Sandy River: Dodge Park

While this wasn't meant as a hard core day of fishing. It was more of a scouting mission and a chance to introduce my son to fly fishing. Since we moved up here, we've been floating down rivers and playing in the water. He is really into it on these HOT days. So, I thought it would be a good idea to put a rod in his hands.

After cutting off the hook point on one of my flies, I let him swing his tiny rod around and have some fun. He really enjoyed it. As he gets older, I hope to have a fishing partner!

The afternoon started at 1pm on the Sandy River at Dodge Park. This is about a 45-minute drive from home and easy access to the water from the parking spot. I couldn't really explore with my son/wife around. So, we stayed right under the bridge. There looked to be some good water up stream. I'll have to come back on my own to give it a shot.

I only fished for an hour or so, and most of that was spent holding my son's hand and walking him around the rocks/water. He is getting good at scrambling around the slippery boulders. Maybe more so than me! While I wasn't really focusing much on fishing, I did get a bump from a probable trout and saw another trout chasing my fly. I was tossing bright flies, some rather large on my single hand rod using a intermediate 10ft poly. There was a bit of glacial silt in the river, making it cloudy.

After a few hours of being there, we took off. A great day in the water with my family. I'll be heading off to the Deschutes on Wednesday. Stay tuned for another report.

Deschutes: Heritage Landing

Last week was my first trip to the Deschutes after the move. The drive time is a comfortable hour and a half. Not bad for such a great steelhead river. I can handle that. Nothing compared to what I've been used to.

Before sunrise, I was already geared up and walking down the trail. By the time I got to where I wanted to step in, there was enough light to do so. A gear fisherman was already in my spot. So, I asked if he was staying still or stepping down. After confirming he was to stay put, I asked if he minded if I went below him. No problem.

On this day, gear fisherman outnumbered fly fisherman by at least 2 to 1. And probably 3 to 1. I have no problem with them. Although, I wish they would step downstream. Most of them seem to sit in one spot for hours on end. I know that we are fishing different techniques, but it does rub me the wrong way. I guess I have to learn to deal with it. Although, when you see one guy in the same spot for 5 hours, it can be frustrating.

The river is super wide, however, I was casting only 30 or so feet out into the main riffle on this first run. Moving down a couple of feet after each cast. I saw this nice calm spot that looked fishy. It was only 10 feet from shore and about 20 feet down from me. I worked it over pretty well with a muted low water fly. After each swing, I let it sit. As I was pulling in for another cast, there was a humongous boil under the fly as I felt a jerk at the same instant. I don't know if he just had a hold of the tail, but the fly popped right out. He was sitting in about 14 inches of water. I spent about 20 minutes changing flies and stepping back through that same spot. Nothing ever happened again. Too bad. He made quite the commotion and was probably decently sized.

Access	Heritage Landing
Air Temp	Low 75, High 100
Water Temp/Visibility	~? F / 6 feet
Weather	Sunny
Flow	~? cfs
Time in/out	5:30am, 8:30pm
Leaders/Lines	Compact Scandi
	Intermediate Poly	Morning
	7ips Poly	Afternoon
	Intermediate Poly	Evening
	8lb Maxima
Flies	Various Low Water flies	3

I spent another couple of hours going through that run and another above. I witnessed a gear fisherman hook into a big fish. I didn't stick around to see him land it. Whatever the size of the fish, it bent his rod over pretty good. It may of been a salmon. The thing was locked to the bottom of the river and wasn't running at all. (I saw another gear guy land a steelhead as long as my leg later in the day!)

I walked upstream pretty far. Further than I had gone last time. It was probably about two miles. Some really great spots in that section. No action. Came back to stand on a basalt ledge in the middle of the river and spied a few really large steelhead lurking below. The wind was whipping at this point with gusts to 20+ mph. It was hard to get my fly in the sweet spot. I did put on that heavy squidro fly and it sunk right in there. But the fish ignored it.

Went back to the car to load up on food and water and change a shirt which was drenched with sweat. Did I mention it was hot? Had to be pushing 100 degrees. After a rest, I was back to the water. By this time, practically everyone had left. I had the river to myself. I wandered back upstream and got in the water in a place that looked like it might have fish. No bumps or tugs.

Witnessed a fly guy on the opposite shore land a big fish. A few minutes later, I was casting near a submerged boulder when about a foot and half of my loop was pulled through my fingers. I set the hook and... Nothing! He wasn't there. Again, I spent a long time swapping flies and stepping through several times to try and get him again. This fish did have the audacity to show his face to me! And he was H.U.G.E. I had a few choice words for him and then moved on. At least I was getting tugs and boils today. Just couldn't land anything over 18 inches.

Outside of the heat, it was a great day. Looking forward to another shot!

Clackamas: Epic Day in McIver park

While taking a break from house hunting a few weeks ago, I drove a few miles along the Clackamas River. It was a big/wide slow moving river filled with boats. Not very appealing to me. I made a mental note that I wasn't interested.

Fast forward to early last week. I read a few internet sites talking about how great the Clack is for swinging flies. Obviously I wasn't in the right place. The good water must of been further upstream. That turned out to be the case.

The Clack would be my first fishing trip as a resident of the Pacific NW. I wasn't sure how much time to give myself in the morning, so I left bright and early around 4am. Turns out, it only takes 45 minutes to get to McIver Park, my destination for the day. After being used to 3-5 hour drives to reach a decent steelhead river at the old house, this was a breath of fresh air. (Wait until the winter run when the nearest steelhead river is about 10 minutes from the house!!)

Access	McIver Park
Air Temp	Low 53, High 82
Water Temp/Visibility	? F / 6 feet
Weather	Sunny
Flow	?
Time in/out	7am, 8:30pm
Leaders/Lines	Compact Scandi
	11ft Float Poly	Morning
	10ft 7ips Poly	Afternoon
	12lb Maxima
	Various steelhead patterns	25+ trout

The sign at the entrance to McIver said "Day Use Area opened from 7am to 9pm". What??! It is five in the morning and it doesn't open till seven? Great. To make things worse, the day use fee machine was out of service. After freaking out, I decided to drive to another park - Bonnie Lure - to see if they had a ticket machine (day use pass is good at all state parks). After all, I had two hours to kill. I never did find the entrance to Bonnie Lure. So, then I tried Eagle Creek. That was a county park. Argh! Not a good beginning to the day.

Now that it was approaching 7am, I went back to McIver. I got out and stared at the electronic Out Of Service sign. I figured my laser beam eyes would make the machine start working. While focusing all my energy on it, a Park Ranger arrived. He gave me two pieces of good news. First, he could manually issue me a day use pass. Second, as a fisherman, I can get in the park anytime after 5am. Great information for future trips.

I quickly put on my waders and found the nearest path to the river. I had no clue where I was going. But, I could hear the water and knew I was somewhat in the right place. As I emerged from the brush, I was in the middle of a nice riffle. Stepped to the top and put on a fly. I picked something in a size 8 and muted earthy crunchy colors. My floating poly leader was down to 11 feet in length thanks to a snag while fishing on the Deschutes.

Since it was well after sunrise now, I tried to cheer myself up. After all, I missed one of the best parts of the day. Out loud, I said to myself, "I'm going to land a fish on my first cast." I knew that was silly, but it actually made me feel better. I pulled out the leader and about 7 feet of my short scandi. Tossed it out and at the end of the swing, I feel a bump, bump, bump. Son of a... I caught and landed a nice 18" fish on the first cast of the day. Just like I knew I would!

That catch set the tone of the day. As the title of this post says, this truly was an epic day of fishing. While I didn't pull in any adult steelhead, I caught somewhere between 20 and 30 fish! And I'm only counting fish that were over 12 inches and came to my hand. Total insanity. The number of bumps, plucks, under 12" fish, and lost fish had to number in the millions. The biggest fish was probably near 20". Nothing to write home about, but it was a really fun day.

I started the morning with muted colors and smaller sizes. However, as the heat of the day came on, I switched to a 7 ips poly leader and weighted flies. Some of these flies were 4 inches in length or longer. Practically everything caught fish. As a test, I put on some really bright colored flies. We are talking hot orange and hot pink. In fact, my biggest producing fly was a 3 inch hot orange/pink rabbit strip fly. That thing got a bump or catch on almost every cast. Until it got hung up on some rocks and was lost. I've already tied a few more of them.

I tried both low water flies and big bushy intruders. It didn't matter. These fish were aggressive all day long. The only flies that did NOT work were black or dark purple.

From the morning till about 3pm, I was staged at the upper boat launch. At one point, I walked a very difficult and slow walk down river to the lower parking area. The rocks were extremely slippery. I wish I had worn my studded soles. While I didn't end up in the water, I had some close calls. Luckily, the walk back to the car seemed to go faster. I filled up with water and food and then drove to the lower parking area. As the sun went down, fish were getting harder to catch. I tried various colors and sizes, but it was as if the trout just lost interest. My body was starting to ache, so I decided to stop as well. It was getting close to dark and I caught plenty of fish for one day

The Clackamas turned out to be a beautiful place. Completely different from my drive-by experience a few weeks earlier. I'll definitely be going back.

Moved In

It has been about a week and a half since we moved in. I'd like to say the transition was flawless, but it was anything but. First, all of our belongings didn't fit on the 26 foot truck we rented. About 3/4 the way through, the guys loading told us it wouldn't happen. Crap.

I drove the truck out of California, through Oregon and into Washington. After doing the unload, the plan was to fly back to California, clean up the house and bring the remaining items up here. However, because we had way too much stuff left, I figured I'd install a trailer hitch on my SUV and tow a uhaul trailer with me.

More bad luck. Turns out the underside of my vehicle is rusted from all the driving in the snow. The hitch is supposed to secure onto a section that had a rusted bolt. The trailer idea wasn't going to work. Instead, I had to rent a 10ft Uhaul truck and tow my SUV on a trailer. After stuffing the truck and my car, I still had to leave some stuff behind. Crazy what you can accumulate after living in the same place for a while. My wife and I vowed to lighten up our belongings. That week was pure nuts.

We still aren't completely unpacked. Our bedroom is still in shambles. The three car garage is stuffed with boxes and you can barely move through it. Sad sad sad.

Anyhow, I'm taking a break on Wednesday to go fishing. It will either be the Deschuttes or the Clackamas. The D has been slow from all accounts I've been hearing. But it may be picking up. I've driven up the Clackamas, but have yet to fish it. It will be a last minute decision. Whatever the case, I'll have a report later this week.

BTW, it feels great to be here. After more than a year of planning, we are here and living in our new digs. Surrounded by incredible steelhead rivers. Exciting times lie ahead!