Matt Siegmund sent us a photo of this pig caught on the Middle Fork of the Willamette this past Sunday afternoon. The fish was taken on a Fergus BW Bug size #16. The Middle Fork is in great shape, mid day hatches of Blue Winged Olives, a few PMD’s, small dark caddis and October Caddis have been present. Fall fishing is on fire get out and enjoy.-CD
I’ll admit it. I’m an Oregon partisan but I believe that Oregon offers the best year round fishing of any state in the United States. Vacation isn’t even an option because as the plane lifts off and I see what I’m leaving behind, depression sets in. The fact is that there isn’t a month of the year that somewhere in the state of Oregon you can’t catch a sea run salmonid on a fly. Throw in the year round trout fishing, warmwater opportunities and ocean fishing and you have yourself one seriously underrated fishing destination. Now, I’m not saying that we have the best fishing for any particular species but nowhere beats the combination of high quality fishing, species diversity, spectacular scenery and year round angling opportunities.
January: There is good fishing to be had. I’ve caught plenty of trout on nymphs over the years in January in Cascade Mountain rivers, central Oregon rivers and coastal rivers. More importantly, the winter steelhead run is really beginning to hit its stride on the rivers that drain the west slope of the Coast Range. Sea-run cutthroat are often encountered and incidentally hooked while fishing for steelhead. Finally, there are a couple of rivers that with luck can yield up a late run fall/winter chinook while steelheading.
February: The steelhead run is in full force on the coast. Every one of the couple or so dozen great rivers on the Oregon coast offers good to excellent fishing for steelhead. Here, Matt plays a fly hooked winter steelhead that he landed last February, one of many on that trip:
The trout fishing can also be quite good. This nice rainbow ate a Stonefly nymph in mid-February in a Cascade Mountains river:
March: The biggest, baddest and meanest winter steelhead of the season enter our coastal rivers and fishing for these monsters can be off the charts. This fish ate a deeply drifted weighted egg pattern:
Also in March, the Mckenzie and Middle Fork Willamette rivers really start to heat up. Prolific hatches of March Brown mayflies get the fish looking up and their nymphs and wet flies also do damage. Additionally, the trout scarf stonefly nymph patterns with abandon. This fish couldn’t resist a sparkle dun:
Incidentally, summer steelhead begin to show in the Mckenzie and Willamette Rivers in March.
April: Here’s a picture from last April, enough said:
May: Trout fishing continues to be excellent. Good catches are made on stonefly nymphs, the March Brown hatch is normally tapering off but typically the Mckenzie River Green Caddis shows and drives the trout absolutely insane. Big trout gobble naturals and imitations with abandon. Check out this bruiser:
Also, there is a good shot of hooking a summer steelhead in Oregon rivers in May:
If weather patterns are favorable you can even catch a spring chinook on a fly in a couple of coastal rivers.
June: Stoneflies and Salmonflies. Salmonflies on the Deschutes. Salmonflies everywhere. Trout love ’em. Besides stoneflies and salmonflies, by this time, mayflies and caddis are hatching prolifically and trout fishing is excellent. Summer steelhead are running thick in the Willamette and Mckenzie and they and spring chinook are really starting to show in big numbers in rivers such as the Wilson, Trask and Siletz as well.
Trout fishing is off the charts:
July: Fly fishing for trout remains excellent. This picture from July is of the strain of rainbow indigenous to the Mckenzie River known locally as redsides:
August: The dog days of summer still offer up good fishing. Trout remain active in the morning and evening hours. Summer steelhead are present in good numbers and remain vulnerable to a well presented fly. Sea run cutthroat begin to show in coastal estuaries, are relatively easy to catch and averaging 14″-20″ are excellent sport on a fly rod:
Fall chinook and coho also begin to move in and out of our estuaries.
September: The October Caddis are out in force and big trout go absolutely insane:
Cooling river temperatures and spawning spring chinook salmon have summer steelhead feeling frisky. A couple of nearby rivers have excellent runs of coho that are not averse to eating flies.
Did somebody say Tuna? On a fly? Sure enough:
October: After the first big rain event, Fall chinook are literally begging for a well presented egg pattern–make it chartreuse and fish it deep. Trout are eating October caddis and coho will chase down and devour clouser or comet type patterns amongst others:
November: Fishing remains excellent for fall chinook. Several south coast river chinook runs are peaking:
Trout fishing tapers off somewhat. The first big rain around Thanksgiving brings the first push of early winter steelhead into a couple of smaller coastal rivers.
December: Steelhead runs are beginning to pick up and fish are in many rivers in catchable numbers. South coast rivers remain a good bet for chinook.
January: Do it all over again. Sweet!
I haven’t even touched on the smallmouth bass fisheries on the Umpqua, John Day and Grande Ronde or the year round bass fisheries on Oregon’s coastal lakes:
No mention has been made of fly fishing near the jetties or nearshore for lingcod and rockfish and greenling:
If striper are your thing we have those too. Walleye? Yep. Brown trout? Kokanee? Lake trout? Landlocked Atlantic Salmon? Bull trout? Perch? Bluegill? Shad? We’ve got it all. I didn’t come close to listing all the fishing opportunities in Oregon. Basically, Oregon offers an embarrassment of fishing riches.
Situated at the confluence of the Mckenzie and Willamette rivers an hour from the coast and an hour from the Cascade crest, Eugene, Oregon is poised to show you the best year round fishing the United States has to offer.–KM
Jim Van Loan, proprietor of the Steamboat Inn on the North Umpqua likes his steelhead wild and wary, not brainless bruisers dispensed from an ODFW fillet factory.
Van Loan has been arguing at ODFW hearings, championing habitat over hatcheries and fighting for no-kill on wild steelhead. He served as a wildlife commissioner from 1987 to 1995 and has been involved with the Oregon Salmon and Trout Enhancement Program (STEP).
Van Loan adheres to the Lichatowich principle, summarized below:
For the past 150 years, fisheries managers have used hatchery production in an effort to replaced spawning and rearing habitat for wild salmonids. Rivers became simple conduits to the sea for juvenile salmon produced in fish factories. This led to the belief that habitat could be traded for hatcheries. It minimized the importance of wild salmon populations and allowed a century of habitat degradation. Trading salmon habitat for fish factories might have been justified if it had worked, if artificial propagation had maintained the supply of salmon. It didn’t. Salmon and steelhead are extinct in over 40% of their historical range and salmon in most of the rest of their range in the Pacific Northwest are protected under the Endangered Species Act. A management system based on hatcheries is difficult to change, even after it is clear that it cannot maintain the supply of salmon and that it makes the problems worse.
— James Lichatowich, from the Introduction to Salmon Without Rivers
Below is an excerpt of a recent conversation with Van Loan.
Tell me about the conservation ethic on the North Umpqua:
Jim Van Loan: If you hang out around here and you’re going to meet a lot of conservationists, people that put their money where their mouth is — not cocktail conservationists. What I hope to see is someway to get everybody into the same tent so that 100 years from now you can go out and fish for steelhead and have a chance at catching one.
We need timber industry, agriculture, and everybody else on the same page. You talk to the local folks in the timber industry — they think they’ve been regulated to death. Agriculture people are suspicious of anything that has to do with government. But a lot of them belong to the 1000 friends of Oregon, because they don’t want to see their land cut up into subdivisions any more than anyone else.
There’s a strong perception around this state that the people in Portland are out to get them. I think the people in Portland are just oblivious to the problems that rural people have. They come down here for one week a year and they want to see this river stay the way it is. They join the Steamboaters, Oregon Trout, and The North Umpqua Foundation. They do most of their work with a fountain pen. The local people are the ones who are out keeping an eye on things, trying to cooperate with agencies that want to cooperate.
What’s the biggest problem facing our native fish stocks?
It’s that tired old hackneyed phrase, death from a thousand cuts. People want to live on the river. We have 100,000 people who live in Douglas County, virtually every one of them lives on or near running water. The biggest problem that we have is places where the sewage isn’t treated. It’s not an attractive topic, literally thousands of septic tanks leaching into the river.
Soon after we bought this place, I discovered that I was the proud owner of an inoperative septic sank. I started to look into what we could do other than go bankrupt. Orenco Systems Inc. built a system that pumps effluent up the mountain, 400 vertical feet, ¼ mile away. For a while it was the 8th wonder of the world. If you Google me, that’s what you’ll find I’m famous for. Because ODOT and the Forest Service cooperated in removing an outdated wastewater treatment plant we have a similar system in place across the river from The Inn. We don’t have volatile chemicals or heavy metals going into the North Umpqua anymore.
Why is it so important to protect wild steelhead on the North Umpqua?
The healthiest stocks of fish we have in the North Umpqua are the wild winter steelhead. That’s why we have to fight the argument to kill wild winter steelhead — because some folks think we can always supplement with hatchery fish. A guide is at the mercy of his clients. Two clients, two fish each, pretty soon you’ve got an awful lot of take on wild fish.
The regulation has been saved –we’ll now have a five year no kill model to look at in four years — the result of lobbying by guides and the conservation community to retain the no kill rule in Forest Grove on the 19th of September.
Hatchery programs degrade the wild stocks and are incredibly expensive. If that same money could be put into habitat it’d be a wonder. We think if they just don’t kill wild winter steelhead, we’d all have more fish.
What are some other steps we could take?
ODFW depends on fish counts at Winchester dam and they do creel census every once in a while, but I don’t think it’s a very effective method. I’d like to see every guide keeps a log book — all steelhead tags will be turned in and failure to turn in results in a failure to purchase a license next year. A lot of people are out just one or two days, pay 12 dollars and their catch is not recorded. This should be corrected.
I’d also like to see all hatchery-reared salmonids marked, by clipping the adipose fin. Some people involved with the STEP program are opposed to that. They cite mortality as a reason. Mortality is somewhere around 3-4% for fin clipping, but I can’t think of a responsible reason not to mark all reared fish.
What is the distribution of hatchery fish on the Umpqua system now?
The STEP program largely releases fish on the South Umpqua. The Steamboaters have made it clear they don’t want hatchery fish released above Rock Creek. That makes the fishing as challenging as it’s ever been. When we first came here in 1975, there was a return of 22,000 summer steelhead and of those, about 20,000 were hatchery fish. Anybody could go out here and catch a fish. It’s a lot more difficult now.
You go up and visit Lee Spencer who keeps track of every fish in the pool. He sees usually two or three fin clipped steelhead in the pool at most. So for whatever reason, hatchery fish reared at Rock Creek and below tend not to come up here. We hope we have a pretty pure gene pool in Steamboat and Canton Creek. But I think there are a lot of fish that spawn in the Mainstem Umpqua and we don’t have much information about them.
What are some of the projects that the North Umpqua Foundation has been working on?
The North Umpqua Foundation is working on trying to implement some of Lickatowitch’s ideas, gearing up to hire some specialists who will study the problems we’re facing.
We also give grants to the Forest Service, which may seem strange, but the USFS doesn’t have the money to spend rehabilitating steelhead streams. Some of our members say the government was responsible for selling the timber, letting it go to hell, but that isn’t going to happen. Blame won’t get us anywhere.
One other thing the North Umpqua foundation has done is raise funds for a camera system throughout this area. The system is widely dispersed throughout the Umpqua watershed and can be running almost anywhere. For example, one camera is focused on the fish ladder or the pool, another is focusing on a likely spot a car would be parked. The cameras work as a very effective deterrent.
Where do you fish other than the North Umpqua?
I’ve been able to fish Argentina, Chile, Iceland, Russia, Belize, Christmas Island, Mexico, Honduras and a few other places. I have a forgiving spouse.
I’ve fished the Sustut River in British Columbia for 22 years. The river looks a lot like the North Umpqua. It’s got great geology and probably the biggest steelhead in the world, they average 15 lbs. The year before last, nine of us landed 132 fish. Last year, nine of us landed seven fish. The glaciers can melt, the rivers turn muddy — it’s a crap shoot. This Fall we did a quite bit better.
Perfect water, warm overcast and tons of bugs. Sometimes you have those days when things are on fire all day long. I had one of those days with an excellent angler in the front of the boat. What ensued was ridiculous at times.
October Caddis were the trick. The Possie Bugger did it’s usual damage. Smaller caddis were also working well. There were very few mayflies.
With overcast and rainy weather in the forecast look for Gray Drakes, Mahogany Duns and Blue Winged Olives to become more important. One thing to count on this time of year is the big October Caddis. Imitations include Orange Stimulators, Morish Foam October Caddis, CDC Mckenzie Cadids Orange and standard Orange Elk Hair Caddis will all work.-CD
Bass in Blue River Reservoir
According to ODFW, largemouth bass were introduced into Blue River Reservoir, illegally probably sometime in the mid to late 1990’s. ODFW has been observing large bass in the reservoir since 2004 and many have reached the 3-5 pound range. Largemouth bass are not well suited to live in the McKenzie or most of its backwaters, however, it is too early to tell what impact these fish will have on the system in the end. Although, they should not be as problematic as smallmouth that do seem to thrive better in streams and cooler waters, ODFW would prefer they were not there and that the trout community was more intact. The largemouth will likely alter many management options ODFW might have had for Blue River Reservoir (such as reintroduction of spring Chinook salmon).
Oregon Carp-Man endorses Sage VT2
John Montana, Oregon Carp on the fly guru says the 9 ft 6 inch 7 wt. Sage VT2 is the perfect rod for serious carping. “Simply put, it’s an ideal carp rod. The tip is fast enough that you can shorten your casting stroke and punch into the wind, or you can open it up a bit and feel the rod flex into the butt section. I generally prefer slower rods, and this is a really nice mix.”
Completely awesome: Drift fly fishing film
Pete at Fishing Jones somehow managed to review a new fly fishing DVD called Drift, from Confluence Films. Based on the trailer and Pete’s review, this is the most exciting fishing movie I’ve seen since Running Down The Man.
Muskie on the fly
Also via Fishing Jones, a review of the new Wild River Press book Muskie on the Fly. “Muskie on the Fly falls in line with other books from Wild River Press in that it is obsessive, compulsive, and encyclopedic in its depth of coverage. And that it is packaged as an expensive glossy hardcover. Reading this book will shorten your dues-paying casts from 10,000 down to about 8,000.”
Muskie excerpt on Midcurrent. My brother and I bought it this week, and it does not disappoint. There are some really great fly tying ideas, tactics for big streamer patterns that I plan to apply to my saltwater game.
Monster Black Rockfish on the Oregon Coast
Speaking of saltwater fly fishing, check this pig out: 7lb, 22-inch black rockfish off the Oregon Coast that my brother caught last Sunday.
Sea-run cutthroat, Steelhead hybrid in Puget Sound
From Buster Wants to Fish “Enter the steelhead/coastal cutt hybrid; big, fast and badasss. Sultan of the Sound, Czar of Sloughs, Scourge of Sculpins, Do Not Test the mighty steelthroatcutthead!” Photo evidence.
Bull Trout Segment on Oregon Field Guide:
Testing a feature of the OPB Website… click below for an online video segment on Bull Trout in Oregon.
Lamprey decline bodes poorly for salmon
From the Seattle PI: Once hundreds of thousands of lamprey, weighing many tons, supported commercial harvests at Willamette Falls near Oregon City. Bonneville Dam counts bounced around 400,000 in the 1960s, compared with the 14,000 counted this year. In a roundabout way, the lamprey’s decline may hold a high cost for salmon. Young salmon are thought to feed on juvenile lamprey, benefiting from the lamprey’s high fat content.
Oregon Senate Race could bring up breaching Snake River Dams
From Rocky Barker at the Idaho Statesman: “Incumbent Republican Gordon Smith has made protecting the four lower Snake dams on the Snake River in Washington a foundation of his own energy policy, following the roadmap of President George Bush in 2004 and Democrat Maria Cantwell in 2006. His Democratic challenger, Oregon Speaker of the House Jeff Merkley, has not endorsed dam breaching. But he has said the magic words that please salmon advocates, he’s keeping his options open.”
Fly fishing for wild rainbow trout on the Upper Willamette River has been excellent, despite the Kitson Fire southeast of Oakridge. As of yesterday, the fire stands at 1,000 acres and was 40% contained. It started Wednesday near Hills Creek Lake and is expected to be fully contained Friday. If you’re planning to make the trip it’s worth checking with the Middle Fork Ranger District to make sure the roads are accessible 541-782-2283.
The sky was pretty hazy and the water above the Hills Creek was cloudier than usual (maybe ashes?) but it didn’t slow down the fishing. There were a lot of hoppers around in the afternoon, October Caddis were all over the place in the evening. I fished a two fly rig with nymph droppers — prince nymphs size 12 worked for me.
A lot of the upper river is fast and shallow. Focus on deep drop-offs, eddies behind submerged boulders, etc.
The October Caddis, Limnephilidae Dicosmoecoes, adults hatch in late fall, anywhere from late September to November in the Pacific Northwest. These large, orange caddis flies are approximately three centimeters long and provide too large a meal for big trout to pass up.
Considered by many to be a Western ‘superhatch’, TroutNut.com says caddis fly aficionado Gary LaFontaine considers this the most important hatch to fly fishermen because the bugs are huge, the activity is concentrated into the course of a few weeks, and the hatch occurs in prime fly fishing river level conditions.
From the often quoted LaFontaine book Caddisflies:
The question for fly fishermen seeking big trout is: “Which insects provide the best opportunity for catching such fish?” My list would be: Giant Orange Sedge (Dicosmoecus sp.), Salmon Fly (Pteronarcys californica, a stonefly), and the Michigan Mayfly (Hexagenia limbata). Dicosmoecus is the most important — and the contest is not even close.
October caddis advice from Jim Schollmeyer’s Hatch Guide For Western Streams:
These large caddisflies are hard to miss when you see them flying through the air and touching down on the water. Emergence and ovipositing often occur at the same time and normally the caddisflies you see on or above open water are egg laying females. To imitate their movements, use a well hackled fly that will skitter around with a light twitch of the line. For the spent or motionless adults, a non-hackled low-profile fly works best.
When this bug is available fish do really get on it in a traditional dry fly manor. But the October Caddis is so active in it’s adult stage that fish have a hard time nabbing it out of the air with it’s erratic fly pattern. When the bug is dead, egg laying or knocked from the trees on a windy or rainy day it becomes more available. Fall evenings are your best opportunities to see good numbers of the October Caddis. On the Mckenzie and Willamette I have seen these bugs in good numbers through November.
Numerous patterns seem to bring fish to surface during the October Caddis, dark wings and orange bodies seem to be the trick in terms of fly recipes. Here are a few of our best October Caddis Patterns and fly tying videos:
Team FlyBoys has captured some awesome footage of wild steelhead in Northern British Columbia eating dead drifted green drakes. The guys in the shop have been watching this all week. It’s amazing to see these super-hot, chrome fish acting like trout. Ten fish landed in an hour on dry flies — now that’s fish porn.
Check out the new FlyBoys Blog for more info.
Saltwater fly fishing on the Oregon Coast has been really hot this week. My brother (new Caddis Fly employee Nate Stansberry) took us out in his Boston Whaler skiff on Coos Bay.
We hooked up with dozens of groundfish, including black rockfish, blue rockfish and kelp greenling.
We fished rocky drop-offs in around 40 feet of water with sinking tips and shooting head lines. Chris fished a tungsten shooting head, using various clouser minnow patterns. I used a type six shooting head and it worked as well. Most of the fish were on or near the bottom, but as the tide started to change, many of them moved up into the water column and actively fed in the 10-14-foot depth.
Somehow, I managed to be high-hook on starfish. -MS
The Morrish October Caddis pattern fishes best on the skate. It’s a killer dry fly pattern for this time of year on the McKenzie and upper Willamette Rivers. The foam body makes for great floatability.
Morrish October Caddis
Hook: Size 8 TMC 100
Thread: 6/0 Black Uni thread
Body: 2mm orange foam
Rib: Black thread
Wing: Stacked elk or deer hair
Nose: Tan 2mm foam
Hackle: Metz magnum dry fly saddle
The Fifth Annual Green Island Tree Planting is set for Saturday, October 25 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 10,000 Trees, 300 Volunteers, 1 Day! This project is part of a larger effort to restore Green Island from historic agricultural usage to dynamic natural floodplain habitat. Call McKenzie River Trust with questions or to register – 541-345-2799.
MRT Green Island Tree Planting – Saturday October 25th
When: October 25th from 9 AM to 1 PM, registration starts at 8:30 am
Where: Green Island, West of Coburg
FYI, check out our recently updated Fall Fly Fishing Events Calendar.
Summer has officially come and gone. The fly fishing industry has begun to introduce new product for the 2009 season. It’s time to slash prices on summer and fall goods. You will find some great deals at the shop including the following items:
–50% off selected in stock Patagonia, Ex Officio, and Simms Clothing
–one only Patagonia SST stretch Jacket size L was $350 now $235
–Simms Classic Guide Jacket was $299.95 now $249.95
–Patagonia Deep Wading Jacket was $195 now $149.95
–Redington CPS rods 10′ #7, 10′ # 8, 9′ # 10, and9′ #6, all four piece
–Sage Launch Rod outfits with Ross Reels Rio Lines
9′ # 5 2 piece outfits $275
9′ # 5 2 piece outfits $300
Long time friend, employee, and instructor for the shop, Tony Torrence landed the two monster fish pictured below this past weekend on the Middle Fork of the Willamette.
The Fish were taken on a size # 8 Mega Prince Nymph. The river is a bit but in a good way. Fishing has been very good. Hatches have been numerous, a variety of small caddis, October Caddis, Blue Winged Olives, and Gray Drakes have all been available to the healthy trout of the Middle Fork. Best fishing has been mid-day on, warmer afternoon evenings have seen the fishing hold up while a quick cool down around 6pm can shut things down a bit. Late September and October are excellent times to fish the Middle Fork both above and below Hills Creek dam.-CD
Last weekend I snuck a side-trip into my Oregon Coast honeymoon to chase the Rogue River’s record half-pounder steelhead run. I started at Gold Beach and worked my way up the river access points to Agness. Though some fish are still lower in the system, the majority are around Foster Bar.
These young steelhead spend one year in the Pacific ocean before returning to the Rogue. They’re highly acrobatic and lots of fun on a fly rod. I caught half-pounders on large Prince nymphs under an indicator, but they will also bite Copper Johns, stonefly nymphs, and more traditional Rogue steelhead patterns.
These fish are hard to get to, but there is fishable water above and below Foster Bar, and you can also access the Rogue River on via the wilderness trail on the north bank of the river. -MS
Oregon has limitless fly fishing fishing opportunities, and yet the bays and beaches of the Oregon Coast are often overlooked. New Caddis fly employee Nate Stansberry is all about exploring some of these saltwater possibilites. Nate has been fishing Stripers on the East Coast out of New York City for the past few years, literally taking the subway to fish productive water near the projects. Nate brought his Boston Whaler out and plans to check out some of Oregon’s coastal waterways. His report follows.
After chasing salmon, steelhead, and trout for the past couple weeks I finally got a chance to fish the saltwater in Coos Bay with the help of some advice and free time. The stable weather we have been having allowed me to explore the salt in my 14 foot Boston Whaler (pretty dicey with any kind of bad weather) for two days. I went with a fellow angler and friend Wild Bill and we were able to cash in on limits of black rock fish on the a fly. These fish were fairly easy to located on the depth finder and sinking heads with white and black streamers did the trick. We were fishing between 30-40 feet for most of the day with fish suspended as high as 10 feet. Even though we were fishing deep the fish were taking the fly stripped in and we caught fish with ease sometime doubles with a two fly rig. There was a lot of bait in the bay, but I’m not sure what we were seeing… small, silver, and sand eel like. Anyway these fish were just what I have been looking for and taste great in almost any recipe. I would recommend either 8-9 weight setups with fast sinking line or a shooting head of 300 grain plus. Saltwater streamers like a white or black clouser or a fly Bill had made with white marabou and a cone head worked great. Leaders should be shorter than usual because of the fast sinking line or shooting head and around 15-20 pound test. If you have an interest please stop into The Caddis Fly for more information. -NS
