Heading into July - We are CLOSED on the 4th

HOURS ARE CHANGING:  OPEN 8:00 AM -5:00 PM     7 Days a Week starting JULY 1

One week from today is our national holiday - the 4th of July. In order to give our staff a day to enjoy with their families, we will be closed on the 4th (Friday) but open all weekend to serve the few anglers that will be fishing on the Deschutes. I say, the few anglers, because angling pressure and general pressure on the river is very low over the 4th of July weekend. I think most of that has to do with the ban of fireworks on the dry side of the Cascades. Our fire danger is EXTREME right now and only going to get worse as we cook through next week with temperatures in the high eighties and low nineties. If you light off a bottle rocket, firecracker, or Roman candle in this neck of the woods, you are likely to start a grass fire that could quickly balloon into a 10,000 acre blaze and land you in jail facing fines in the tens of thousands of dollars depending on the damage done.

Okay, that is a bit of a harsh way to start the fishing report for June 27, but we have already seen some huge human-caused blazes in the last couple of weeks in Wasco County, including a 11,000 acre fire on the John Day River caused by a floater in a blue raft who just had to have a campfire two weeks into the fire ban. We also saw a fire sparked on June 11 near Rowena that burnt down approximately 50 homes and double that number of outbuildings. That fire was sparked by a train - as was the fire that came very close to torching our house and the outskirts of Maupin last year on June 22-23.

This was the view from my living room window last June - didn't sleep a wink!

Fire season is a really scary time in this arid desert landscape and the scariest weekend of all is the 4th of July weekend - so please keep an eye on fellow campers if you happen to be on the river any time during the June 1- October 15 fire ban season. All open flames are prohibited - including propane fire pits, charcoal BBQs, and smoking outdoors unless you are standing in the river.

Now, let’s talk about fishing!

We have seen very light angling pressure since the salmonfly hatch wrapped up about two weeks ago. The lack of anglers has done wonders for the trout, they are relaxed and happy and feeding voraciously on caddis and mayflies on the surface as well as a few yellow sally stoneflies. In addition to some fantastic dry fly opportunities throughout the day, anglers have reported great success with the nymphs that they are picking up in the fly shop. We have a fantastic selection of tungsten bead head nymphs in bead sizes ranging from 5.5 mm down to 2 mm beads. We even have a massive selection of brass bead nymphs (the old-fashioned kind) which are under the counter and available upon request.

A good game plan for the day is to get an early start before the sun is on the water. In the wee hours of the morning, the trout are typically feeding on spent/dead caddis and other insects that died the the evening before after laying their eggs. The rises will be quite subtle - nothing splashy - because the trout are not in a big hurry when they know that the bugs are dead and not about to take to the wing. If you do not have a specific dead caddis pattern, you can create one with a fly like an elk hair caddis by simply cutting the hackle down to the nubbin and splaying the wings out to make them look lifeless. A few of the patterns that we have ready to go in the bins are fantastic dead caddis imitations, but you can make your own if in a pinch. A chunk of belly button lint lashed onto a size 16 hook would suffice to imitate most of the dead insects on the water first thing in the morning. These early morning sippers will usually be in the tight pocket water next to the bank, under trees or nosed up into the shallow section of an oxygenated riffle.

As the sun hits the water, the prime trout in the river will be holding in the shade cast onto the water by trees along the banks. The bigger the trees and the more they hang over moving water, the better the big trout like the spot. Other big trout will stay in really heavy riffle water and amongst the bouldery pocket water on the edge of the deep fast water. Still others will drop down in the depths of the river where little light penetrates and the water is a bit cooler. The main thing to look for in the summer months is water that is MOVING and has foam lines. Glassy, calm water with a sandy river bottom will be easy for you to wade in, but it just won’t hold good trout.

Notice how this tree creates a shade pocket on the water. 

If you want to search the colder depths, it is good to do so with either a nymph rig - tungsten bead heads rule supreme on the Deschutes - or you can fish a streamer pattern to imitate a baitfish (think mueller or sculpin), a crayfish, or even a leech. When fishing imitations of baitfish, it is important to put a lot of action on these flies - make them swim and the trout will want to chase them down.

The lull in the day usually happens during the hottest, most opressive time of day. This is typically 4:00 PM to about 6:00 PM when things begin to cool a bit and the sun loses some of its intensity. This is a good time to take a break, grab a snack, go for a swim, and cool off. Maybe you eat an early dinner and hydrate well so that you can enjoy the grand finale of the day - the evening dry fly bonanza.

With a sliver of a moon in the sky and really hot days ahead, we expect to see clouds of caddis around the sagebrush every evening. This can be a really fun time to get your dry fly game on - but it can also be quite frustrating. Sometimes you are surrounded by rising trout but nothing will take the flies that you are offering. If this happens to you, it might be a good idea to use 5X or 6X tippet to attach a tiny crippled mayfly or spent caddis (a fly in size 18 or 20) to the bend of the hook of a larger, easier to see dry. One with a hotly colored parachute or overwing will allow you to find the bigger dry quickly as you cast it upstream into the mele of rising fish. Once you locate the bigger fly, simply scan in a radius of one or two feet (depending on the length of the leash you are using for the tiny fly) and set the hook of you see a mouth where your tiny dry night be.

Ian Kenney solved the evening puzzle and landed this beauty!

This is the time of year that people start sniffing around for steelhead, and there may be a few nosing around in the lower few miles of the Deschutes right now. I remember in the good old days before PGE started warming the Deschutes with the SWW tower, and in those days the steelhead migrating up the Columbia River would use the Deschutes River as a thermal refuge to escape the warmer waters in the lake-like Columbia River. The Deschutes was several degrees cooler than the Columbia in June and July and August before the changes in the management of the dam started in 2014. We caught chrome-bright steelhead in Maupin in early JULY back in the late 1990s and early 2000s because the cooler waters attracted them to this river and provided a good resting point before continuing the migration up the warm Columbia River. NOW, however, the Deschutes is several degrees warmer than the Columbia and the steelhead cannot use the Deschutes as a cool water refuge.

On Tuesday afternoon of this week we hit 68.4 degrees at the Moody Gauge down near the confluence of the Deschutes and the Columbia. On the same day, at the same time, the Columbia River near The Dalles was 65.8 degrees. Since steelhead and salmon will stay away from a river warmer than the one in which they are currently swimming, we have been experiencing what is known as a THERMAL BLOCK when it comes to June and July anadromous fish. A thermal block is essentially an invisible gate across the mouth of the river that keeps steelhead and salmon from wanting to enter. Some will jet upstream anyway, but the bulk of the fish will probably wait it out in the cooler climes of the Columbia. September and October will be cooler and the river will have plenty of steelhead then!

We wish all of you a wonderful 4th of JULY! WE WILL BE CLOSED on that one day.