Salmon Flies on the Middle Deschutes River

Posted on May 10, 2017 by Dave Dozer

Yep, the Salmon Flies are out on the Middle Deschutes River. I hit one of my favorite sections of the river today for 2 hours to see if I could tempt a few fish. The river is in fantastic shape, clear and perfect for wading. While the adult salmon flies were out and flying around, I couldn’t get any interest in the big dries from any fish. But, several browns and rainbows were happy to take a black rubber legged Kaufman Stonefly drifted on the bottom. I used my EuroNymphing bamboo rod, a 3 ft bicolored sighter, and about 4 ft. of 5X tippet. Here are a couple of photos of my morning.

Middle Deschutes River

A big Salmon Fly.

The rubber legged Kaufman Stone that worked well today.

A pretty brown that took my black rubber legged Kaufman Stone.

Drifting the Deschutes River

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Dave Dozer

Mary Ann and I braved the high water on the Deschutes River yesterday and drifted the Warm Springs to Trout Creek stretch of the river. Yep, the water was fast and high (6500 cfs), but the color was decent and we found a few spots where we could get out and drift our nymphs. It’s still too early for the legendary salmon fly hatch on the Deschutes but we found some willing rainbows interested in a tan LaFontaine Caddis drifted near the bottom with a Czech Nymphing style. We didn’t get any huge fish, but it was still fun to get out and tempt the smaller ones. Here are a couple photos of our day.

Mary Ann on the sticks!

A small immature stonefly that crawled up on our boat.

The hot fly of the day….a #16 tan LaFontaine Caddis.

A nice rainbow for the day.

Yesterday on the Middle Deschutes River

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Dave Dozer

Mary Ann and I made it out to the Middle Deschutes River yesterday for a couple of hours to try our luck. The water levels have been quite high but they are starting to drop…yesterday was high, but fishable. Water clarity was good, but boy, the water temperature was very cold. We both tried EuroNymphing techniques to tempt the fish. Not much was hatching but we managed to pick up a few smaller browns on nymphs.

The two anglers!

A feisty brown that I picked up drifting a nymph.

A beautifully colored brown that Mary Ann got on a #16 red snowcone.

Fly Fishing the Fall River in Central Oregon.

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Dave Dozer

Wow, it’s been a long time since my last blog post. It seems that spending time on some home repairs from a water heater leak, getting taxes ready, and high water everywhere have just kept us off the water. But, Mary Ann and I got out a few days ago to fish the Fall River here in Central Oregon. The Fall River is one of our local spring creeks that isn’t impacted much by snow runoff. I took out my 8′ 0″ 5 wt Spring Creek Series bamboo fly rod out for the day. I managed to pick up a few cooperative rainbows on nymphs in the morning and dries in in the afternoon when a decent BWO hatch happened. Here are a few photos of our day.

The Fall River in Central Oregon.

Fighting a nice rainbow that took a #16 prince nymph.

A nice, colorful rainbow to the net. This guy was about 14″.

Building a Bamboo Fly Rod

Posted on March 18, 2017 by Dave Dozer

This past December, Mary Ann decided she wanted to build her own bamboo fly rod. She has watched me for years and she has several of her own rods that I have built, but this would be the first one she built all on her own. She chose to build a medium-fast action 8′ 0″ 6 wt rod. There are many steps to building a custom bamboo fly rod but here is her build process captured in a just few photos. Enjoy.

First step – Selecting the raw bamboo culm.

After the bamboo culm was cut to length, it was time to split it by hand into thin strips

Splitting thick strips into thinner strips.

After heat treating the strips and running them through a beveler to rough out the 60 degree angles, it was time to hand plane the strips down to final taper dimensions.