Puget Sound Fly Fishing

March 2020 CFF Fishing Reports

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Hi Everyone, the Coronavirus lockdown has most of us staying home to remain safe and healthy. During the month of March some CFF members ventured out on the water, kept their distance and enjoyed good fishing. Here are their stories with the pictures on top and the report below:

From Darryl Huff: All of the steelhead I landed in the month of March were wild. The one I’m holding surely made my top three best fighters for a winter steelhead. I found great success in my trips to the Deschutes after being introduced to the idea of fishing golden stones this time of year. In a discussion with an employee at the Deschutes Angler, I learned that the golden stone is carnivorous. Being on the move hunting for food they are more available to the fish than the salmon fly stone at this time. 

From Frank Day: Fishing down at the coast was very good (in early March). After having good success on natives on some of the small streams, I ventured to the Wilson River and got a limit of hatchery steelhead.

From Greg O’Brien: Some friends and I went to the OP.  We fished the Clearwater, Humptulips, Queets and Hoh.  Fish were played and lost (me), and fish were caught and landed (not me). Timothy and I fished Puget Sound for Sea Run Cutts and brought some nice fish to hand.

From Richard Harvey: The Oregon Fishing Club properties have been warming up this month.  Matching the hatches has been the key.

Also, congrats to Richard on completing the 2019 Fly Fishing Challenge! (We were late getting his certificate out to him)

From Phil Bartsh: All 3 goldfish are doing just fine. Thanks for asking.

From Lane Hoffman:  The Crooked River trip had 5 members attending. The river was crowded but fishing was good. Most fish were caught using the Euro nymph method & emergers as we had a midge & BWO hatch. Rainbows & Whitefish. (No photo’s, sorry!)

Next day Ken Baker & I went to Chickahominy Res. Conditions were perfect but we didn’t do well. A couple using power bait caught fish, nice hard fighting rainbows to 20 inches.

I went on to the Owyhee. Perfect day warm overcast expecting a BWO hatch. Didn’t happen. They were raising the water level as the Res. is going to fill. Did manage to catch a few but they were nice Browns to 22 inches.

Pictures are Rainbow’s from Rocky Ford Spring Creek near Ephrata WA. I was by myself & couldn’t get good pics! The bigger fish was 5 pounds! 2nd week in March!

Chris from Semper Fli Guide Service guided his client into this McKenzie river hog in early March.

2019 CFF July Reports

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Sorry for the late posting but there was lots of good fishing in July this year, so this is a long post with lots of pictures. Enjoy!

Mark & Patty Bachmann of The Fly Fishing Shop made their annual trip to Loreto Mexico. Here is their report: https://flyfishusa.com/blog/Loreto-BCS-MX-Fishing-Report-Summer-2019

July speaker Elke Littleleaf had a great month on the Deschutes, landing many fine redsides like the one pictured.

With the cloudy early July weather Rob Crandall has been sneaking out on the Clackamas River and swinging up a few summer steelhead.

Nick Wheeler got this awesome Bull Trout euro nymphing for rainbow trout after work.

Greg O’Brien had a great day on Trillium Lake with his daughter Abigail. Her smile says it all!

Jim Adams got away to East Lake for a few hours while at Sunriver with family.There is usually a good callibaetis hatch late morning through midday during the summer at East, although the hatch was not as impressive as last year. Caught six fish. Five Rainbows, the biggest being 18”.  Also one kokanee, that put up quite a fight for its size. Unlike last year, no browns were caught  but saw one about 24″ take a callibaetis natural off the surface about two rod lengths from me, which got the adrenaline going. Caught fish on three different patterns: leech, callibaetis nymph and callibaetis cripple.

Adrian Choat went camping for 2 weeks camping at Crane Prairie. Spent mornings fishing from a kayak with best results stripping black wolly buggers and small red buggers. There was very little top water action. There are some large aggressive fish in Crane and he was broken off several times on 3x tippet.

Mark & Patty Bachman have been fishing Timothy Lake. They started with float tubes, then wend to pontoon boats. The last couple outings they’ve used their jet boat, allowing them to see the whole lake as never before. Fishing was great all day, every day even though the water temperature in the morning was 69-degrees and at dark it was over 74-degrees. Most of the fish we caught were planted rainbows that averaged 10-14 inches, the largest were 15-16 inches.  During the morning and most of the day small wooly buggers did the trick. Most of those fish were caught with type-2 and type-3 sinking lines while fishing in about 15-feet of water. A slow twitchy retrieve with the fly near the bottom was amazingly productive. They saw a few Hexagenia mayflies one morning around 10:00 o’clock, but the fish didn’t pay any attention to them. The main hatch started with sporadic emergence about 4:00 in the afternoon, then gradually increased until dark. Fishing emergers in the dark resulted in a fish nearly every cast for about an hour and then died. 

Richard Harvey has been chasing resident Coho along the beaches on Puget Sound. They are getting very active and taking baitfish patterns.

Greg O’Brien did a good bit of fishing in July. Harriett Lake produced a few browns on emergers, Dory fishing out of Pacific City was hot for Black Rockfish plus a cool Cabezon and a few Coho all on flies. He also hit an OFC property for bass and bluegill. He also floated the Deschutes from Beavertail to the mouth; they got several grabs, caught a big bass and a few nice trout on swung steelhead flies. He also hooked & lost a nice steelhead Euro nymphing for trout, which got about 100 yards downstream and broke his 5.5x tippet.

Hugo Jim went on a family camping trip at Lost Lake in mid July. He fished both from my pontoon and from the shore, taking fish on Adams dry flies and sub surface pattern such as leeches. The Hex hatch was slow when he was there.

Carson Taylor also fishing Lost Lake with the Washington County Fly Fishers July 13th fish-along. Everyone caught a dozen+ fish, mostly around 10 inches. Carson caught a brown around 14-15 inches and a 12-13 inch rainbow; but there are some larger fish! Olive woolly buggers and callibaetis nymphs worked best. On the way home the Hood River Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum (waaamuseum.org) is worth a stop.

May 2019 CFF Fishing Reports

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Lot’s of good fishing happens in May and CFF members got out and had good times on the water. Here are their reports:

Lane Hoffman with a bruiser size Rainbow from Rocky Ridge

In early May Lane Hoffman and Jim Romero had good action on large sized rainbows at Rocky Ridge Ranch.

Dave Kilhefner and Chris Obuchowski fished Big Tree Lake at the Oregon Fishing Club. The water temperature had jumped to 64 degrees and the bite was off but they still managed to grind out around a dozen trout in the 12” to 18” range. All the local wildlife was out enjoying the fine spring weather; hunting ospreys, families of geese and even a beaver.

Dave Kilhefner traveled to Kona, Hawaii and caught some strong & interesting looking fish off the rocks.

CFF members Red Smith, Gil Henderson and Carson Taylar made a couple trips to the Deschutes River by Maupin, having good action on Redsides throwing big stonefly dries along undercut banks and under the trees.

Phil Hager spent 9 days camped at Crane Prairie, fishing Crane, Lava and Hosmer. It was windy nearly full time along with rain, hail, snow and even a little sunshine. Most of the days the highs we’re in the 40’s to low 50’s and nights close to freezing. Was it worth it? Rainbows, Cutthroat, Brookies, Browns and even a couple Bass were caught, with many 16″-18″ along with 3-5 pound Rainbows and Brook Trout,

Richard Harvey traveled to Puget Sound and had good action on sea run cutthroats during outgoing tides using baitfish imitation flies.  

Greg O’Brien traveled to Massachusetts and experienced some hot Striper fishing, catching 40+ schoolies on the fly one morning in the bay.  Big fish are coming soon we hope, our biggest was 30”.

Greg O’Brien found this nice brook trout along with several others at Timothy Lake.

Adrian Choate spent two weeks camping on the Deschutes. He had lots of stone fly dry action did do too well on nymphs. He reports at the end of May there are still quite a few bugs still flying and it’s the best stonefly hatch he’s seen in the last several years!