A Great Fishing Trip

I've been a little bummed out lately about my lack of outdoor recreational activity. I had planned a big backpacking trip for this last weekend -- a 22-mile trek through the heart of the Three Sisters Wilderness -- but a bad knee forced me to cancel those plans. Then last week, my cousin Peter called me to see if I wanted to join him and a couple of his friends for a weekend of fishing on the Deschutes River.

I accepted his invitation, and I am really glad I did, because it was a great trip.

We arrived at the riverfront rental house on Friday afternoon. Peter was accompanied by two of his friend, Rich and Charlie. Not much happened on Friday evening fishing-wise. Peter hooked a fish or two in the stretch of water right in front of the house, and I hooked one on a dry fly but it broke my tippet.

The real action commenced on Saturday morning. Fly fishing started out a little slow, so Peter broke out his spinning gear and started casting a chrome spinner with a green body. In no time, he landed the trout pictured above.

Peter caught another nice rainbow a few minutes later, so I abandoned my fly rod and switched over to spinning gear. I put on silver spinner with a splash of green on the blade, and walked upstream from where Peter was throwing his spinner. After a few casts, I hooked into what felt like a sizable fish. The rainbow made a couple of nice runs before I was able to get it to the shore. Charlie snapped a picture of the fish (below) and then I released him. [Although anglers fishing this section of the Deschutes are allowed to keep two trout per day, these fish must be between 10 inches and 13 inches in length.]

Fishing pretty much shut down for us when the sun hit the water, so we took a break and hit it again about 4:00. Peter and I walked downstream to a stretch of river featuring a big eddy, and although both of us hooked fish in that hole at around dusk, only Peter was able to bring one to the shore.

Peter hooked several trout while flyfishing there. I lost one on a spinner, and hooked one flyfishing a Wooly Bugger pattern. That last fish ended up breaking my three-pound test, so I decided right there to begin using a four-pound tippet. Rich got into the fish as well that evening, catching several rainbow out of a hole upstream from where Peter and I were fishing.

We had to be out of the rental house at noon on Sunday, so we hit it pretty hard on Sunday morning, starting before sunrise at the stretch of water out in front of the house. Peter struck first by landing a small whitefish on a spinner followed by a nice rainbow. I caught a 13-inch trout on a spinner soon thereafter, then lost another one that hit my lure about 10 feet in front of where I was wading.

A short while later, Rich hooked a nice rainbow while flyfishing a Wooly Bugger. The fish broke Rich's leader, but continued to leap into the air several times in an attempt to throw a hook that was no longer connected to Rich's line. It was quite a sight. Rich re-rigged, then hooked into another good fish. The picture below is of Rich playing this rainbow, which he ultimately landed and released.

Once we finished thrashing the stretch of water in front of the house, we moved down the river. Peter and I hit the big eddy hole, and I caught a 12-inch trout fly-fishing a wooly bugger. About a half hour later, I switch to a spinner and landed a 13-inch rainbow.

We continued to work our way downstream. Peter and Rich headed down this steep embankment to reach some promising looking water. I didn't want to walk down -- actually, what I really didn't want to do is walk back up it -- so I proceeded down the trail in search of a more easily accessible stretch of river.

I came upon what appeared to be the greatest piece of trout water I had ever seen. There was a big current on the opposite side of the river, but on my side the speed of the current was substantially slower and the water was fairly deep. Moreover, the water became very fishable right under an overhanging tree (i.e., lots of food for fish). And if that wasn't enough, a small creek entered the river right under the tree overhang (bringing in even more food for fish). In other words, if there is trout fishing in Heaven, all of the fishing holes there would essentially be set up like this one.

I started at the top of the hole with the idea of slowly approaching the part featuring the overhanging tree and the creek. I missed a few strikes on my fly as I worked my way down. Then, the handle broke off of my fly reel, and I had no choice but to switch to spinning gear.

On my first spinner pass under the overhang, I briefly hooked what felt like a sizeable fish. He stripped some line off my reel, then threw the spinner. Two casts later, I got a huge strike right in front of where the creek came in. A larger sized trout flew out of the water, and did a couple more jumps thereafter. This was all a bit troubling to me because the fish was catching some pretty good air, and on two of the jumps, my line actually went up into the overhanging branches. Fortunately, I didn't get hung up in them, and I ended up landing my largest fish of the trip.

I knew that no one would believe my fish tale unless I took a picture of this trout, so as I was fighting it, I pulled out the digital camera and shot the photo below. BeLIEve me, it took great concentration as well as all of my angling prowess to photograph this fish as I was fighting it.

That was pretty much it for me as far as fishing. After clearing out of the rental, Peter, Rich, and Charlie headed up river and caught several more fish before heading back home.

Anyway, it was a fun trip. The fishing was great, as was the food and the company. And, as you can see from the photos, we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Thanks again, Peter, for inviting me along. I look forward to our next trip.


CORRECTION: Due to inadvertence, the last picture posted above was not from the Deschutes River trip. Below is the picture I meant to post. I regret the error ;)