A Weekend at the Salmonfly Saloon - Part Two
Introduction
It’s been a while since writing the last entry, but I definitely want to recount the last two days of my trip down to the Deschutes. In this post I may experiment with a slightly more condensed retelling, relative to my first two posts.
May 19th
Fishing on a full night of deep sleep has become a rarity for me. In fact, it seems like most of the time I am operating on a bare minimum, if any, sleep. The night of sleep I had on Friday night was riddled with anxiety about not getting enough sleep for the full day of fishing and boating ahead and a very intense chill. The early morning temperature dropped to just around freezing, and as Sam and I were in cots with not enough warm clothes, it was a brutal morning to say the least. Since the cots are elevated, body heat is lost at a much higher rate than it would be if one were to sleep on the ground. We estimated our total sleep time at around 2 hours.
With that said, the energy when waking up was high. The sun was shining and we were very excited about the day to come. We walked down to the fly shop, scrounged up some hot coffee from the pot in the kitchen and headed up to the cashier to get our tribal permits and and a few flies. I always like to see what flies the local fly shop is recommending, and sparking up a conversation with the owners or employees usually yields valuable information. Whether they speak to the fish activity they have been seeing recently or provide you with warnings regarding hazards or potential weather conditions, fly shop conversations tend to have excellent value. If I remember correctly, we picked up a variety of large salmon fly imitations and some chubbies.
The next step was to launch the boat and shuttle the extra car to the take out. The three of us met at the Warm Springs boat launch, which is in great condition. The energy at the launch was also excellent. There was a large group putting in, with everyone in the group chatting and exchanging laughs or helping get their boats in the water. There were also a few groups waiting to put in, so we lined up behind them and started to prepare the boat. We set up the oars, loaded the raft with the cooler, PFDs, nets, rods, and other gear. Soon, the launch was clear and ready for us to put in. I was anxious to put in with the new boat at a crowded launch with seasoned vets in the peanut gallery, but it ended up being smooth and painless. With the boat floating gently in the eddy that the launch feeds into, Ethan and I left Sam to chill in the boat while we dropped the car at the take out.
The drive to the take out was about 30 minutes of navigating up and over the canyon walls, and then back down a fairly steep and bumpy one lane road to the Trout Creek campground. The campground was packed with anglers. It seemed like every campsite was occupied, and countless trailers and trucks lined the campsite loop. The launch’s parking was completely filled as well, but we managed to sneak into a “spot”, which was really just a small opening in the desert brush. We left the truck and trailer there and headed back to Sam in Ethan’s car.
We came back to the Warm Springs launch to find Sam lounging in the moored drift boat. He told us that a group had landed a few nice rainbows in the water near the launch, so our hopes were raised even higher still. We were convinced it was going to be a productive day throwing big dries for big bows. This, as you will see, was not the case.
We set out with me on the oars, Sam in the rear seat and Ethan in the front. The current was steady yet gentle and the bends in the river were tame. It is not permitted to fish from the boat on the Deschutes, so whenever we wanted to fish, we needed to pull off, anchor up and step out of the boat. At first I thought this would have little effect on fishing productivity, but as the day went on I realized this restriction really does seem to impact efficiency. After performing this protocol 20-30 times in a day, it can start to take a toll on the body and mind. On the Yakima, in addition to dropping anchor and wading, I’m used to simply tossing an indicator rig and drift it alongside the boat nearly indefinitely; or swinging a streamer at the bank from the middle of the river, but on the Deschutes these methods are not permitted. Instead, the rower must be constantly scouting potential spots to wade. I noticed a few groups had pulled off in shallow gravel beds in the middle of the rover, no doubt the result of experience on the Deschutes. I found myself envying those who knew the river well enough to be aware of those spots.
The float was about 10 miles if I remember correctly, and the Canyon underwent various transformations throughout the journey. In some sections the river stretched to more than 50 feet across, while in others it was less than 15 feet with water choked up behind extruding sediment and stone. In some areas it felt like a freestone river, with the wide expanse of riffles running over smooth stones offering countless wading opportunities, whilst in others it felt nearly impossible to find a feasible spot to drop anchor and disembark. Something to note for those who have not fished this river, it was windy. It was not a constant wind, but the cadence from calm breeze to strong gust was predictable and staunch. It was good practice on the oars and on the rod!
A small mayfly perched on the sleeve of my hoodie, Baetis I think…
The three of us managed to catch two fish on the day. Ethan caught a small whitefish on a dry dropper rig, while I caught a small rainbow on a simple indicator rig. Neither were hooked on a dry, and from our conversations with other groups, dries were simple not on the menu. Despite tons of activity from the Salmonflies, the females were dropping eggs like B52s drop their payload and the banks wre literally crawling with them, the few risers we saw were not targeting the big bugs, but instead feeding on baetis, or small mayflies. It seemed as if we had arrived slightly too early, or were not skilled enough in our presentations to entice the trout of the Deschutes.
We spent about 7 hours on the water and were taking out right as the light really started to fade. The take out process was as smooth as the put in, and really helped to build my confidence with the process as a whole. We didn’t have a very productive day of fishing, but it was a special experience nonetheless.
May 20th
The next day, Sunday, was a walk and wade day. We allotted about 5 hours of wading as Sam and I wanted to be back home at a reasonable hour. We managed to cover quite a large swath of river, but had the least productive day of the three. We threw big salmon flies, small mayfly dries, and a smorgasbord of nymphs, but none produced. I caught myself thinking whether the lackluster catch rate was due to a shortcoming in presentation compounded with a more heavily pressured system or if.it was simply bad luck, a thought that tends to come to mind during unproductive days. Despite the trip as a whole note producing the type of fish I had envisioned it would, it was really fun to explore the Deschutes and I hope to go back next year.
