Kilhefner (Dave@kbi-ins.com). Hope to see you there!

2019 November Fishing Reports

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This November featured some chilly weather but the fishing was hot at times!

From Brad Jonasson: Fished the Deschutes and netted 5 Redsides, 2 rainbows & 1 large Whitefish, all on a French Style Nymph.

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From Greg O’Brien: My brother and I did some flyfishing in the California Delta for Striped Bass with guide Bryce Tedford (who has PNW roots in Puget Sound).  The fishing was tough to do all day as we had to throw 9 weight rods with fast sink lines & big weighted flies. We each got a lot of fish, mostly in the 14-20” class with a few bigger ones mixed in (up to 14 pounds).

From Darryl Huff: Found a hand full of steelhead and a few bull trout while fishing the Deschutes near Warm Springs this month. Best patterns for me were the prince nymph, blue perdigon, and egg patterns. Steelhead on the 6 wt. are a lot of fun but not all were landed! 

From Hugo Jim: 22 months ago, I decided to chase a Steelhead with the Spey. It took many classes, trips, trials and errors but with the help of Sam from Steelhead Outfitters I hooked, landed, and released a Wild one on the Klickitat River with a fly that I tied myself. I did it! 

From George Coutts: Spent three days on the Deschutes at North Junction, mostly Euro Nymphing.  It was clear, cold and, at times too windy to cast but I brought some nice Rainbows to hand and one sizable White Fish.

From Dave Kilhefner: Fished the Deschutes on the Warm Springs Reservation side with Elke Littleleaf. Fishing partner Robert Campbell caught 2 steelhead on spinners and I caught a couple nice redsides on beads.

From Bob Beswich: My friend, Neal Rea from Newport but formally from West Linn and I went to the Deschutes for a couple of days (11th and 12th). Around Beavertail, we found a few trout feeding on salmon eggs and caught them on glow bugs. We did fished for Steelhead with one hatchery landed on a weighted small purple at the boat landing at Nena.

And something from From Mark Bachmann to make us all jealous: We fished Loreta, Mexico. Trip details are on our website: https://flyfishusa.com/blog/Loreto-Mexico-in-November

Another great fishing month, thanks everyone for sharing your reports!

CFF October 19th Fish A Long

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This months Fish-A-Long will be held Saturday October 19th on the Deschutes River at Beavertail Campground.

The plan: meet at Beavertail Campground between 8am and 9am. We’ll provide coffee and doughnuts then we hit the river! After morning fishing a hot lunch will be served.

Beavertail campground has ample parking and lots of good fishing water. It’s located 21 miles north of Maupin on the Lower Deschutes Access Rd. From Maupin to Shears Falls is paved and the last 10 or so miles to Beavertail is gravel road.

Gear: 4 to 6wt rods with matching reel & floating lines. Euro nymphing has become very popular but indicator nymphing rigs with small glo- bugs and/or standard nymphs like Pheasant Tails and Hair’s ears work very well too. Swinging for steelhead is a possibility too but reports indicate steelhead fishing has been slow. Bring waders with felt or cleated boots and layered clothing (can be cool in the morning).

This is a very nice time to fish the Deschutes River for trout – they’re usually hungry and can be concentrated below schools of spawning salmon, making for excellent fishing.  This is also a great fish along to make an overnight trip and we will probably have a few overnight campers in our group.

Please email Paul at ponzdog@icloud.com if you plan to attend so we can get a head count for the food.

April 16 Speaker Josh Linn

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Josh Linn of Royal Treatment Fly Fishing will be CFF’s guest speaker Tuesday, April 16th.

Josh’s presentation will be on the increasingly popular technique of Euro Nymphing: Learn about the flies, tackle and techniques used in Euro Nymphing to increase your trout fishing success. It will be a great presentation you won’t want to miss!

Meeting details: https://clackamasflyfishers.org/meetings-events/

Royal Treatment Fly Fishing: http://www.royaltreatmentflyfishing.com/

March 2019 CFF Fishing Reports

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Elke Littleleaf, who will be presenting for CFF in the near future, generously gave his time to help introduce youth and families to fly fishing at the NW Steelheaders Family Fish Camp this month.

March speaker John Devoe got out on the water with CFF sponsor Mark Bachmann to enjoy some winter steelhead fishing on our namesake river.

John Warren traveled to Christmas Island in early March, doing well on both Bonefish and Giant Trevally.

Josh Linn of Royal Treatment got in some good Euro Nymphing action on the Metolius River. John will be giving a presentation on Euro Nymphing at our April meeting.

The day after the fish-a-long Paul Brewer and Dave Kilhefner fished the Deschutes River around Maupin. The water was high, off-color and cold. Trout fishing was tough but a few were brought to hand using Euro nymphing tactics. The hot fly was a San Juan Worm, a high water favorite.

Seven CCF members went on to the Owyhee after the Crooked River Fish-A-Long. Flows were very low and it was a bit crowded. Rain from the previous days caused a creek to blow out and muddy up parts of the river, then the wind picked up; all these things combined to create poor fishing conditions. However, the bugs were out and several members landed Brown trout up to 18″ long. Fish or no fish, everyone did have a good time; new friends were made, lies were told plus lots of education & exploration!

Another great month of Fly Fishing is in the books. Thanks to everyone for sharing their reports!

Crooked River Fish-a-long Report

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This years Crooked River Fish-a-long was very well attended with 14 members; thanks to everyone that made the trip, it was a great outing with everyone getting fish!

Saturday’s weather was cloudy and the temperature was warmer than it appeared as the hills still had a bit of snow hanging on. Paul warmed us up with hot coffee, donuts and a campfire and then later we had Cheryl’s homemade Sloppy Joes and Coleslaw beside a refreshed fire.

The water was low and clear. The flow out of Bowman Dam was 85 cubic feet per second and the water temperature 39-40 degrees. We all went for the deeper water spots and found a fair number of willing whitefish schooled up in the shallows. The “hot fly” was anything small and dark. Euro nymphing tactics accounted for most of the action but several members did well with small wet flies.

While most of the fish were in the 8” range we did get a few bigger ones, with some whitefish pushing 15” long and trout to 14”.

After the fish-a-long several members continued on to the Owyhee River with Lane Hoffman. A report of this trip will be in March Fishing Reports due out soon.

December CFF Fishing Reports

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The holidays are a busy time of year so December fishing reports were a little slow but people got out on the water and got into fish!

In mid December Kevin Luettgerodt did some Euro Nymphing on the Deschutes River below Harpham Flats. It was a chilly 36 degrees with clear skies.

George Krumm, the editor of Fish Alaska Magazine, managed a steelhead and then traveled to Pyramid Lake in Nevada to chase Lahontan Cutthroats. He caught some nice fish in the 10 to 12 pound range.

Nice black skipjack tuna on the fly while fly fishing on long range boat, Shogun off the Baja Pacific coastline.
Yellowfin tuna taken with a Echo 12 wt BAG fly rod while on the Shogun off the Baja Pacific coast.

CFF speaker Joe Warren had a bucket list trip, going on a long range bluewater flyfishing trip out of San Diego. Some storm fronts came through, making for rough seas and scattered the fish but when they found them, they got them! Joe managed to catch over 20 tuna, a mixed bag of yellowfin, skipjack, black skipjack, and bonito.  He also caught two striped marlin, one on conventional and one on the fly. Congratulations Joe!