I took a break from rod building today and ventured out on Whychus Creek below our house here in Sisters, Oregon. It’s about 400 feet down a steep canyon to get to the water, but rather than climb down the hillside from my house, I drove over to a nice trailhead on the other side of the creek just across from our house. It’s about a mile hike from the trailhead down a nice trail to the creek. This area get’s almost no people fishing these waters so I was pretty excited to see how I would do. The creek is a nice water level this time of the summer, and the water temperature was still nice and cool. Because it’s small water and quite overgrown with trees, I selected my 7′ 0″ 4 wt Signature Series bamboo fly rod for the day. Some of the smaller fish were willing to take dry flies but it wasn’t until I changed over to nymphs that I got into half a dozen nicer fish in the 11″ to 12″ range. I had the creek to myself and loved my time searching the creek for “fishy water”. And…I also donated quite a few flies in the tree branches along the stream edge. Here are a few photos of my morning adventure:
Tag Archives: whychus creek
Fishing Whychus Creek
We had a break in the weather yesterday and Mary Ann and I got the chance to fish Whychus Creek, a small local creek where some great restoration efforts have been going to help bring back the salmon and steelhead runs from years ago. The water was a little high and off-colored from recent rains, but still very fishable. A quick bug sampling showed a mix of small mayfly nymphs, a few caddis, and stoneflies. Mary Ann and I both took our 7′ 0″ 4 wt bamboo rods, perfect for this little stream. While we didn’t catch a lot of fish, we picked up a few on nymphs, including a nice 11″ native rainbow that took a #16 red serendipity. Here are a few photos from our afternoon.