Monday, May 31, 2010

Fishing with the boss

Actually, my boss' boss and his son...........He knew I was into fly fishing and had suggested we take a trip sometime. Originally, we were just going to float the Mac in hopes that some green caddis would come off and he would catch a few. I glanced at the weather report for Warm Springs earlier in the week and saw that Sunday would shape up nicely. I called the boss and as soon as I uttered "the Deschutes is another option" he cut me off and said "Yes, let's do that".

I warned him the fishing was not always friendly and required some bush whacking. We met on Sunday and launched with the brigade of other boats. The fishing was excellent. I went dry the whole day and landed as many as one could ask for. My boss and his son even got into a few fish. The boss had floated the Deschutes twice before and was skunked both times, so his 6 fish will be an epic memory.

I fished the Chubby C and NWS pretty much the whole day. The Chubby and NWS rose about the same amount of fish, but one thing I did notice was the hooking and landing ratio was much better on the Norm Woods. I think the foam body and the way it sits against the hook shank can sometimes make for a tough stick.

One takeaway I will never figure out:

Why do fisherman continue to nymph when epic dry fly action is going on?









Wednesday, May 26, 2010

I'm looking for single hand success

It seems that everybody and their mom swinging for flies these days is using Spey Rods. With good reason, they can provide an excellent advantage in tight spots and when throwing tips and big flies.

It doesn't seem that long ago when my "go to" set-up was a 9'6 Sage DS2, a floating line, and a black egg sucking leech. It was a deadly combo, especially from the boat while approaching tailouts on the McKenzie or Willamette. Well, I cast my 9'0 Scott E2 and a purple leech on Monday night, and it felt great! I'm on the newly revived bandwagon of catching steelhead on the single hander.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Good news, bad news

The good: Spunky steelhead to the beach caught on an ugly Marabou fly I tied

The bad: Rod tip broke, ouch!


Sunday, May 16, 2010

Stones and Steel

A quick recap of the weekend:

Casey and I headed to Maupin instead of the originally planned Spey Clave. Fishing was good, but not outstanding. Plenty of trout were brought to hand.

After getting home from Portland and unpacking, I headed out to the Willy with about an hour thirty to fish. My 7127 Burkie needed a fish. After tickling my fly a few times, the hatchery buck decided to commit. A nearby driftboater netted it for me and took a quick photo.







Thursday, May 13, 2010

It's going to be a good year

Went out after work with a client who likes to fish with Two Handers. We fished for a few hours with no grabs. I turned to my client to say I was about done when my line stopped and my rod bent over. This hatchery buck took two sweet jumps, the first of which he cleared 3-4 feet. It was one of the sweetest jumps I've ever seen.



Friday, May 7, 2010

Roguesational Part 3

We'd put some fish in the cooler, but we were still looking for the ominous 35lb'er. Both boats got going at first light. Our group headed up to a new spot and the other group anchored in the old standby pool.

We put anchor down, enjoyed some coffee and wax donuts, and waited. Within the hour, the inside rod(assigned to me) went down and line started peeling off the line. Chad was first to the rod holder and quickly handed me the rod. The power of this beast was incredible. Could it be the big fish we were looking for? The line stopped running and Chad shouted "Oh no, I think there's a seal back there". Dom chimed in with "No, I think its an otter......wait, I think the otter is what we've got?" I thought, no, this couldn't be......it's a big fish, don't ruin this for me. Well, turns out Dom was right. We had the Otter! The mammel ran downstream and almost spooled me. We followed him while trying to stregize about line recovery. He ran across some seriously heavy water and hopped out on the bank. The spinner was attached to his shoulder and after a quick shake, thankfully, the lure fell out and we recovered the whole rig!

After the excitement, we jetted back downstream to meet up with the skunk crowd to find that nothing had changed there. They hadn't had a takedown and looked as sad as ever. We anchored next to them and sure enough, 30 minutes later had a fish on. Our group hooked and landed a small hatchery fish around midday. Dom and Brad had to take off, so we ran them back to the landing and into town to fill up on Gas. It was a good break and re-engergized us for the afternoon.

Back at the boat ramp, the other group was taking out. Chad was nice enough to clean a fish and give them some meat to take home. We put the sled back in and jetted back up to our productive spot. We did get 1 more fish that afternoon, but the evening was slow. The highlight ended up being the fresh fish cooked by Chef Potter.

On the last morning, we were hoping to get at least 1 more hatchery fish to take home. After anchoring up, we only waited about an hour before the rod went down. We got our hatcher fish, this one about 25lbs, in the cooler. As soon as we got settled again, the rains came and things got wet. We knew our camp was getting drenched but there wasn't anything we could do about it. We caught one last fish that morning. It was a hard fighting native that took a couple of incredible upstream blasts. An awesome way to end the trip for sure. We wrapped up around noon and made our way back home. What an awesome weekend in a awesome place. Thanks to Captain Chad, we hooked some fish...........and one mammal.






An otter....not the one we met though

The Dom and I



Last fish of the trip. Bright fish, beautiful scenery.


Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Roguesational Part 2

The first night, Chad and I spent the night in the boat, anchored on our same spot. We got up at dawn and put the rods out. We waited and waited and finally got our first takedown at about 10am. It didn't stick.

We decided to head down river and try and different spot. With the high water, the new spot looked good, so we gave it a go. We had a couple of hours to fish before the rest of our party was set to join us. Right around 2:00 a rod went down and this time it stuck. Chad fought the fish while manning the motor. Fortunately I didn't screw up the net job and we were able to release the nice 20lb native back to the river quickly.

We headed back to the takeout to meet the other guys and then set up our camp. Matt brought his Koffler sled and we were able to anchor next to each other in the pool. Dominic, who is a self proclaimed "Springer Expert" joined us in our boat. Sure enough, 15 minutes in his rod goes down and the fight is on. We put our first hatchery fish in the box. It felt good to get some meat to take home. A couple hours later, we managed to get another hatchery springer to take home.

I was really getting the idea of this style of fishing. I like to call it Cocktail fishing. You sit, you wait, you drink a cocktail till your rod goes down.

We tried a couple other spots until dark and didn't have any more luck. The water was dropping pretty fast and the pools were changing. It was a fun time back at camp. Our group ate steaks, while the other guys had brats. They were skunked, we caught 2 fish. We had a top for sun protection, they had nothing but hats. You get the idea.......we were spoiled.

More to come later............


Sunday Night's dinner. Fresh Salmon!

Hard fighting football

Perfect hatchery fish



Sharp looking native. Don't worry, he was released quickly and swam off strong.


Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Roguesational Part 1

I was fortunate enough to get invited on a weekend trip to the Rogue to fish for Springers. I jumped at the chance even though it meant trading my spey rod for a Loomis or a Lamiglas.

We buzzed out of town on Friday afternoon and got the boat in the water by 5:30. We checked out a few spots and anchored in a nice inside turn that looked juicy. I'm a rookie at fishing for Salmon and Chad was gracious enough to answer all of my dumb questions. We put the spinners out the back and I asked "have you ever had a fish right after you put the lines out?" Well, no more than 10 minutes later the rod slammed down and it was on. The fish took an amazing initial run across the river and down. We followed him downstream, through a rapid, and finally got him into a slow pool. First fish, 30lb Chromer with sea lice still on it!

Stay tuned for part 2 and 3.



Chad with his slick sled


Mr. Tubby!