The holiday season has begun!

Hello all! It has been a stretch since my last posting - and here we are falling down the slippery slope that is the holiday season…..

First off, we are going to have some closures during the holidays and we wanted you all to have a heads up on our hours.

THANKSGIVING DAY - THURSDAY NOVEMBER 28 - WE WILL BE CLOSED

BLACK FRIDAY - OPEN, OF COURSE.

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK THOUGH THE MONTH OF DECEMBER UNTIL DEC 22.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22 - NEW YEAR’S DAY JANUARY 1 - WE WILL BE CLOSED

Web orders will be attended to every few days during our closure. Delivery on web orders may be delayed by a day or two due to the vacation hours, but we will still be picking and shipping orders. 

Now, for a fishing report…

Things have slowed down significantly through the month of November in terms of traffic on the river. The fishing guides are wrapping up most trips, and the number of anglers making the trek to Maupin has slowed to just a handful of anglers on the 40 mile section of river adjacent to Maupin from the locked gate down to Mack’s Canyon. 

I have been on the upper stretch of the Deschutes between Trout Creek and Maupin about five or six times since my last posting (yes, I have had a chance to go fishing for myself a little bit) and I noticed that the guides who run camp trips on that stretch seem to have wrapped up their seasons - not a single boat was to be found on my last five trips above the locked gate. 

The reason for the drop off in anglers isn’t necessarily due to fishing productivity dropping off, though the steelhead are not nearly as aggressive or active as they were in September and October when they were fresh, but the drop in visitors is more likely due to a seasonal shift in the minds of the angler and outdoor enthusiast. Anglers tend to follow the fish, which is why we see a lot of Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Washington plates on the vehicles up and down the river in August and September. The Deschutes is simply the best early-season river where summer steelhead are present. It is not until October and November that people start to dedicate their weekends to steelhead fishing all of the Columbia tributaries east of the Deschutes. Many more rivers start to see their steelhead arrive in late October, so the Idaho people can now start fishing in their own backyards and even the anglers from Portland will make the voyage to the Clearwater or Snake Rivers to search for late summer steelhead. 

Other reasons for fishing pressure to drop off a bit are due to other outdoor pursuits that distract even the hardest-core angler away from steelhead, namely hunting. The deer season is the first big distraction, followed by upland bird hunting season,   and Elk season.  Once we get this far into November, a quick glance at the mountain (yes, we can still see it from this side because our days are mostly dry and sunny) reveals a new heavy coat of snow and this means that the slopes are calling to many anglers. 

I love the time of year when the river quiets back down. I don’t necessarily love it for my retail store, but I love being able to sneak off to a favorite trout or steelhead spot  for a few hours before work and being relatively confident that the spot will be open. Unfortunately, the steelhead are becoming less and less active as the water temperatures drop and as they slow their migration down to a waiting game. Steelhead will be in the river until March when they spawn and outmigrate back to the ocean. They need to wait for the high waters of February and March to fill up some of the tiny intermittent creeks that they use for spawning. Creeks like Oakbrook, Jones, BuckHollow, Bakeoven, Wapinita, Nena, and Trout Creek will all fill with snowmelt and rain and will be flowing enough in February and March to allow the steelhead to blast up them, quickly spawn, and blast out. Pockets of water will remain throughout the year to nurture juvenile steelhead fry, though the creeks dry up and will not connect to the Deschutes again until the following spring.

All of these creeks are CLOSED to fishing and this protects steelhead during this vulnerable time in their life cycle. Much spawning also takes place in the main stem of the Deschutes, especially in dryer years when the tributaries never get enough flow for passage, so it is up to the anglers to recognize what areas are spawning areas (gravelly patches known as redds) and to AVOID walking or fishing in these steelhead spawning areas. The tiny little eggs that are laid in the gravel in late February, March, April, May and June - the main spawning times for first steelhead then trout - are very delicate and can be crushed and destroyed by boots walking on them. It is up to anglers to recognize our responsibility as river stewards to protect spawning areas, to stay out of them, and to inform other anglers that fishing for spawning fish or on spawning redds is not only highly unethical but can be an actual wildlife violation because you are interfering with a species that is threatened on the endangered species list (wild steelhead).

So, after reading all that, you might think that the Deschutes doesn’t have a lot to offer this time of year, and you would be wrong in that assumption. Though the steelhead fishing has slowed up significantly, there are still steelhead milling around and the persistent angler will have his/her hours of swinging flies rewarded by steelhead now and again. Water temps up until last weekend were still 50 degrees in the morning - thanks in large part to the much more mild temperatures we have been experiencing this fall. Normally we see some hard freezes in November, and even some snow, but we are merely a tiny bit frosty on some mornings, and daytime temps have been downright balmy in the 40s and 50s. 

Now the chill is creeping in and water temps dipped into the high 40s this week, prompting me to switch to a Skagit line with a sink tip. Ten days ago we were hooking steelhead on floating line and small hair wing patterns fished just an inch below the surface, but steelhead are now a bit lower in the water column and may need you to get the fly a little closer to their field of vision. Monster intruders are going to be far less effective than mini-intruders and size 3 hair wing patterns, remember, steelhead that come into the river in the summer are still summer steelhead in November. Winter steelhead do not come this far east and do not come into rivers until just before the spring spawning. 

Once the month of December is over, the Deschutes regulations change dramatically. All of the sections of river that share a border with the Warm Springs Reservation are closed on January 1 until the third week in April. Both sides of the river from Warm Springs to Two Springs Ranch (above the locked gate) close to all angling in order to protect the spawning fish. Only the area around Maupin remains open year-round to all fishing. Many other rivers have these seasonal closures, so be sure to check the regulations before heading out for the weekend. If you are fishing off the access roads that run north and south out of the town of Maupin you are legal year-round. 

Trout fishing is different this time of year, and it often catches even the most hard-core of trout anglers off guard. If you fish the river a lot in May and June, you surely have your favorite spots full of memories of slurped stoneflies and jumping redsides. Most of those summer trout spots will be as empty as a church on a weekday - trout prefer slower and softer water in the colder winter months. They simply don’t want to expend the energy required by constant swimming. You will find trout hanging out in big and small backeddies, in the shallow barely moving edges of riffles, and in the long, slow, and deep glides.

Hatches in the winter do happen and can be quite eye-opening if you have not experienced the blankets of blue winged olives on a cloudy day in mid-January. BWOs are a range of sizes on the Deschutes, but most tend to be size 18-20 with a few as large as size 16. It is best to keep your tippet very fine while fishing BWOs on the Deschutes - 6X is not out of the question when targeting these picky sippers. 

There are a few caddis hatching off through the winter, plenty of size 99 midge, the odd flightless stonefly, and that pretty much covers the winter hatches. Trout Spey and streamer fisherman will find plenty of meat-eating trout lurking in the depths looking for sculpin, crayfish, and the odd baitfish. Swinging streamers for trout is okay and will hook the odd fish, but stripping streamers through slower pools and even through backeddies will likely be more productive. We have a great selection of sculpin and other patterns for you strippers!

To wrap up the fishing report, I have a retail store report for you. We have several great deals that we just unrolled this week for the biggest shopping week of the year. These include all Patagonia Waders on sale, Korker’s Buckskin boots in both men’s and women’s are on sale, we have backpacks and sling packs from Patagonia and Simms on sale, and a few more items that we will release in the first week of December.

We wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving Day and the tightest of lines to you for the remainder of the year!