The Highs and Lows of Trout Fishing...

This past week has been a roller coaster of sorts for me. I've fished two well known, fish packed bodies of water and have had two extremely different experiences.

To start the week off, I took my Grandfather along for a trip to Diamond Lake in Southern/Central Oregon. The drive down was miserably long (I had worked the night prior and slept for just a few hours), but upon arriving to the lake (a big one at 3,000 acres!) I was excited.

I've caught more fish out of Diamond Lake then I care to count. The lake is not only massive, but it holds Rainbow trout that average over a pound. Fish to 10 pounds swim in Diamond and a 20" fish wont raise an eyebrow on the dock. When we went to rent our boat though, something told me we were in for a rough day. Near sixty degree water temps and an algae bloom (pretty odd for October!) had kept fishing slow according to the resort staff. After driving 5 hours though, we didn't relent and hit the water.

Early in the day, my Grandfather caught a fish on eggs and since he was nose hooked, we released the little guy. I fly fished to my hearts content trying nearly every lake method I know. Nada. Most boats complained about off fishing, and these folks complaining were pitching power bait. Not good!

6+ hours on the water and I had just one definite strike. It was a first for me, a skunking at Diamond Lake. We tucked our tails between our legs and hit the road, homeward bound down the gorgeous N. Umpqua highway. I watched in envy as fisherman spey cast to Steelhead around every bend. I knew I needed a fish fix!

Low and behold, I returned to Central Oregon in the same week. A family member had work to do in Bend and I offered to drive, knowing that I could get 4-6 hours in on some water near town. With such a limited time frame I decided to hit a well known and easy to fish spring creek, the Fall River.

The Fall River is a beautiful spring creek that flows into the Deschutes near La Pine. The lower Fall, ironically below the Fall River Falls, holds native Redside/Redband trout, whitefish, and some monster Brown trout. Regrettably, the lower river closed the week before I made it down to Bend, so I was relegated to fish the upper river which is stocked with Rainbow trout from the Fall River hatchery. These fish stocked are from Crane Prairie Reservoir stock and are actually very attractive hatchery fish, but I must admit they still leave much to be desired compared to wild, native trout.

Some of the trout in the upper Fall reach upwards of 8 pounds, and I did spot a few lunkers hiding under the numerous downed logs in the stream. These big boys are targeted specifically by many local anglers and can be quite picky. Most fish in the river are 8-12" though, and these are what I had a field day with.

BWOs, Mahogany Duns, even a Callibaetis attractor, rose fish to the surface. I tried to target rising fish when it came to fishing dries. Many fisherman working dry flies seemed frustrated that they couldn't get fish to eat... they were simply fishing the wrong method in the wrong spots.

I worked a small double nymph rig through holes, putting a clinic of sorts on. Carefully working the nymph along the volcanic bedrock ledges under water, and around downed trees, I picked up some solid fish. In fact, I hooked one fish that was all of 17" and had him to the net before he came unbuttoned. CDC collar PTs, anato may nymphs, October Caddis pupa, and a good old tungsten weight fly were hot items for the trout.

By the end of my 5 hours of fishing in two different areas, I had caught at least 30 fish. I stopped counting at a certain point because it was so ridiculous. No, these weren't the wild trout that I so dearly love to catch, nor were they monster trout out of a lake that fight with reckless abandon. But they were a needed pick me up of sorts. An affirmation that I still am a fishy dude, even if I haven't gotten out as much as I would like to.

I guess one could say that the Fall River is like Prozac for a recently skunked fly fisherman.

Next time though, I'll up the game. I'll be wading the Metolius River chasing Bull trout with streamers. And I will most definitely be on the prowl for Steelhead as we have just received some much needed rain to get the fish active.

But for now, I'm content with my week of experiencing the highs and lows of trout fishing on the fly.

It's Been Awhile...

Life has been crazy around the house lately. Packing to our hearts content for the big move, applying for more jobs everyday, getting an interview (!!!!), and working 40+ hours at the restaurant has kept me off the water to a degree.

I did manage to sneak in a trip to the Thompson River nearly two weeks ago. I can say, with some certainty, that I'm not a fan of high-summer fishing. Water temps get warmer, fish are less active, finding them isn't necessarily hard, but fishing responsibly (read... not when water temps are over 68, fight 'em fast, bring 'em in, release them after plenty of fishy CPR) becomes more paramount. It all has me longing for June and early July. I don't mind a little run-off when fish are accessible and ravenous.

Big Rainbows like this guy will be much easier to fool come Fall.

It's truly become a "dog-days" of summer routine with temperatures in the high 80's-90's in Spokane. The Thompson River has experienced the same type of temperatures that we've gotten here in Spokane with the exception of slightly cooler nights. Needless to say, my trip over there was slow going. I found fish yes, I found some very nice fish (seeking refuge from the Clark Fork and warmer water temps) but there weren't as many players compared to previous trips over the pass. 

Typical Thompson River Rainbow. Feisty and beautiful. This one had someone else's fly embedded in it's jaw. I removed it and let it go... no more extra lip jewelry for you.

Biggest Thompson fish for me yet. Caught 300 yards above the confluence with the Clark Fork... wonder where this Lacustrine looking guy normally lives? 

Gorgeous fish... it really worked the four weight. 

CDC Caddis emerger patterns were the hot ticket for me. Hoppers and Chubby Chernobyl's caught a few fish, but the big boys were working the caddis. Nymphing wasn't the winner that it typically is for me on the Thompson with just a few fish to hand sub-surface. 

I can't complain when I'm in Montana, catching trout, having to work harder at it (and learning new skills the whole time), but hot dang do I miss my trips of early July. It makes me wish that I had taken an extra-day off work to fish more before life got crazy (or to have just avoided the whole bat incident...). 

Speaking of bat bites, rabies, and other stupid fortune, I received my last post-rabies exposure vaccine this week and am done with treatment. We're just waiting for the first bill to arrive at the house, and for reality to sink back in again. Until then, I'm happy to be safe, rabies free, and not extremely poor... yet. 

I sure hope to get out before we leave Spokane at the end of the month, but work will likely dictate otherwise. Aside from a few short jaunts to the Spokane (thanks Upper River for the HUGE hookup and lost fish the other day...) I'm about done over here. It'll be Steelhead and Oregon trout in the near future for this Trout Bum. I'm excited to move back to the area and see what kind of fly fishing opportunities exist over there that I may not know about. 

Keep reading, please follow along regularly, and most importantly, keep on fishing. 

Montana Trip Recap

This past Tuesday afternoon, Wayne "Trout Jedi" Jordan and I embarked on two days and nights of camping and fly fishing in the Missoula area of Montana. We planned to fish for sure on a few rivers and would "wing it" according to water flows, fishing pressure, etc if our destined waters were not fishing well.

We hit a few big name waters, some relatively unknown creeks, and a few quiet but excellent rivers. 

I had a few goals before the trip...

1. Catch my first Bull trout. A must.

2. Catch a big Brown.

3. Drink good beer.

4. Catch all the available gamefish/trout species on the waters that we fish... nearly improbable but a good ultimate goal.

5. Work on my dry fly game... ie. Reach cast effectively, stalk fish, and make my first cast count.

In the end, I accomplished four out of five goals. Only number two eluded me, but I hooked a MASSIVE Bull trout on the ******************* River that took me to my backing before coming unhooked. That one still grinds my gears. Oh well...

PMDs, Caddis, and Drakes up top seemed to be the main meal tickets, and my self tied Z-wing Caddis Pupae was a winner nymphing. Wayne of course caught fish in all manners, and he even enticed a fish to a purple/glitter Chubby Chernobyl dry fly... and it wasn't just any fish, it was an 18" Westslope Cutthroat. Not your average Cutty!

Enough text for this post though. How about some pictures?! Wayne took the shots of my fish and I threw a couple of Wayne's victory photos in for good measure as well.

Rock Creek, Montana.

Rock Creek Brook Trout. Small guy, dry fly. Only Brookie of the trip.

Wayne's Big Cutthroat.

Hello Cutty. How was that Chernobyl pattern?

Biggest Cutthroat to date for me. Just shy of 19". Great fish.

Close-up.

My first ever Bull trout. Small but native and gorgeous.

Dry fly stalking Cutthroat. Always fun.

Feisty Montana Cut-bow.

Riverside refreshments. Critical to a good trip.

Dry Flies and Redemption, NW Montana Style.

After last week's 19-hour, one-day fishing adventure, I figured I'd take it easy for my fishing trip this week. I've got a 2+ day trip to Montana with the Trout Jedi planned for next week, and while gas is getting cheaper, me falling and destroying gear + not being home does cost money. And that rest and sleep thing... underrated in my mind.

Icing on the cake... 17+" small river Rainbow. Thank you Caddis hatch.

With all those factors in mind (and a Montana fishing license in my pocket), I figured I'd hit the St. Regis River for some mountain freestone action. A straight shot over I-90 (which parallels the river for most of its length before it dumps into the Clark Fork), the St. Regis River is a bit of an enigma. Not known for great fishing, it runs cold and features high gradient fishing in it's channelized waters (thanks Interstate!). Some of my friends swear by the river and gave me excellent intel about where to go and what to use... others said to stay away from it (they used less appropriate language). I decided to give it a shot.

What I found when I got to the river was interesting. Some fishy looking spots, freeway traffic blaring in the background, and very few fish. I several promising looking spots and saw just two fish (one of which said "no thanks!" to my Golden Stone pattern) in 3 hours of fishing. I followed my friend's advice but with water temps just barely over 40 degrees, I figure that most of the fish aren't terribly active yet... that and there wasn't much in the means of obvious holding water in the heavy-ish flows.

Dejected, I pulled into St. Regis, conferred with some locals (who also scoffed at my fishing their local river, telling me it'd been poor this year), and grabbed a bite to eat. I couldn't head home yet. A two hour drive with nothing to show for it? No. I decided to jet north an hour to the Thompson River... get a few hours in on the Thompson and then cut over Thompson Pass and be back by 8 pm. Not a poor plan it seemed. Worst off, I'd be down two more gallons of gas... but at 30 MPGs and $3.40/gallon (sad that I'm stoked about that), I couldn't pass up the opportunity to catch fish.

Last week on the Thompson, it was a nymphing clinic that my fishing partner and I put on... This week was slow on nymphing. I had one strike while nymphing a usual hole that produces for me. I worked my way upriver (which was substantially lower than last week) and pulled up to a favorite spot of mine.

Pulling off the road, I looked into the water below and saw rises... lots of them. I could literally see 30 fish stacked up in the current below... smallish fish, huge fish... it was like looking at a wild trout aquarium, and these fish were hungry. Money.

I casually worked up to a hole well above where the fish were working and examined the hatch... PMDs, Drakes, and an odd Golden Stone. And big looking ones. I tied on a Golden Stone, PMD double dry set up and went down the bank stealthily below the active fish. Now, I'm known to be a clumsy, piss poor wader. I could scare a fish across the river from me, but on this day, I was smooth. On my hands and knees, ninja-style smooth wouldn't even describe it. I made a first cast upstream to the rising fish and it was game on.

Westslope Cutthroat... A fishing partner would've made for better photos!

Cutthroats, Browns, Rainbows... it didn't seem to stop. While I didn't hook them all, and I certainly lost a few fish during the fight, it was a glorious time. Over the course of a few hours I landed several fish on the PMDs.

Feisty small Brown trout.

I rested the hole for 10 minutes at a time (it's a big run and you can fish different sections in it without scaring too many fish), and eventually noticed a lull in the action. I moved upriver to a different locale (which was a big producer last week) but came up empty handed... the lower flows made the hole less suitable for holding many fish.

Back downriver, I saw that a Caddis hatch had broken out and the fish were working the same hole that I had fished earlier. Re-rigging to a Yeager's Neversink Caddis/X-Caddis trailer, I played the same game working the bottom of the hole to the top... Money. It was just that kind of day. I landed the largest fish that I've caught of the Thompson... a 17" Rainbow that looked a lot like the Spokane River Redbands that I love so dearly.

Big Thompson River Rainbow. X-Caddis.

After three more fish in the same hole, I realized it was nearing 5:30 (PDT) and decided I should get back over the pass. It was my first time taking the Thompson Pass road, and I doubt I'll go another way again! I saved 40 miles and nearly a half hour of drive time... Only downside was a robin that decided to play chicken with my car on the CDA river road. My car won and I felt a little bad about the whole affair.

All in all, it was a great day on the river. I wasn't gone too much longer than I had originally planned, I caught nearly double digits trout on the dry, and got some stealth wading practice in. Always have a back-up plan, and never let a skunking ruin your day on the water.

Now it's time to gear up for my extended Montana trip next week. More reports to come! 

Sunny Skies, Healthy Trout, and Busted Reels

Graduation has come and gone. I've got a B.A. now, and have begun my first school-free summer in some time. I've been job searching, preparing resumes, and working my restaurant job in the meantime. I also have more time to fish... never a bad thing. Especially when you have a Montana annual fishing license.

This past week, with flows finally dropping, temperatures rising, and a day off work, I met with my friend Dustin (of Big R Fly Shop - Ponderay, ID) and headed out to a small tributary of the Clark Fork River in NW Montana. This stream was running just over 1100 CFS and dropped another 10% while we were on the water (about 10 hours).

Saw some drake activity, a few golden stoneflies, and lots of caddis in the evening. Rock checks revealed green drake nymphs, and caddis cases galore. I had three rods set up and the first run yielded the day's first fish. Double nymph rig, meet Rainbow trout. Shortly after our Rainbow friend came to net, a Whitefish followed. The next run yielded a small Cutbow, and we were into fish early and often.

A slight mishap occurred on the water early in the day. I took a spill on a large rock (studded boot bottoms, not a good call here!) and my reel took the most damage...

Broken reel... no good.

Shortly before I noticed the damage to my reel (one run later), I hooked into something BIG. It happened in a spot that is typically a "honey hole" of sorts for me. Big boulders in the water redirect the current as the river takes a hard turn, and the hole is DEEP. Think 15'+. Drifting my nymph rig through the hole, my indicator takes a slow deep pull into the water. I react and set the hook figuring that I snagged a rock. Now, rocks don't head shake and move though, and this fish has my 5 wt doubled over. Into the current, back into the boulders, up a bit (I see a nice big silhouette), and then back down... it was 30 seconds of bliss. While I began to walk down the shore towards Dustin, hoping to work the fish downstream and out of the heavy current, I feel my line tension slacken. NO! The fish was gone. Came unbuttoned. 

What was it? I have my thoughts (the fight, location, and seeming size of the fish indicate Bull Trout) but I can't be certain. This missed fish would haunt me all day.

Dustin got his first trout of the day in the same hole on a nymph rig and we head upriver to a spot that I had explored but didn't hook up at the previous trip to this stream. With water levels lower than before, the hole looks better than ever, and better accessible (a short hike and then wade out to a gravel bar) than my last trip. It was during the hike out to the hole that I realized my 5 wt reel was toast. Nymphing was out of the question at this point, as I did my fishing on a 4 wt that was rigged for dry flies the rest of the day. Dustin began annihilating Rainbows on this hole. It was a strike nearly every cast for him.

 Healthy Montana Rainbow

The fish Dustin was getting were of great size for this system. We're talking  average fish of 12" (the norm) and the ones he was catching were 15-17"+. Not shabby at all, and on simple attractor style nymphs fished at the bottom of slots. I threw dries while Dustin was harassing the trout down deep, and low and behold we soon had our first of three doubles for the day. 

Dustin's biggest Rainbow of the day... healthy fish!

I landed a fantastic Rainbow at the head of the run on a anato-may dropper fished below a Golden Stone. Great color on this 15+" Rainbow who had struck my dry on an earlier drift through the slot. 

Great color on this fish. My best (landed) trout of the day.

My one and only Brown trout of the day came in the same hole shortly after I caught the Rainbow. Dustin didn't get his Brown until later in the day, but it was a pleasant (and colorful) surprise when it finally met the landing net.  

Small water Brown trout. 

We fished the entire afternoon, and despite ever persistent drakes and caddis flies, few fish were consistently rising. After fooling multiple sub 10" fish on dries, I decided to re-rig my 4 wt as a nymphing rod, and was rewarded with a solid Rainbow on the last  productive hole of the day. 

Final tally was 20 fish to hand between the two of us and well over 20 fish lost. Gotta love barbless hooks. By the end of the day, Dustin and I were both muttering and joking about all the fish we'd lost. The colder water temps (hovering around 50) seemed to induce short/soft strikes. 

Lots of laughs, good brews on the riverbank, and some nice fish were what I will remember the most from this trip. The broken reel (sent to Lamson today... I'll have a post on the warranty service when it returns), lost (Bull) trout, and lack of sleep (5:30 AM - 1:AM on the road) won't dampen this angler's mood. 

Lake Season Wrap-Up

It's nearing that special time of year where rivers are opening up and coming into shape. Combined with the fact that I'm almost done with my time in Cheney (my usual jumping off point for lake fishing) and the end of my Spring lake season is near.

I'm one of the few younger guys around here that truly enjoys stillwater fishing, but I must admit that running water brings more excitement to me then sitting in a float tube getting blown around a desert lake. This Spring, it has been predictably windy, fishing has been hit or miss, and I've explored some new waters. There are moments when I'm on a lake and I feel completely lost, not knowing why my pattern that worked the day before is failing me, or where the fish are at. I know what bugs are hatching/working, but I wonder if weather system changes, lunar phases, or something else keeps fish down.

Needless to say, I've experienced a few skunks on the lakes this year, but I also had some dynamite days. I'm happy to say that I hit the local lake Trout Slam this year... 4 hours on the water, 3 different trout species to hand (Brown, Tiger, Rainbow...) and all were BIG and healthy. Not bad work... especially since they took my own tied chironomids and leaches.

Big (read long) Tiger Trout

Lacustrine Brownie (not a fan of the net)

Gorgeous Rainbow in my Sunburned Hand

To wrap it up, I had a great time this year spending days on the water with good friends. No truly banner days (4 fish days were the norm) but some fun experiences. I got my first Amber Cutthroat (on a dry fly no less), finally caught fish on chironomids (definitely worthwhile... with a beer in hand), and had my first experience with ticks (not a pleasant thing to find on your float tube after taking out). 

Blurry Amber Lake Cutthroat

My last trip was a fun one but water temps were nearing the mid 60 degree mark which means that fishing the area lakes (for trout!) will soon end for me until the cooler days and nights of Fall arrive. Not necessarily a bad thing though as I have many squiggly blue lines to follow and fish, as well as some road trips to high altitude lakes brimming with eager fish waiting for my fly.

Heftiest Rainbow of the Spring Season