Willamette valley trout trip

[Skunked]

I spent this past weekend searching for trout in some streams in the valley. Started fishing saturday afternoon, bugs were hatching and the fish were happy about it. Right away a big fish came completely out of the water as it took my elk hair caddis but when I set hook I came up empty, I would of guessed it at well over 20" but my adrenaline may have exaggerated it's size, in any case it was a VERY nice fish.
I was getting frustrated with the missed opportunity so I retreated from the main river to a nearby creek just a few feet wide that is usually good for a fish or two. I ducked under alders and casted from my knees into a small pool and pulled out a NICE 11" cutty. With my confidence restored I returned to the main river and nymphed up a few nice rainbows, then I went back to the dry elk hair caddis and after a few minutes my fly went down with a swirl and a tug of war ensued, after a few jumps and a lot of bulldogging a 15" rainbow was in my hand.
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/15inchbow.jpg
I got up early on sunday and started off nymph fishing some deep water and caught a mix of several cutthroat and rainbows including this 14 incher
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/14inchbow.jpg
Later in the afternoon the caddisflies started buzzing around again and the trout responded, I went to fishing dry flies and caught a few 10-12" fish right away but then things slowed down. I looked into my fly box and tried to guess which fly had some mojo in it, a new caddis pattern I designed caught my eye and on the first cast a big rainbow came a foot out of the water on the take! This time the hook stayed in and the fish proceeded to run downstream with my real singing! luckily the fish turned before it got to a set of rapids and eventually I landed a nice 17" fish.
http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/17inchbow.jpg
My fly was destroyed after one cast so I went back to fishing an EHC and found one more rainbow before heading home. Here's a quick video of the release-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yM04QhAdVQ

[sms]

Nice. That's a cool little vid.

[luv2catch]

$$$ trout.

Nice work.

[Twothirteen]

What a great video -- I was definitely not expecting the underwater footage. Congratulations on some of those fish too; looks like you had quite the time.

[jdeona]

I agree, the underwater footage looks great! What camera did you use?

[Skunked]

I agree, the underwater footage looks great! What camera did you use?

I used a canon SD 800IS with a waterproof case made by canon

[Don Fischer]

In high school a friend and I spent a lot of time wading the Little Luckiamute from the first bridge going toward Black Rock from Falls City then from Falls City to Bridgeport School. With my step dad we would go up on the Luckiamute out by Hoskins, I thin k it was Hoskins. Those were two nice streams to wade back then. If you went from Bridgeport School toward the Kings Valley Hwy, the Little Luckiamute was really good but, years ago the dredged it and ruined it.

Haven't been to either in a lot of years. We'd get night crawlers out of my granfathers garden and Indiana Spinners from Opplinger's Western Auto in Indepedence. Great memories there! Grandpa is gone since 1972, he was 90. Allen Opplinger took over the store from his dad but now it's gone too and somewhere along the line I got gray.

[rkd]

I have had an Olympus Stylus 770 SW for over a year that I absolutely love because it is the ultimate take anywhere camera. Waterproof, drop proof (from 5 ft), crush proof (200+ lbs), and freeze proof. The new models are now called the "Tough" series, and at a price in the $300 range, are well worth the money. I would highly recommend them.

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_digital_sw.asp

Ryan