Trout
Deschutes River:
The lower Deschutes has remained pretty high and unfishable recently but from reports I’ve heard from some friends who fished yesterday down around Maupin, the river is in better shape and better visibility. A couple feet is what I heard in terms of vis down there right now. The water is a little higher than normal too with all the rain we got last week, it has blown out a bunch of tributaries including the White River, causing the Deschutes to rise and dirty up a bit.
It is fishable to some degree now. In higher and slightly off color water you can get away with running larger presentations and your skill presenting your flies doesn’t need to be as on point. You can get away with running 3x fluorocarbon tippet to your lead fly and 4-5x fluoro to your second dropper fly. In off color water a great fly choice is a san juan worm or beadhead wiggly worm with a pheasant tail or red lightning bug as a dropper.
Another good high water tactic is running two big flies, a worm and a stonefly is a good combination. I’ve also done well using a small streamer like a size 8 sculpzilla as my lead fly and dead drift it under an indicator and allowing it to swing at the end of my drift. I’ve hooked some truly large Deschutes trout doing this.
Keep an eye out for the late afternoon winter blue wing olive hatch and focus efforts fishing this hatch in the back eddies with a small size 16-18 bwo sparkle dun or film critic pattern.
Pretty snowy and cold up at the lakes. Until the spring...
Summer Steelhead
Deschutes River:
Deschutes steelhead will be going into spawning mode here pretty soon. You should not be targeting them now even though it is not technically illegal to. Leave them alone now so they can spawn and make future generations of steelhead. Besides, chrome winter fish are swimming to their home tribs on the coast and valley area as I write this report.
Winter Steelhead
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North Oregon Coast + Portland Metro area
Most steelhead rivers around the central and north Oregon coast as well as the valley remain pretty high at the moment, but are dropping fast and should be fishable by this weekend and into next week should be prime. General rule of thumb, if the waters high fish high. If the waters low fish low. The higher up you go in a rivers system, the less tributaries there are feeding it, and the more fishable conditions you will find. Often in low water, fish will stage up in the meat of the runs down lower in the system.
This last big rain event caused some major flooding on many north coast rivers, so I have to imagine it will bring in a nice fresh pile of fish. Fishing the drop this weekend and into next week should be really good.
Swinging big black and blue flies with 7-8 weight spey rods, skagit heads and t11 is the name of the game this time of year as these early Jan and Feb fish are generally pretty grabby. I’ll occasionally run a bead rig after swinging as that can be very productive as well. Covering as much water as you can is super important in the winter. I see guy’s all the time staking out a hole and fishing it all day long. This can sometimes work if the water is high enough where you have new fish recycling in and moving throughout the day. But once the river starts dropping and clearing, fish will not be busting up tailouts and moving until the safety of night comes.
Hood River:
Slow start, but I have heard of a handful of winter fish caught. The Hood River generally see’s the bulk of its winter steelhead arriving a bit later than other rivers with the peak arriving in late Feb through the whole month of March and into April.
Smallmouth Bass/Carp:
Smallmouth fishing has remained pretty tough recently. Fish are still fairly spread out making them tough to find. Sinking lines with streamers and crayfish patterns are getting it done down there. People gear fishing have a better advantage of getting their presentation down in their face quicker.
-Zach Parker
"The Gorge"
Gorge Fly Shop Team - 541.386.6977
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