Fishing Report - Columbia River Gorge and Beyond

Report for June 27th, 2012

Deschutes Summer Day

Pale Morning Duns, Pale Evening Duns, Yellow Sallies and Caddis are now the staple fare on the Deschutes. It’s a great time to hook one on top – especially during low light hours of morning and evening. Morning: search the slacky shadow lines for trout eating spent caddis. Late Morning – Afternoon: PMDs, Yellow Sallies and Caddis in the riffle seams and boulder breaks. Evening – Dark: Adult caddis. Of course, nymphing will keep you in the game for most of the day. Try some Pheasant Tails, Yellow Sally nymphs, Zebra Midges and Caddis pupae either in tandem wet setups, or as a dry dropper rig. As the weather continues to warm and the sun gets high, look for fish to be tucked into faster current seams and slots where there is broken water overhead for cover. Or if they are looking up, they’ll often migrate into shallow, yet shaded water in the afternoon.

Slowly but surely, the summer steelhead run is picking up steam. Numbers over Bonneville and The Dalles Dams are climbing by the day, with a few fish landed at the bottom of the Deschutes already. The Klickitat is up, but not out. Clarity continues to hold on here, and it should until air temps start to climb into the 80’s for any length of time. The Hood is running with good visibility, but don’t expect lots of summer steelhead to be poking in here while the Columbia is flowing so mightily. Where clarity is an issue, think about larger-profiled flies and sink-tips. In fact, response can be really great while fishing big and black patterns in the sun, or even orange with some flash – which tends to take on a magical glow in these conditions.

If you’re looking to mix it up and head out for some hot bass action, this is probably the best time of year to cast a fly into the Columbia. Lots of fish are up shallow now milling around on their beds and well within range to shore side anglers. Craw and leach patterns have been proving to be quite irresistible lately.

Area lakes have been fishing really well. Up at Lawrence, they’ll inhale just about anything… but Caddis or Parachute adams patterns will often take charge from late afternoon into the evening. Goose Lake and Lost Lake are still fishing well with buggers fished on full-sink, light density fly lines.

Have a good time,

Duffy