December 6, 2011 - Oregon Steel!
Recently one half of FFPA made it out to the high desert of Oregon in hopes of cashing in on some late-season steelhead. The plan was to fish the Deschutes near Maupin and near the mouth for a few days. And also hit up the John Day for a day. The John Day was a bust as supposedly all the fish were much furthur upstream from where we were fishing, and the fishing near Maupin on the Deschutes was very slow. It was not until we focused near the mouth and upstream a few miles on the Deschutes that our efforts finally paid off. Lets just say we had to work very hard for our fish.
We spent all of our time fishing with spey rods and swinging deep running flies on sinks tips. All the patterns we fished had trailer hooks and were relatively large, tied as either tube flies or on a waddington shank. Colors that seemed to work best were either blue or purple.
In the end to finally hook and land one of these fish in such a large brawling river like the Deschutes is killer! The scenery is incredible and the fish are beautiful.
Have to also give a special thanks to Tom Larimer of Larimer Outfitters who ran us up the Deschutes from the mouth via his jet boat. Talk about a trip. If you ever get the opportunity to take advantage of this way to get around on the Deschutes – Do It! You can cover so much water, and Tom knows his sh!t! |