Dropping Water

Hello everyone - this is going to be a brief fishing report. The flows on the Deschutes in the Maupin area going north (the only area of the river that is open) have started to drop a little bit but, overall, the river is still mighty high. The clarity is not bad. We are not looking at muddy water, we are looking at blue water that is up on the banks and in some sections up in the trees. 

There are some areas that will be unfishable/non-wade worthy. Other areas which are normally ankle deep are going to be knee to thigh deep. Be careful out there!

The high water does a couple of things - it pushes the trout to the edges of the river and it washes tiny earthworms out of the banks. This is a good time of year to fish the SJW (San Juan Worm). You will need heavily weighted flies to get down and you may need some lead in your boots to keep you pinned to the bottom of the river!

Nymphing will be the best method to find fish. It is not out of the question to use 3-4 BB shot, coated in tungsten putty, and a big stonefly nymph trailed by a tungsten bead Euro nymph or a SJW. 

The river is dropping slowly because we still have a lot of run-off coming off of the high country. There are small streams flowing across the grasslands. The soil is completely saturated with water and all of the ponds and water catchments are overflowing. This has been tapering off slowly, but the water will still stay high in the Deschutes through the weekend.