Have you ever had one of “THOSE” days when everything was going so well, you figured it was just a dream and it was time to wake up? Only to find it really is a dream, but with a ton of realism? Well, this really happened. No lie! (As I was told in the Navy. Every good story starts with, “This is a no lie (or sh*t”.)
No lie! Back in late June, I took off after work to get in on some late afternoon/evening fly fishing just below Deerhorn on the lower McKenzie. If you’ll allow me to digress a bit, I’ll give a little of my personal history with Deerhorn. I first discovered this stretch of river from a customer of mine. He told me to “go to the golf course” and fish there. And, as most of you know, my adventures in fly fishing have a short tenure of just over a year now. To make a long side note a tad shorter, this is where I actually caught my first trout on fly.
Back to the story. I arrived after a short 30 minute trip from work, strapped on the boots, waders and strung up the TFO 5wt. with a yellow sally and a partridge and orange wet as a dropper. I began catching fish within just a few minutes of hitting the water. There are multiple places that consistently hold fish, but fish can be caught literally just about anywhere. I fished around the “island” which isn’t really an island, There’s water throughout but it is less than ankle deep. I picked up a fish or 2 out of the left channel, and several at the bucket on the right channel at the low side of the “island”. This was quickly becoming fun.
Below the “island” is a long flat with perfect current. After near a hundred yards it drops into a long shallowish riffle, which then drops into another flat run with moderate current. All in all I picked up 20 or so throughout this stretch of river. Lost a nice 16-18″ native at the tail out just above the deeper side of the riffle. I caught several below the riffle drifting and swinging my dry/wet combo.
As the evening came on, yellow sallies were fairly numerous and the fish were looking up and eager to take my imitation. I had worked my way back up and was about mid-way through the flat below the island, fish on. A nice little 10″ native came to hand. As normal practice dictates, I wet my hand in the river, and held up the native redside to remove the hook from its mouth. Each native I catch I take a few extra seconds to admire each fish and look at its individual characteristics. I dropped my flies back in the water and as I’m starting to admire this scrappy little native, my fly rod is nearly yanked from under my arm. Fish on! Reaching across my body grabbing my fly rod from under my arm, the native in my left hand wiggled and dropped into the water. Then to hand comes a 13″ hatchery fish. 2 fish on technically one cast, the only thing that would have made it better would have been one fish on each fly at the same time.
A great evening came to a close a short while later. The fish tally was high, my spirits were even higher.
Dave
