This past weekend was the perfect time to be outside. Daytime temps were near 60 on Saturday, and mid 50′s on Sunday. Saturday, I decided to stick close to home, which means fishing the McKenzie. I started out after a good breakfast with the family at Ye Olde Pancake House, then off to the lower McKenzie I headed. The Caddis Fly’s blog http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/ had been giving great reports of fish being caught in the lower river. So, I started out around Armitage Park. I began my day nymphing. Then around noon, as the March Brown hatch began to materialize, I started swinging the March Brown wet flies I had tied up the day before. I fished nearly all of the accessible water I could for a good stretch of the river. I covered a lot of water from about 9:30 until 2:30. Constantly keeping a vigilant eye open for rising fish, I was hugely disappointed, as I saw no fish rising. Still I pounded away fishing all the “fishy” spots as well as I could. Not a single grab. I switched back and forth from wet fly to nymph, and still had no success. Felling a little discouraged, I headed up river to some more familiar water. Finally I decided on my next area to victimize, I decided that I would nymph until I spied rising fish. Much to my dismay, I did not see a rising fish all day. First full day on the McKenzie of 2010 — Skunk.
Sunday was a whole brand new day, and after a short debate with myself, it seemed that winter steelhead sounded better. At least I could feel better about getting my backside handed to me from big fish. Back to Lake Creek I go. Some 50 minute ride later, I arrived at the fishing hole. Popular as it is, there was no one there, and there were steelhead jumping. With a little excitement with fish jumping I just knew I’d hang into one this day. I’ll spare all the details, just because they are few and far between. Landing coastal cut-throat trout on an 8wt isn’t exactly my idea of great fun, nor challenge. I managed to land 6 cut-throat ranging in size from 6″-14″. I did have one take from a steelhead, but couldn’t get a good hook set in it. We saw several fish in the river, but none would take anything any of us were offering. I did happen to miss quite a few trout. I found that swinging nymphs to those trout was like giving crack to an addict. They couldn’t resist a swung nymph. Too bad trout fishing on the coastal creeks is closed, otherwise, I’d have restrung my 6 wt. and swung march browns and had a ball catching fish after fish.
So goes the weekend fishing. Luckily, it’s staying lighter later, and soon, there will be near daily afternoon trips to write about!
Please practice catch and release. Also, clean up the rivers and streams. Release all hatchery fish anywhere other than the water you caught them from.
On a more serious note. Please voice your opinions to your fish and wildlife agencies. Get on board with groups that want your local rivers and streams to be managed as wild/native fisheries. It’s up to you and me to break the agencies away from the tradition that is killing off our wild/native fish due to mismanagement and hatchery programs. Speak up and speak out, or loose those precious resources to hatchery produced abominations forever. Montana did it. Why can’t everyone else?
Dave
