Monday I was fishing the Lower Deschutes from Warm Springs to Trout Creek with my wife and a friend. We were hoping to find some fish still looking to eat Salmonflies and Golden Stones dry flies.
This is a busy section of water and it’s tough to find my Zen sometimes. We decided to let all the guide boats launch first and be the first of the second wave down the river. Our strategy worked. Sure, there were a few boats with fly fishers in a couple of spots we would have liked to fish, but it wasn’t crazy.
I was hoping to fish dry flies and coax some rainbows to the surface. This one came to the net shortly after launching the driftboat.
I can’t believe how strong these fish are. Even a 10″ trout puts up quite a fight.
Golden Stoneflies were flying around and dropping eggs on the water. The rainbows were waiting for them with quick, vicious strikes.
This fish took a Clark’s Lady Stone.
The scenery is beautiful as we floated down the river.
I enjoy looking for bugs along the grass and yesterday didn’t disappoint. There were many Salmonflies and Golden Stoneflies in the upper section between Warm Springs and Mecca. The bugs tapered off a little below that, but you could still find them. So did the fish.
Salmonfly
Golden Stonefly
For more information on these bugs, be sure to check out my recent post – Salmonflies and Golden Stones are Hatching.
Here are a few of the flies I used.
And a couple even looked at my “Halloween Chubby”.
Fish didn’t take all these flies, but they came up and looked at them.
If you get a chance, be sure to get out and try your luck fishing the Lower Deschutes for rainbows. The hatch and bugs won’t be around much longer.
Enjoy…go fish!
