Summertime And The Living Is Easy

I’m a lucky guy and I have had a pretty sweet run of it for the last decade. I am retired so I fish the mouth of the Deschutes weekdays in August and September. I have a trailer - a concession to old age - but I have always wanted a place on a river. So for two months a year, five days a week, I have a cabin of sorts, sometimes with a view, on a favorite river. I don’t have a boat. I walk up the river and keep moving. I am not into numbers of fish, so I don’t fish first class waters most of the time. From the mouth upstream; The Blackberry Hole, The Sand Hole, Knock Knock (below Colorado Rapids), Wagon Blast (above Colorado Rapids) are first class waters. Fish stack up in first class water. There are more of these famous places but without a boat or a bike I do not fish above Wagon Blast.
If you fish these waters you will get aggravated. People will cut you off or box you in or ask to fish through and forget the “through” part. But if you fish first class waters you will catch more fish. Yes you will, but the cost is aggravation. So I tend to fish water with fewer people where the fish do not stack up, but I can just be at peace.
I like to watch the water turn blue and gold because it is beautiful and I believe the best time to fish is before the sun is on the water. Yes, I have caught fish at two in the afternoon, but I think steelheading is about improving your odds. That is the heart of it.
How do you improve your odds? In summer, the fish have rested all night, water temperatures are as close to 58 degrees as they are going to get, so the first angler through the run has the best chance of the day (1). How many runs can you be the first angler through? Or you can fish the evening when most people are not fishing. Just before and as soon as the sun is off the water your odds improve. The better runs just might be free. Good runs are definitely free. It improves your odds at least until water temperatures reach 64 degrees (2). But please skip evening fishing when the water temperature is above 68 degrees.
For me summer steelheading is about fun, grace, and ease with a little joy mixed in. I enjoy greased line fishing in summer and have come to think of the skating fly as the obvious conclusion of A. H. E. Wood’s ‘greased’ line of thought (3). I enjoy the easy casting and simplicity of the dry line and the unweighted fly. The skating fly makes me laugh or chuckle or just grin. It lifts the spirit. It is so impossible, improbable, illuminating to see the fly dancing on top. To watch the fly’s progress given what the line is doing in the current or how the fly behaves when you mend is probably the best way to learn line handling on your own (4). Think slow and smooth. If you mend and the fly jumps that is a bad mend. The less the fly moves the better. Try again. Think slow and smooth.
This year I was fishing greased line down into the top of a good run. I got five touches, probably on three fish. While I was getting touches two gear guys below me landed ten fish. I didn’t think of it until later, but the classic response would have been to change to a smaller fly. Well, we can’t all be smart.
What I did the next day was to hitch (5) the fly which is known for more aggressive takes. That is, I put two half hitches behind the head of the fly so the tippet was coming off at 90 degrees from the bottom of the fly. You do not need a special fly. Any traditional steelhead fly will work. This hitch causes the fly to ride up and skate leaving a small wake. During the next fifteen days I landed fourteen steelhead. So have faith. Skating flies work at least as well as a damp fly. You can see the takes and the rejects (misses) because you know where your fly is and you are watching it. This improves your fishing and since very few people are skating it improves your odds.
The only fishing I have known is with a fly rod in my hand. I caught a lot of steelhead on a single handed rod, but I believe the Spey rod is the best choice to fly fish for steelhead at the mouth of the Deschutes. The Spey rod keeps your fly in the water, handles line better, is easier to learn, easier to cast, and more fun to cast. It allows you to cast with your back to the brush or from under tree limbs, so it opens up more water. The Deschutes is very windy. The Spey cuts the wind better because Spey lines are heavier. A 5 weight Spey line is the equivalent of an 11 to 12 weight single handed line.
This year I have been fishing an 11 foot, 5 weight, five sided bamboo rod from Bob Clay with a 3 ½ inch Hardy Perfect reel from the 1930’s. It is a very sweet, lively rod that casts with the feel of a trout rod. It is a nicely balanced combination and a joy to cast, but it is a little under-gunned for the mouth. A better choice for dry line fishing would be a bamboo rod, 6 or 7 weight, between 11 and 12 feet or a graphite, 7 weight, 12 to 13 foot rod. Any good reel that balances the rod and holds more backing than the 3 ½ inch Perfect would be an improvement. I love the classic look of the Hardy Perfect with a bamboo rod or a Saracione on a graphite rod, but that is just me and everyone has their own aesthetic.
“Cast your fly with confidence” (6) . Indeed, you need confidence to continue casting when you haven’t had a grab in a week or a month or ever. I don’t believe the fly matters but confidence does matter. So I tie the best fly I can for steelhead. I use a seal-like dubbed body because it glistens and moves and appears transparent in the sunlight. Chenille does not. I use the best metal tinsel I can buy. Sometimes I add jungle cock cheeks. I tie a #4 fly on a #2 hook to fight short takes. This is an Ernie Schwiebert dodge 7 . All this helps me convince myself that I have the fly that will attract my next fish. Also, it is a fitting tribute to the fish. Fishing is about more than killing fish. It is about slowing down and experiencing all the river has to offer. It is easy and costs nothing to note the phlox, golden rod, black-eyed Susans, asters, and rabbit brush blooming each in its turn. The antics of the lizards, the songs of the canyon wren and meadow lark, the quiet but unmistakable beauty of rattlesnake and bull snake, the threat of porcupine and skunk and poison oak, and - best and rarest of all - the mountain lion and bobcat all add to the richness of the river experience. The sunrise and sunset, the light on the clouds, the color of the water and sky as the river passes through the canyon all add to and enrich our time on the water. Yes, life is good, full, and rich and fishing is about way more than killing fish.
I am a lucky guy and it is a privilege and undeserved honor to be able to fish a bamboo fly rod for steelhead on the Deschutes. We are all very lucky to get to fish for these incredible fish in such a special place. Tight lines, my friend.
Footnotes:
1. McMillan, Bill. Dry Line Steelhead and Other Subjects. Frank Amato Publications, 1987. page 47. “… surface
fishing for steelhead peaks over a broad and relatively constant plateau between 48 and 58 0 F.”
2. Ibid. “…from 43-66 0 F one could strictly use surface and in-surface methods on steelhead...” The graph shows
your odds of actually catching a fish falling off after 63 0 F.
3. ”Jock Scott”. Greased Line Fishing for Salmon; The Methods of A. H. E. Wood. Seely Service & Co. Fourth Edition.
Silk lines needed to be ‘greased’ to make them float. Trey Combs has a critique in Steelhead Fly Fishing under
Presentation.
4. Ibid, page 73.
5. Lee, Art. Tying and Fishing the Riffling Hitch. Human Kinetics, 1998.
6. I always attributed this quote to Theodore Gordon, but I could not find the reference. It could be older.
7. Flick, Art. Art Flick's Master Fly-tying Guide. Crown Publishers, Inc., 1972. page 172, “...my patterns are tied
slightly low-water in style… wings and tails are stopped short of bend… such proportions discourage short pulls
and takes…” A. H. E. Wood believed short takes were our fault.