Weekend on the Deschutes - Awesome fishing, and a major loss
After a great Sunday on the Deschutes two weekends ago, I was pretty set on fishing the Deschutes this past weekend. The weather had taken a major turn for the worse since the previous weekend, which would undoubtedly affect the Stonefly hatch, but Nick and I decided to head out there anyways.
We were on the water by about 8:30 am Saturday morning, and the first thing I noticed, or rather, didn’t notice, were the presence of Stoneflies. Bushes which were covered the previous weekend were vacant. Regardless, I spent some time that morning tossing the Chubby Chernobyl, but didn’t rise a single fish. Even the nymphing was slow. We each picked up a few whitefish, and maybe one or two trout in the morning, but that was about it. Nick started czech nymphing though, which was cool. His morning was mired in tangles due to some crazy split shot setup he had going on, but by the afternoon he was doing well and I only saw a thingamabobber make an appearance for about an hour all weekend.
I’m constantly amazed at how much the Deschutes can change in a single week. Just when you think you have it all figured out… well, you know how that goes. That said, I think the lack of consistency is one of the things I love most about the river, it’s a different game every time.
Anyways, after a solid 5 hours of fishing for not many fish, we took a break for some much needed lunch. As we were sitting on the bank, a couple raindrops fell, and like clockwork, mayflies started hatching (how do they know?). Within a minute of that first raindrop, fish were rising. Little guys though, 4-6”. We kept eating our sandwiches, and with each bite, the rises were getting bigger, as were our eyes!. By the time we were done with our sandwiches, we’d definitely seen a number of worthwhile fish rise, and it was time for some dry fly action. Lunchtime abruptly came to an end - time to catch some fish!
And catch some fish we did! The next couple hours saw us catch a lot of nice trout on the dry. The best action I had was sight-fishing to rising fish. As I’d walk along the banks, I’d look for a decent sized rise. Each time I found one, it was a guaranteed hookup. Unfortunately, I had some fly malfunctions - I have no idea where the PMDs in my box came from, but I ended up with two bent hooks from fish, which was responsible for me losing three nice fish. Oh well, not every fish wants his picture taken.
Taken on a Light Cahill
After a few hours of great mayfly action, it shut off again, and we couldn’t coax any fish to bite. I had ran into Fishkamp that afternoon, and ran into him again and we decided to spend a few hours getting skunked. Nick was nowhere to be found, but finally about 6:30pm he showed his head. Like fishkamp and I, he hadn’t found any fish in the past few hours, but had gotten into a nice pod of big fish on the Stonefly in Heat and caught three in a row.
Nick’s nice fish on a Stonefly nymph
It was starting to get a bit late, and we’d already fished for 10 hours straight to decided it was probably time to head to camp. Of course, by the time we arrived at camp all of five minutes later, I was ready for some more fishing! We waded upstream on the water at Oasis, and couldn’t find a single fish. After about 30 minutes of wading some seriously nasty water - me having banged up my shin and nick spilling a beer in his waders (nice!) - I saw a massive fish rise. Like, almost big enough to question whether it could’ve been a river otter. Easily 20”. Fished to him for a while, but nothing, and with that, it was time to call it a night.
On Sunday, we were on the water by about 7:30am, this time at the locked gate. It’s funny, how on every river I normally fish, if you’re willing to hike, you get away from the people. But on the Deschutes, everyone must have this same idea, and the locked gate is always packed, while the 10 miles of water below it are empty.
Anyways, we were the first to the locked gate stretch, but it didn’t do us a whole lot of good since Sunday morning turned out like Saturday morning. A few whitefish, some small trout, but that was it. The good news, the stoneflies had definitely hatched overnight, and the bushes were absolutely crawling, unlike the previous day. At about 11:30am we started catching fish on Chubby Chernobyl golden stones, and then decided to stop at a back eddy, anticipating another 1pm mayfly hatch.
With fished the eddy for a while, not catching a whole lot, maybe a trout or two, and a whitefish fouled in the back (which will put up a real fight!). Just before we were about to leave, I changed up my nymph rig, hoping to dredge some fish out of the deep. After a few casts, we decided to go check out some new water, and walked up to the road, at which point I realized, no nymph box in the vest. You know where this story is going.
Yes, I’m about 300-350 hand-tied nymphs poorer than I was on Sunday morning. Not cool. At all. Kind of made me sick to my stomach in all honesty. I searched and searched and searched, and told Nick I’d meet him downstream, not wanting to screw up his day of fishing too.
No sooner than Nick left, did some rain start falling, and again, just like magic the mayflies started appear. And like that, the back eddy began to boil with fish. Within the next 30 minutes I probably caught 10 fish, most in the 9-13” range, but one really nice 15” fish.
There were at least four species of mayflies coming off - PMDs, PEDs, BWOs and even a few Green Drakes. I picked up fish on both Light Cahills and Adams. The real big fish were rising further out in the backeddy, but I have not yet figured out how to get a good drift 50-70ft out from the bank with a dozen different micro currents between me and my fly.
After about an hour of that, the hatch died down, and I went to find Nick. I found him about a mile downstream, in a really nice run that neither of us had fished. Lots and lots of over hanging trees and undercut banks - perfect Stonefly water.
I tied on a Chubby and went to town, rising 6-8 fish, and landing three or so. Pretty much every tree I came up to had a fish under it, but trout don’t like being hooked under trees in 8” of water, and landing them proved a bit difficult! Regardless, it was insanely fun ninja-cast big dries under trees and watching the surface explode. Almost enough to make me forget about my nymph box which was now floating down to the Columbia, most likely.
Chubby Chernobyl!
Despite the flybox mishap, it was an awesome weekend. And fortunately, I had some of the best 4 hours of nonstop dry fly fishing I’ve ever had after losing all my nymphs, so that lessened the pain a bit. Definitely a hard lesson to learn, and from now on I’m tying my boxes to my vest with mono or zingers.
If you haven’t hit the stonefly hatch yet this year, get out there!
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