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.
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