Beautiful Weather - Ugly Water

The weather out here in Maupin has been absolutely beautiful for the past couple of days. The red-winged blackbirds returned this week, and their songs are trilling through the canyon. Unfortunately, the atmospheric river that took place over last weekend still has the Deschutes running high and off color. The river is dropping slowly, but the water is coming out of the dam at 7530 CFS today and many of the little tributaries are still running strong. On Tuesday the Moody gauge near the mouth of the Deschutes got up to 15600 CFS. The White River was raging on Tuesday - it went to 3200 CFS (the mean for this time of year is 630 CFS) so things were certainly not fishable in the middle of this week. As the water levels drop over the next few days, we should see the river become fishable once again. 

Here is a shot of Wapinitia rapid on Tuesday. It is rare to see the rock at the top completely submerged:

Due to the high water, there are a lot of logs and piles of debris along the water’s edge. Watch out for those as you are approaching the river. On Tuesday, when I was driving along the river taking photos, I saw dozens of trees floating down river - full 50-60 foot long trees. Those will pile up in backeddies and other soft water places along the river. 

Wapinitia Campground was flooded on Tuesday - I took this picture of the upper boat launch: 

If you want to give it a whirl, one of the best flies to fish when the river is high and washing out the banks is the San Juan worm. This bright red piece of chenille tied to a hook seems to imitate all the small worms being washed out with the dirt along the river’s edge. I know a lot of you might be thinking that the squirmy worm would be a good one too, but I do not sell those in the shop because they are, by definition in the ODFW regulations, considered to be bait. Bait is illegal on the Deschutes. In the ODFW regulations, the definition of bait is: “Any item used to attract fish that is not an artificial fly, lure, or attractor. Molded soft plastic or rubber imitations of worms, eggs, insects, bait fish, crayfish, etc. are considered baits.” When the officer with the Oregon State Police meets you on the river and sees your squirmy worm, I think it would be hard to argue that the body of that worm is not a rubber imitations of a worm. 

So, the water is dropping day by day. Out of the Madras dam it is dropping roughly 500 CFS per day. If it continues to drop at that rate, the river will be back to its median discharge from the dam for this time of year (roughly 5000 CFS) in about 5 more days. I know that a lot of other rivers in the state were impacted by the heavy rains of last weekend, but they are all returning to fishable conditions. 

If you want to enjoy sunshine, blue skies, amazing stars, great wildlife viewing, and a river that sees very little pressure this time of year, head on out to the Deschutes. It is 65 degrees today and is supposed to be 62 tomorrow.