Finally, a LITTLE relief

It feels great out here now that things have cooled down a bit. Mornings over the past few days have been chilly thanks to nighttime temps in the fifties.  Steelhead anglers are starting to make a showing - though their success rates have been spotty at best. We suspect things will get better as the cold water is now reaching the mouth and will encourage a few fish to surge into the Deschutes. 

The extended forecast looks to keep the river fairly cool - although temps on Saturday are expected to go into the 90s with fairly strong winds. Now, anyone who has spent any time on the Deschutes knows that wind is a constant factor here. It is almost never totally calm. If you are concerned about the wind and your Spey casting, don't be too worried. The wind is your friend when the Spey rod is involved - as long as you understand the basic concept of keeping your D-Loop on the upwind side of your body. Here is an easy way to remember it - D=Downstream wind D=Double Spey or Snake Roll (but if you are just learning this concept you are probably not doing a snake roll cast). If the wind is blowing upriver you will do a cast off your upriver shoulder like the Circle Cast/Snap-T or a Single Spey. The wind makes Spey casting so easy because it puffs up your D-loop and allows you to move slowly and smoothly through the cast. The thing to remember and to silently chant to yourself is SLOW DOWN. Just see how slowly you can move the rod - slow and steady will always give you more power than rushing the cast.

Scandi lines are the norm out here - and they are truly a joy to cast. They are not a joy, however, if your leader is too short. The formula for a Scandi line set up is as follows: IDEALLY the Scandi Head should be 2.5 times the length of the fly rod and the leader (floating leader which can be a poly leader or a nylon leader) should be 1.5 times the length of the rod. Yes, this means that your leader will be 18-20 feet long in many cases. If you attempt to use a 9 foot leader off a Scandi head, you will have broken anchors and tailing loops and it will be very difficult to get a good clean cast with a tight loop. 

Skagit lines are short and clunky and will never make you a great Spey caster. They allow you to chuck a heavy fly and a sink tip out over the river, so they do a job the same way a big old dump truck does the job of taking an old couch to the landfill. You wouldn't necessarily want to make the dump truck your daily driver, but it does do that one job well. The good news is this: on the Deschutes you don't have to use huge flies and sink tips. The beauty of fishing for summer steelhead is that they will eagerly charge to a fly in the surface film or on the surface. When they make a rush at your surface fly and grab it, you will SEE this happen. Imagine someone flushing a toilet in the middle of the river, or throwing a bowling ball into the run right near the end of your leader - WOOSH! Water splashes into the air in a giant swirl and you realize in a split second that your fly has disappeared. In the second half of that split second you will feel a heavy weight on your line and your reel will start screaming (or just spinning if it has no soul). That is the rush of fishing with a floating line. 

Those who think you will hook fewer fish on a floating line are correct during the hours of 12 noon to 4 or 5 PM - that is when the sun is bearing down on the Deschutes and blinding the steelhead. But when the light is low, the day is cloudy, you are fishing in the morning, or you have the sun shining behind the steelhead, I would argue that you will hook more steelhead on the floating line. One reason is how cleanly you fish the run. The fly is not a various depths as you step and cast - it stays in the surface film. The fly never gets hung up, and the fly is never ever below the steelhead. In the winter the fish hug the bottom of the river due to how cold it is and how slow their metabolism is. In the summer those steelhead are super active, hovering in the mid-water column, and moving 6-8 feet to check out the little fly that is entering their space. They often follow that little hair wing right to the bank and grab it just feet from shore - too bad you can't swing into the shallows with a sink tip due to the fact that your fly will hang up. 

All of the biggest days on a fly that I have ever seen or heard of on the Deschutes were all achieved with a floating line and a small size 5 or 7 fly. We are talking days where one angler hooks 16-18 steelhead in one day. Yes, these numbers are possible on big years. Now, this year is going to be pretty good compared to the dismal returns of the past few years, but it won't be anywhere close to what we saw in 2009 or 2001. None the less, we will take a better return whenever we can get one. 

Trout are happier with the cooler weather too. The caddis hatches have been getting better and better in the evening - though we do have a full moon coming and that can have a negative impact on the trout fishing. The theory is that the fish feed all night during the full moon (and we cannot fish at night) so they are pretty full during the day. The full moon doesn't seem to have this effect on steelhead. 

Wrote this Friday and didn't have a picture to post with it. Hit the river on Saturday and now I have another report to write! Posting this now and a new one will follow on its heels.