High Sierra Topix

What a day. Just returned from fishing the Middle Deschutes River--from my house about 1:15 drive and a 20 minute walk down about 600 ft to the bottom of the canyon. Took my new pack rod and a 2 piece 8 1/2' 5 weight fly rod that I picked up at a ski swap (go figure) several years ago but had never used. When we got to the bottom of the canyon it began to rain and I put on my poncho but my friend had no rain gear because somebody told him he didn't need it! Of course I always carry raingear. The good news is that it rained for just a few minutes the bad news is my friend realized he left his fishing license (that he had bought this morning) at home! Rigging the new packrod as a spinning rod my 3rd cast resulted in a 6 inch brown. Since the goal was to "really" fly fish (not my usual fly and bubble techniqe) the fly rod was prepared for action. After 15 minutes I caught a 12 inch mountain whitefish--it actually took 3 separate strikes before managing to hook itself (I was using a big nymph and a strike indicator). Then I flailed away and staggered along the riverbed, wearing wading shoes but my regular hiking pants, to no avail. Finally a light bulb went on. Fish were jumping and little white mayflies were emerging. Attaching a size 14 Adams resulted in a bunch of strikes, and catching and releasing maybe 8 plump rainbows (redsides to Eastern Oregonians) all about 11 inches long and most with a tendency to jump 2 feet or more out of the water. What a gas! The last fish I caught jumped 6 times. I didn't take any photos this trip but last week I hiked down with a couple of other old farts (sans fishing gear) and took a few shots of the area we fished today. Oh yes if the weather is halfway decent tomorrow we will return so my friend will get a chance to play with the fish!

mike

If I were you I'd have kept some and ate 'um. I'm not saying you should have but I always loved eating my first catches of the year. I was always more that ready.

Nice way to open the season. Storms keep coming in here and dropping snow. This past Saturday I was up with my son Lee at a Cub Scout thing up at Sequoia Lake (5400'). There was a surprising amount of snow on the ground considering the low elevation. It was lightly snowing on and off during the day. Lee had never seen snow fall before. He enjoyed it. Unfortunately he didn't repeat his fishing success of last year. His dad managed to open his season with three put and take rainbows running to 15" (the 15" had been in the lake awhile and was quite chunky) all with 3/8 oz red over gold Z-Rays. Lee had two consecutive fish on that leaped off the hook. Anyhow, the Descutes looks beautiful. It's great to get into fishing like that so close to home.