Fishing Oregon
Austin McPherson
We woke up early to make the three-and-a-half-hour trip from Portland to Bend, where we would make our first camp. Our road trip vehicle for the week would be a maroon Subaru Outback affectionately known as the Red Rocket. I laughed at first with the thought of spending a week in this ugly fish wagon, but it quickly grew on me with each day spent in it. After stopping at the grocery store to get the camping necessities we headed out. Our route took us right over Mt. Hood and along the Deschutes River for much of the trip that took us into Bend. We finally found a campsite that looked good and began setting up. We began in the normal way by cracking open a couple beers and checking out the water. I have never seen a river this clear in all my life. If I looked at it from the right angle I could actually make the water disappear and feel like I could just walk on the bottom. This was really unbelievable, and at the same time I was concerned as to how we would catch anything such clear water. Unless we were using 9x I really didn’t think we had a chance.
We went back to the campsite and set up our tent and unpacked the Red Rocket and then got geared up and started fishing. This river was no more than 20 feet wide at any point and had high, boggy banks, so setting up on a run was not the easiest thing to do. We caught the tail-end of daylight and took advantage of it. I could easily see fish holding in each spot, and in some places I counted up to 14 fish in one small run. After getting some follows on small streamers with no success I switched to a dry fly, although I was skeptical that they might be able to see my 7x tippet. On my first cast an aggressive little rainbow crashed my small Blue-Wing Olive and put up an admirable fight before I brought him to the bank. For the rest of the evening until dark, Ryan and I caught 11-inch rainbows on any dry fly we tried.
This was one of those times in fishing when everything came together. It was a great beginning to our trip and we went back to camp to cook some bratwurst and chili and drink some beers. Dinner hit the spot, and then the rain hit us. Our makeshift tarp lasted as long as it could until we were forced into the tent to finish our beers and get in the sleeping bags.
Posted at 04:11 PM | Permalink
When wading boots are never dry, when passion — some would say obsession — for fly-fishing is so great, wet boots are a way of life. Wet Boots (the blog) is for anglers who know fly-fishing is far more than a way of catching fish. Wet Boots. No bait fishermen.
