I spent the first day of my Deschutes River trout season with Dr. Kean Oh, from Traverse City, Mi. The river is in beautiful shape, the hillsides are a lush green and the wildflowers are out. Plus, the salmon flies are already beginning to emerge in the lower river! Thanks for a great day Kean!
More on Deschutes Trout...
The emergence of salmon flies and golden stoneflies on the Deschutes is right around the corner. Over the next couple of weeks, the nymphs will be very active as they migrate towards the stream side vegetation and the trout will be enjoying the buffet line of big bugs. Most of us have been spey casting for the past nine months and needless to say, the old single-hand cast might need a little rust knocked off of it.
With the emergence of March Brown mayflies on the Deschutes comes the beginning of dry fly fishing for the spring. It won't be long before other hatches go full tilt boogie. I was recently going through my trout bag making sure I'm ready for trout fishing on the Deschutes. Needless to say, my gear needed a little love. Are you ready for the season? Here's a quick checklist of gear you'll want in your vest.
With our winter steelhead rivers low, clear and cold on the west side, I decided to grab the four weight and head out to the Deschutes for the blue wing olive hatch. Ironically, while trying to fool a few trout, I landed this beautiful four pound native buck on a size #22 pheasant tail!
I will say, fishing for Deschutes steelhead after mid-December is mega lame... The fish need their strength for spawning. If you do hook one while trout fishing, please fight em hard and land them quick!
Watching a big salmon fly struggle out of it's nymphal shuck is a remarkable event. Typically, most anglers miss this incredible event because it happens at night. However, my good friend Joe Ringo from DeschutesFlyFishingReport.com sent me this awesome pic.
Joe lives in Maupin near the banks of the Deschutes and writes a great blog about his fishing experiences. If you need honest up-to-date info on the Deschutes next season, check out Joe's blog.
I've been given the opportunity to interview with Ask About Fly Fishing Internet Radio this upcoming Wednesday at 6:00pm pacific time. The show's host Roger Maves has compiled a massive library of interviews with some great anglers from around the country. During this weeks show we'll be talking about Deschutes River steelhead and trout fishing.
The river levels on the Deschutes finally dropped low enough to take my jet boat up from Heritage Landing. I spent the afternoon with my friend Ed Hepp chasing Deschutes redsides in the lower canyon. The fish in the lower river haven't seen a fly since last summer and were eager to eat our bugs. -Mostly caddis pupas though Ed fished a stonefly dry and found a good number of players on top. Looking forward to guiding out of the jet boat again!
This time of the season everyone loves to fish big stonefly and salmon fly imitations. When I say big, I'm taking about size #6 and #8 bugs. In my experience, these larger flies work well in the early part of the hatch. However, as the hatch moves into the later stages, Deschutes trout get pretty dang wise to the old #8 Chubby Chernobyl. You'll still get rises but you'll notice your hooking and landing ratios go way down... Especially with Walter. The big fish get educated easily!
I finally bought a small Cannon camera that can take macro bug shots... Outside of getting cool shots like this Deschutes River golden stonefly, I've been taking mega close pictures of the weirdest stuff... A few days back I may have seriously offended a frog by getting a little too close! Yesterday I found one of the biggest rattlesnakes I've ever seen while trout fishing the Deschutes. Needless to say, I was temped to go macro but decided zoom was a better choice.
I recently spent a day chasing Deschutes trout with Lee Brown. Although our intentions were all about salmon flies, the fish were a little persnickety when it came to the big bugs. However, we did have a brief -but intense showing of Green Drakes in the early afternoon. We did manage to find a few fish on Golden Stone dries by the end of the day.