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.