Caddis Fly guide Jeff Carr found some gorgeous winter steelhead this weekend on the North Umpqua. The river is running a bit high but still fishable. Jeff was swinging articulated leaches on this Sage 13′ #7 z-axis spey rod. His line choice was a Skagit 450 spey line with a 15′ type 8 sink tip. Prognosis for the North Umpqua is great, water is dropping and fish numbers are going up.
Waters around the Eugene area as well as many coastal streams are dropping fast. Upcoming weather forecasts suggest we are for a good spring trend, not enough precip to blow things up again. This week should bring stronger March Brown hatches, a final push for winter steelhead on the coast and a pleasant beginning to our early spring fishing season. I look for the Mckenzie to be very fishable by Wednesday, maybe sooner. March Browns, Blue Winged Olives, Winter Stones, and assorted early caddis species should be emerging. Fish will be eager and this years pattern is one that we’ve seen before. Fishing will be very good. Here are a couple of shots of early season fish on dries this season, just before the water went out late this last week. Best patterns have been March Brown Spun Dun and March Brown Sparke Duns.
This CDC March Brown Emerger is great for catching picky trout. In this video, Chris Daughters of the Caddis Fly demonstrates how to tie this wet fly which is a killer on the McKenzie River.
Also, check out our updated library of fly tying videos — we’ve added high-res photos of the finished flies and fly pattern recipes.
March Brown CDC Emerger
Thread: Brown or Tan Uni 6/0
Hook: TMC 3761 #12,14
Tail: 3-5 Pheasant Tail Fibers
Body: Natural Possum
Hackle/Legs: Grey or Brown Partridge
Wing: One Med Brown and one light tan CDC feather
The rain we needed to blow up the coastal rivers and bring the next and probably last really big push of native steelhead into the rivers arrived. Unfortunately, it came a little late in the week and Saturday is totally shot for steelheading pretty much statewide. Sunday is looking a little better and the Alsea should have stabilized at a fishable level-the coloration remains to be seen. The Siuslaw is also supposed to crest Saturday but at 8.8 feet it won’t be conducive to fly angling. The Siletz will also remain too high for consistently good fishing at about 7 feet on Sunday.
The trout angling forecast is similarly grim. The Mckenzie is running a little too high and the lower Willamette is in the trees. The Middle Fork Willamette will be out. The water right beneath the dam from Salt Creek to Hills Creek dam should be in shape though. Don’t count on central Oregon spring creeks to bail you out either. A massive snowfall is forecast for the Cascades and trying to access the Metolius is a fool’s errand.
If you have an itch that you just have to scratch, your best drift boat bet bet is to fish a stretch of the Mckenzie that doesn’t have canal water in it. Hendricks to Bellinger comes to mind or Deerhorn to Hendricks. Taylor Landing (the old and now improved Mudhole off Deerhorn Road at mp 5) to Henricks is available for a shorter drift and is a good option as there is a fair amount of good water on that side of Goat Island. For shore anglers, your best option is to fish in the vicinity of Hills Creek Dam above Salt Creek. Yesterday, a good hatch of Blue Wing Olives came off and the fish were rising to them.
There was a great article by former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber in the Oregonian last week, calling for more protection on the Rogue River.
While the lower Rogue has a narrow strip of protection along the river’s edge, it is critical that we take a watershed approach and protect the important tributary streams and uplands of the Rogue. For that reason many conservationists, boaters, anglers and businesses have joined forces to strengthen protections for the lower Rogue.
Kitzhaber called on Peter Defazio, Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith to expand protections for the fishery. We have also called on representatives to do so — see our recent Rogue River op-ed in the Register Guard . For more info, check out SaveTheWildRogue.org.
Our own Karl “One Mule Team” Mueller is taking on the whole damn Bonneville Power Administration on his personal blog. In the final installment of his series on removing the Lower Snake River Dams, The Mule gets into a monster debate with The VP of National Relations for the BPA. There are already 10 comments — and things are about to get really interesting, since I just submitted the story to Oregon Reddit.
The Mule is a big boy and can hold his own, but I’m calling in the cavalry. Get in there and help him out. And check out Save Our Wild Salmon for more info.
On Saturday March 29th, 9am-4pm, the Cascade Family Fly Fishers and McKenzie Fly Fishers will host the Eugene, Oregon Fly Fishing Festival. It will take place at the Amazon Community Center, 2700 Hilyard Street, Eugene. Experts will demonstrate fly casting, fly tying, insect identification, knots and leaders and more.
According to the McKenzie Fly Fishers, this event is a continuation of the fly fishing fair from the 1980’s and 90’s. That event was eclipsed by the Oregon Council FFF’s Fly Tying Expo held annually in Eugene. The Expo grew as large as the Lane County Fair Ground would allow. Last year, the Expo was moved to Albany and a larger venue. Check out our coverage of day one and two of the Northwest Fly Tyer expo from 2008.
Also, check out our new Oregon Fly Fishing events calendar. Send us your club’s Oregon fly fishing events to have them posted.
Lots of March Browns on the lower McKenzie yesterday, big bugs — size 12 helicopters flying all over the river. We picked up some fish in likely spots — soft water, inside turns on riffles. We used 2-fly rigs — one possie bugger and a March Brown soft hackle.
Regular partridge and brown softhackles would work, but Chris has a couple of secret patterns for March Brown emergers — you’ll have to hound him to give them up.
We drifted Hayden Bridge to Armitage Park. Rising McKenzie River water levels and cold temps left the fish sluggish, but we did land a handful of cutthroats and rainbows.
Two days ago, I pulled three cutthroats off of the island below Armitage, wading. They were in shallow frogwater and they hit March Brown Sparkle Duns on top. But if you plan to wade downstream from Armitage, expect crowds. I have been there around 3pm and had to fish with 3 other people every time I’ve been there.
Today, the Siuslaw is at an excellent level for fly fishing. The river is at 5.11 and holding fairly steady. While this is a little low for the Whitaker Creek area, that level does present good wading opportunities and also allows your fly to easily get in the strike zone. A level like that also eases pressure a little—plus, the armada should be thinning out, you’ll catch as many wild as hatchery fish right now and the bright ones are fewer and farther between. They are still there to be caught though.
There is enough water to drift from Whitaker Creek to Wildcat and there are fish in that run. I’ve also found that at this level the fishing can be very good from a driftboat between Wildcat and Linslaw. The river is forecast to drop slowly until Thursday afternoon when it should rise sharply.
Good fishing can be had until it does and then again when it stabilizes and clears.
NYMPHS-
Prince Nymph, March Brown Nymph, Hogan’s Clinger March, Black Mini Stone, Kaufman’s Black Stone, March Brown Trigger Nymph.
WET FLIES-
March Brown Wet, March Brown Soft Spider, March Brown Hare’s Ear Emerger, Birds Nest Hare’s Ear.
DRY FLIES-
Parachute Adams, Spun Dun, March Brown Parachute, Western March Brown, Parachute BWO, Cripple March Brown, Extended Body March Brown.
A recent application by Chetco River Mining & Explorations, LLC proposes to mine for gold between river miles 14 and 38 on the Chetco River in southern Oregon including sites within the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and Federal Wild and Scenic designated portions of the Chetco River. The Chetco and its substrate is critical habitat for the Southern Oregon/ Northern California Coho ESU.
Coho are present only in small numbers in the watershed and their fry and yearling are particularly vulnerable to manmade disturbances in watersheds. The reason for this is that while the majority of Oregon fall chinook migrate almost immediately upon yolk absorption to estuary habitats, coho remain in freshwater for approximately 18 months before heading to sea. This is one reason why Oregon coho are in so much trouble while chinook persist in relative abundance.
The company plans to use an 8” suction dredge to temporarily remove up to 177 cubic meters of gravel from the Chetco annually passing it through a sluice and back into the river. The mining is proposed at nine existing placer gold mine claims. Because the claims were in existence in 1983, mining activities are permitted to continue even within the Wilderness and Wild and Scenic areas.
In addition to impacting threatened coho, the proposal will also impact spawning habitat for fall chinook and winter steelhead.
With the price of gold on the rise, we are likely to see more attempts such as this one on rivers throughout the state, particularly in southern Oregon.
We lucked into a dropping river with moving fish. Add in some decent weather and you have great timing in the winter steelhead game. If only all the days could be as good.
This weeks rain should bring another burst of fish and another chance to have some winter steelhead success.
Late last week the N. Umpqua dropped into great shape and the fishing picked up. Wednesday-Saturday yielding results for many of the anglers on the river. Late Saturday the river starting rising back up, cold water from low elevation snow melt making it difficult to get the fish to move to a fly. In addition higher water made the already difficult N. Umpqua even more difficult to wade. The Umpqua is never a great place to take a swim in your waders, add super cold high water to the equation and it becomes dangerous. There are plenty of fish in the system and they are still moving up river. Watch the levels, when the Umpqua starts to heading back down it will be time to go.
Nymphing on the Middle Fork of the Willamette continues to produce best results. The water has been a bit off color due to the silt coming out of Salt Creek, but has remained at a very fishable level. The Mega Prince Nymph with it’s white biot wings, copper bead, and root beer rubber legs tends to show up well in the Middle Fork. Fish it deep with a Possie Bugger or Copper John off of a “Thingamabobber” strike indicator for best results. Surface activity has been limited, Winter Stones, Blue Winged Olives and very few March Browns have been around. None of them bringing the fish up with much consistency. Just as the McKenzie the Middle Fork will needs to warm a bit for things to really get going.
Despite some excellent “March Brown” weather, large hatches have yet to materialize on the McKenzie. Water temperatures need to rise, and seem to be, ever so slightly day by day. It would appear we will be having the bulk of the intense March Brown activity in April. Fishing remains decent nonetheless, best results coming from soft hackles, stonefly nymphs and prince nymphs. Best results are during the mid day, 11am to 4pm.
Good Luck,
Chris
