The Deschutes is coming back into shape!

The weather out here is glorious and all the flowers are blooming on the fruit trees around town.  The river has dropped quite a bit all through this week, but it is still high. On Monday we had a lot of rain and that put color in the water from muddy little tributaries, but that has mostly flushed out and it is clearing up very nicely. The river is no longer at Willie Nelson "high" status - it has mellowed quite a bit over the past 24 hours and we expect the condition to steadily improve. Just this morning the river went from brown to blue - so things are looking up for the weekend. 

April is the month that we expect some high water, and those expectations are coming true. It will be a few more weeks before the entire lower Deschutes is open, so the Maupin area is where most people are fishing because the access here is amazing, and the only other access point is down at the mouth of the Deschutes where the water is the highest right now. 

The March Brown Mayflies, always late to the party, have been around for about a week now. This is a large mayfly with a tannish-pink body and speckled wings, known scientifically as the Rithrogena morrisoni. What sets this insect apart from the other mayfly species that frequent the Deschutes is the way they emerge from the river bottom. Instead of rising from the bottom of the river using an air bubble, these mayflies shed their nymphal shuck on the bottom of the river and swim to the surface with their fully developed and unfurled wings trailing behind. This is why we like to fish buggy nymphs and soft hackles for this hatch. We have some really good soft hackle March Brown nymphs in stock with different size tungsten beads (very much needed with the high water). 

Evening fish were rising to dries pretty steadily last night - Taylor was out there fishing and saw the rise forms but couldn't make out what they were eating. In this case, I would guess that the insect was either a tiny midge or an emerging mayfly that became crippled and stuck in the surface film. The bugs could also be caddis - as we have been seeing more and more caddis hatching - but these too could be emerging caddis pupae and could be just below the surface of the river. 

The high water will still require that you take precautions when wading - the spots you may normally fish during standard flows will be much deeper and the fish might be hanging out in the areas where you would normally wade. Fish first, wade second. 

I just now got to this report after taking a few days off to celebrate John's birthday! Sorry it is a bit later than usual.