Deschutes/Trout Creek report (pics)

[greenheadgunner]

Anglers:

I'm no pro fly fisherman, but I have 4 years experience. It seems that not many people in this forum give full reports on their fishing trips. Thats OK. For me, I like to read in depth reports with photos, even if no fish were caught.
Having said that, I don't claim to know a ton about fly fishing, but I'm learning, and here is what I learned this weekend.

This was my second trip to Trout Creek. We arrived at the campground on Friday at about 10:30pm. With four campsites left we snagged the closest one to the river, right under a juniper tree.

Dad and I started fishing at 6am on Saturday morning right there next to the camp. As we walked along the bank there were hundreds if not thousands of tan caddis in the bushes. "Gonna be a great day," I thought. Logically, I tied on a size 14 Elk Hair Caddis and tossed it under some overhanging branches. BAM! Hard strike, but he missed. That was the only dry fly action all morning.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/Deschutes_River_4.jpg

So I nymphed with a red Serendipity trailing a Prince Nymph and quickly got some action. When my indicator shot under the water I set the hook, and the fish felt very heavy. He ran my line out about 3 times amidst my yips and hollers. I thought I had a huge redside on until he surfaced...a 19" whitefish (montana handshake).

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/Deschutes_3.jpg

Nymphed all day with no success, fished all the way upriver to the next campground (big bend to the left). I saw several 16-18" redsides along the bank in 4 feet of water, some of which had white spawning marks. I caught a few dinks on a Royal Wulff midday. Not much surface activity.

So I napped from 3-6 during the heat of the day (90s), thinking there would be a great evening caddis hatch. Caddis were all over the place, but they weren't hatching, just hanging around to lay eggs or drink.

About 9pm I finally landed a very healthy, very fat redside, about 14-15 inches, on a Goddard Caddis. Sorry folks, no photo.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/Deschutes_2.jpg

Then, this morning I caught one more redside on the same fly, this one about 12 inches.

Now for my question to all you fish identifiers. Dad caught this fish on a Golden Stone, and we don't know what it is. It looks like a hybrid of walleye, whitefish, and trout. It doesn't have the small mouth of a whitefish, it has a big mouth with lips like a walleye. A dorsal fin like a brown trout. What is it?

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/Deschutes_1.jpg

All in all it was a great weekend. Hoppers were out although not in huge numbers. Various mayflies were out although nothing was as numerous as the caddis. No mosquitos. Lots of ants and beetles out too (as always).

Ok, here's one more pic from a couple of weeks ago...me with a brookie on the Fall River.

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/Fall_River.jpg

[PittsburghD]

Woah. I just posted and wham. Thank for the update. May be a nypmh day after all. I'll show for the 8:00 am party and let the dog wear himself out chasing varmits. Then, some hatch and some box roulette on the fly of the day. Who knows. Thanks for all your insight and pics. I wish I had a photographer following me around making me look like a movie star fly fisher! Lookin' good brah! I'm taking waders, but Dad was darn near his birthday suit, Wassup? Personal preference or girly man? Your input while I'm prepping tonight is invaulable.

Thanks,

--D
(Keeping the dream alive for 2006)

[scoutfish]

My hats off to you Gunner,very nice report!!

As for the fish,never seen one of them... :hoboy: :smash: :smash:

My two cents.

Arnie

[greenheadgunner]

Pittsburgh: Yeah I wore those waders in the morning. If I were you I'd only wear neoprenes the first two hours of light (5-7am), but its not a must. Morning wasn't even that cold. It got hot as soon as the sunlight hit the canyon.

If you have regular (non-neoprene) I'd wear them. Just make sure you have FELT SOLES on your feet, I sure wish I did. Would have saved me one hek of an embarrasing fall! :laugh:

Dad always was a streaker :jester:, but I think those are just swimtrunks.

[PittsburghD]

Nice. I have waders and will pack them. But if it's hot after 8:00 which is when I'll arrive, I drape them o'er my shoulder and do the shorts thing unless I freeze. Neos-- that's for November steelhead (unless of course there are a couple of well-placed holes around the crotch!) I going at it hard tomorrow and will let you know...

--D

[PittsburghD]

P.S. on the shot from the Fall river, what's up with the Salmon net? I've been there and never hit one quite that big!

[wayout]

Your mystery fish: Hard to see it well. Any chance it was a Northern Pikeminnow a.k.a. squawfish?

[greenheadgunner]

I just looked in the fish field guide. The mystery fish appears to be a Sacramento Squawfish.

[Super Fluke]

Nice pics

[troutski]

Nice post, the pictures do punch up story.

[3riversBob]

Good job! Love the report and the pics. I need to be more active with my camera but after dropping my last one in the Holy Water on the Rogue I'm kinda scared to take it out of my pocket. Wife would KILL me if I drop another one in. :bricks:

Keep these kinds of reports coming. :applause:

Bob

[cphatts]

Great report...glad to hear you got into some fish!

Be very careful fishing (and especially wading) in that riffle as it is a prime spawning area for redsides. I think by this time of year you are probably fine, but from April-June I would let it be. I'm not trying to nitpick, just let people know to always be on the lookout for redds, especially in spring.

Glad to hear you had a great time and thanks for the report!

[raptorschild]

That is definately a Northern Pikeminnow; AKA Squafish. There is a bounty on there head in the Columbia River system at 4$ per fish. Those fish are somewhat responsible for declines in trout, steelhead, and Salmon numbers. I bonk em every time i catch one.

[Azeal]

Does sound like a squafish/pike minnow. Looks like you had a fantastic trip!

**Put's on native fish guy hat**

Squawfish, salmon, trout, whitefish, and steelhead have managed to coexist just fine for as long as there have been rivers in Oregon. All are native fish.

The dams on the Columbia have created an unnatural situation where juvenile salmon get shot out of bypass structures (or shot through turbines) and come out disoriented (or half dead) into slack water, making them easy meals for squawfish. I don't think the bounty program does much but create some good PR for the BPA (we've had it for 20 years now, and no dent has been made in the population). The real problem isn't a fish that is native to Oregon, it is the giant concrete dam we plunked down in the middle of the river.

Squawfish are not a problem on the Deschutes, any more than whitefish are. We anglers may not like to catch them, but they belong just as much as redsides.

[AndyK]

The real problem isn't a fish that is native to Oregon, it is the giant concrete dam we plunked down in the middle of the river.



I don't think the damns are going to be breached, at least not in our lifetimes. So just keep bonking the squawfish.

[Azeal]

Dams likely are not going anywhere. But neither are the squawfish. At least not in the Columbia.

But bonking them (or any native fish) in the Deschutes is not a good thing. The law of unintended consequences. People still bonk whitefish thinking they are doing the trout a favor. Of course, little do they know that whitefish eggs are among the most important winter food sources that Deschutes trout have.

[AndyK]

I don't bonk whitefish; I don't even bonk suckers. But think of all the native salmon and trout that get eaten by the squawfish. Every time I bonk a squawfish, there are many additional native salmon and trout that will survive.

[MarlinMark]

You can't tell me that bonking a whitefish and bonking a squawfish is the same thing. I don't spare any squawfish. I knife and release with extreme prejudice. :smile:

Mark

[24 on/ 48 off]

It is stil illegal, and we don't condone that.

--spud--:)

[Azeal]

In the Deschutes it helps about salmon and trout about as much bonking a bull trout, or shooting a heron or an osprey. The river will get along just fine without bonking any native species.

[MarlinMark]

So squawfish are native to the Deschutes? That would be news to me. I'm all ears. Really, I would love to see the documentation on it.

Mark

[Azeal]

Here you go (warning, it is a big file):

http://www.nwcouncil.org/fw/subbasinplan...l%20Species.pdf (http://www.nwcouncil.org/fw/subbasinplanning/deschutes/plan/Appendix%20I%20-%20Fish%20Focal%20Species.pdf)

Pages 2&3 have a listing of all the native and introduced fish in the Deschutes Basin. Look down near the bottom on page 3.

[Slow and Low]

settles that.

the squawfish are not the problem. I catch them all the time on the D. Most of the time swinging the same stuff I catch steelhead and trout on. what does that tell you?

[LQQKASTAR]

I am pretty sure it was a Tuna!

great pictures, and a full truthfull report. hats off to you Buddy! :clap:

[Navigator]

Nice report!

Pretty much describes a typical weekend on the Deschutes by most run of the mill fly-fisherfolk. Nice job on the evening redside - quality fish fur sure! One in a day is one more than none.