Paulina Lake tomorrow

Come on Big brown take my fly!! I will update you tomorrow on how the fishing was.

Hosmer Lake 07-11-2010

It was a great day fishing. I started my morning out at 7. The water was perfectly flat with no wind. I could see a bunch of bugs flying all over the lake but i would have to wait till i got out there to identify them.

I used my electric motor to get to the other side . I noticed the hatch was a callibaetis hatch. I tied on a callibaetis and i started kicking my way through the channel. If you look to your side and look down you can see the fish swimming some are the size of your legs. But you will spend all day and catch nothing if you fish for the fish you can see. I started casting my fly toward the weeds, which give the fish some easy and quick hiding.

On about my tenth cast i got a nasty bite by something that probably would have eaten my arm if it got the chance. I casted back to that spot and hooked and landed a 18 inch Atlantic salmon. It gave me a pretty good fight and when you aren’t paying attention to anything but the fish your fighting and well that's it. I ended up five feet into the weeds and having a hell of a time getting myself back out.

After i got out i kept meandering through the channel till i started seeing fish jump and rise to the dead bugs on the surface. I kept casting towards the weeds and ended up hooking a 13 inch Brook Trout that was built like a football. It probably weighed 3 lbs. this time while i was watching the fish jump and pull my line i kept my eye on where i was going and kept myself out of the weeds.

I ended up fishing for another two hours with a couple bites but not hooking anything. I decided to kick my way back to the main part of the lake and fish the weeds. I still had on the same callibaetis on and as i kicked around the lake and was coming close to the boat ramp my rod just about jumped out of my hands it got hit so hard by something and my line was talking off towards the weeds. i gently tightened up on it and it stopped and turned around and darted right at me. I struggled to keep the line tight and strip my line in fast enough. I'm guessing this fish new it was caught and it was just going to come jump into the boat with me. As it got closer i could tell i had a giant on my line and it must have seen me because it turned around and darted back towards the weeds. i let it take a bunch of line. I didn't want to muscle it and risk loosing this monster. It did this whole back and forth workout 3 times and then it came in like i had a little 8 inch fish on. I got it into my net and i had landed a 20 inch Atlantic salmon that weighed an easy 6 lbs.



I had a great day and was bummed that i had forgot my camera in my truck.

excited to go fishing at Hosmer Lake on Sunday 7/11/2010

I'm heading to Hosmer lake and I am excited this Sunday. It is a beautiful lake that is a fly fishing only and no motor boats!!! Im hoping to see a nice hatch of Callebaetis and maybe some caddis flies. wish me luck and i will let you know how it goes.

Fishing the Mouth of Crooked river

I started the morning off at 8 on the upper Crooked River. It was a beautiful morning with a temperature of about 54 degrees. There was a enormous hatch of Trico's going off. It was so good every time you opened your mouth you would get a giant mouth full!!

The river was very shallow and there were lots of rocks sticking out of the water. So I spent most of the morning rock hopping and and trying to keep my nice running shoes from getting to wet! I decided not to put on my waders because I knew by noon i would be extremely hot. I could see lots of fingerlings and small fry swimming all over but I'm not after the small fish i want a whopper that's going to take me for a ride. I spent a good two hours rock hopping and not having any luck. So i picked up and moved further down the river to where Deep creek meets the Crooked River. The water was much cooler and now i was going to have to get my Adidas wet because the best part of the river was on the other side. I moved down to where there were plenty of big rocks for big fish to hide under. I tied on a Callibaetis for a while and only had a couple of bites. then i decided to go with a dark brown Caddis fly and on my second cast i had a 7 inch Rainbow, then on my forth, seventh, tenth, eleventh… by then i was getting excited but sick of getting this small trout. But where there are small trout and when they are taking that certain fly there will be a big one! I ended up connecting with a what had to of been a 13 or 14 inch trout that took my line hard and fast!! my adrenalin kicked it in and was ready to fight this SOB. when all of a sudden it turned on its side and spit the damn hook out!




I ended up catching 8 small fish for the day and not connecting with the whopper i was hoping for. That's alright though because any bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work!!!

Hooked Three, Zero to hand

Last Monday my friends James and Gary and I made a trip to Macks canyon, which is about 15 miles north of Shearer’s bridge. We were after some hogs but unfortunately all three of us struck out.

The weather report stated that it was going to be a very wet and cold day. I'm not sure how much meteorologists make.... but its way to much!! It was sunny and 57 degrees and didn’t drop any precipitation on us until 4:30 when we were getting out of our waders.

I started fishing on an island that I had to wade out to. And when i got to the spot that I had spotted from the road it was a very fast current. So at 830 in the morning i had my first fall into the water luckily I caught myself and only drenched my left arm. The spot I was fishing from was fairly shallow and with a very fast current. I had a large purple and pink mole leech on and I ended up snagging my hook and line up 5 times before i decided to try a new section of river.

I moved about a quarter of a mile down river and found a nice wade able section. I switched to a purple stonefly nymph with a egg trailing behind it. Other than almost hooking myself a bunch of times and ending up with some crazy wind knots in my line I still hadn't felt any bites. By this point it was nearly 12:30 and I was getting a bit agitated and didn't like the feeling of being skunked. I met back up with James and Gary and had some lunch and discussed our next game plan. I decided to put something bright on so I switched to a sandy spider (at the top of the page). On my first cast and drift with that fly on I got a hard bump by a fish. So I cast to the same spot and got another nice bump. On my third cast the fish took the hook and as I reeled him in he popped off. Now I was made throwing a fit in the water!! The same thing happened for the next two hours I would get a few nice bumps and then it would grab the fly with its mouth and let go. Unfortunately the only size I had in that fly was a size 2. Probably a little big for these Red Band trout I was playing with. All three of us left without ever bringing any fish to hand. But that’s how it goes more times than not.

This Coming Monday James and I will be traveling to the John Day River. Stay Tuned.

High winds with a good dowsing of rain and no fish to be had

I started my fishing day out at 10AM on the Fall with very high gusts of wind and lots of rain. Good thing I was layered up quite well. I quickly made my way to the same fishing hole I caught fish at the other day. I hooked on a nice olive green hares ear and began fishing. My first cast I landed a nice whopping hat. My second cast I landed a pretty big pine tree. The winds really weren't playing to my favor.

After the winds died down a bit I finally got my fly wet and placed it perfectly right in the hole. It felt like when you hit that 45 foot putt that you shouldn't have made. After sitting in this spot for 20 minutes and only getting a couple small hits I moved down stream right in front of the fish hatchery. Now I know what most of you are thinking. He plopped his fly right into the fish ponds! And to be honest I have thought about it on more than one occasion. There's some giant bricks in those ponds that would put up one hell of a fight.

I found a nice deep channel with about 4 descent sized lunkers that if caught I might stuff and mount on a wall. I stuck with hares year but it wasn't getting deep enough. I through on a red copper john and that seemed to get to right depth. It passed right in front of them and they didn't even budge. I changed to a caddis nymph and that also didn't seem to do the trick either. At this point I was scratching my head wondering if someone was playing a mean trick on me and planted some fake fish on the bottom. I realed in my fly and just sat there gazing at these stupid fish that I love to catch when out of no where a giant otter swam bye and snagged one of the fish and continued its fish eating journey down stream.

After sitting there for what seemed like a long time with my mouth wide open in shock I heard a tree snap in half and fall in the direction of where my truck was parked. I decided to walk back up and check out what had happened and to my surprise a tree got blown over by these crazy southern winds not more than 5 feet from my
truck!

After hooking my hat, a tree, watching a otter snag my fish, and having a tree almost total my truck I decided my day of fishing was over!!!

Well I can't wait for what next weekends fishing adventure will entail. Stay tuned.

24 degrees and a 14 inch rainbow

So I started my fishing out at 9AM when it was 24 degrees and 3 inches of fresh snow on the ground, my hands were completely frozen solid! I am defiantly not the greatest fly fisherman the worlds ever seen but I do know that when you can't move your fingers because its that cold outside, your probably not going to see any hatches going off! When I fish the fall river I prefer to use 6x leader and tippet, because those damn fish can see everything in that crystal clear river. I tied on a #18 olive hares ear to start my morning out.

When I fish the fall river and it doesn't matter what part of the river I go to I start out by walking up and down the stream looking for shadows in the water. You should never have to walk more than 50 yards before you see some nice fish looking shadows in the water. If you don't you might want to make an appointment with your eye doctor!!

I found a nice holding zone with about 20 good size rainbows at around 915 and I think the temp had risen about 2 degrees. I dropped my hares ear about 5 feet ahead of this school of fish and watched as it slowly moved towards the school when suddenly I felt the fly get railroaded by two different fish as it made its journey down stream. Unfortunately the collision of the two fish made it impossible to hook either one of them. My next few attempts didn't produce anything either but I knew by the fishes reactions I had the right fly on. I decided to change my presentation of the fly up a tad. I call it high sticking(some people just call it nymphing either way you only have about 15 feet of line out including your leader and tippet) I placed the fly right in front of these perched fish and as the fly passed right in front of the first fish he darted at my fly and hit it like a bull hits those stupid people on the streets of Spain in one of there bull runs. This beautiful rainbow trout darted out of the water trying to loose whatever had just snagged its jaw( by the way I de-barb all of my hooks even if the regulations don't mandate it. I want a even fight) unfortunately the fish won this battle, but little did he know I don't give up easily! The fight stired up the other fish so I decided it was time for a mid morning snack. By now it was nearly 1030 and was getting quite a bit warmer out, not to much longer and we should have a good hatch of caddis or maybe some march browns.

10 minutes later all the fish were back and feeding on the bottom. I decided to do the same thing again. After 5 seconds of that fly being in the water my pole was alnmost ripped out of my hands by a fish on a mission. After hooking this good size fish it tore off to the center of the river and making its way towards some down logs on the other side. I immediately tightened up my grip on the fly line and stopped the fish dead in its tracks. It jumped out of the water like a giant humpback wale and made almost as big of a splash if I do say so myself. After about 3 good minutes of fighting I had it in my net!!! A 14 inch rainbow with the most beautiful colors!!!

After releasing the fish and washing my hands I got right back to it!!! I hooked 3 more fish before noon but they all seemed to slip right off those de-barbed hooks.

By noon the fish no longer liked the hares ear. I switched to a black, green, red, and gold prince nymphs. None of them seemed to do any good. Right before I decided to change back to the hares ear since it was the only thing working earlier in the morning I noticed a hatch going off. From my previous knowledge of this rivers hatches I decided to put a BWO (blue wing olive) on.

My first cast was dead on with a nice presentation following a good line right down the center of the stream. I got 1 nice hit by what had to of been a monster fish! I stripped it back in and cast to the same place and this time I hooked the bastard but for it to only snap my small 6x line with one good jolt to the opposite side of the river.

I plan on going out to the Fall again tomorrow as long as it doesn't snow or get to windy! Ill let you know how it goes.