I got out on the middle Deschutes River recently with my good friend and bamboo rod builder, Olivia Elia to try out a couple of bamboo rods. I chose my 9′ 0″ 3 wt Euronymphing Bamboo Rod and Olivia took out her 7′ 9″ 4 wt bamboo rod. Well, the student outfished the teacher. Here is one of the very nice browns that Olivia found in this stretch of the river.
A beautiful Brown that took a #8 stonefly nymph.
Great Brown Trout Colors
A nice release…
I finally got back out recently on the Middle Deschutes River about 25 minutes from my house with a couple of good fishing friends. The river is fairly small in this area due to water being pulled off for irrigation…but that makes for some great fly fishing water. The salmon fly hatch from two weeks previous was over so I expected that fish would be holding close to the bottom…sounded like a good opportunity to try some Bamboo EuroNymphying. I took out my 9′ 0″ 3 wt Bamboo EuroNymphing rod for the day and wasn’t disappointed. The rainbows, browns, and whitefish were happy to take small nymphs, but the majority were less than 12″ long. But, I was lucky to pick up one very nice brown on a #20 two-bit hooker pattern. Here are a few photos of my day.
Wow, it’s been way too long since my last blog post. After a couple of months of staying at home and hibernating in my workshop, I’ve been able to get out on some of our more isolated waters here in Central Oregon. Caught some big fish…caught some smaller fish…but it has been great to get back out with my bamboo rods. With no stories attached, here are a few pictures of my exploits over the past two weeks.
I got out on the Lower Deschutes River yesterday for a day float with Mary Ann, and our good friends Alice and Mike, who are both guides from West Yellowstone, MT. Mary Ann, Alice, and Mike took out their two hand rods and chased steelhead for the day. But, I was more interested in looking for the larger rainbows in the Deschutes River with my 9′ 0″ 4 wt bamboo EuroNymphing rod. I had some great action with small #18 and #20 mayfly nymphs, with several fish in the 15″ to 19″ range landed. My 4 wt rod managed these larger fish very well, and I never felt I wasn’t in complete control. And the sensitivity of the rod made it easy to detect the light takes on these small flies. I even hooked a nice steelhead momentarily on one of my small nymphs, but after a few head shakes, it easily broke my 4X tippet…not sure how well my 4 wt rod would have handled that fish.! Here are a few photos of my day.
I’ve been reading Dave Hughes’ book “Wet Flies” recently, and it’s caused me to think a lot more about how I fly fish. On a brief outing to the Middle Deschutes River last week, I took my 8′ 0″ 5 wt slow action rod to swing some of Dave’s recommended patterns for the local browns. The “Silver Invicta” in a size 14 proved to be a great fly to swing through shallower riffles, and it brought many feisty browns in the 7″ to 12″ range to the net. I think I’ll be using Dave’s wet fly techniques a lot more in my fishing outings, especially on smaller water. Check it out:
Wet Flies by Dave Hughes
The Silver Invicta
The browns in the middle Deschutes River couldn’t resist a swung fly.