I had put in for the day off from work this past Friday like 6 months ago. I really like to fish a certain river in NE Oregon the last weekend in June. It's a combination of the river coming into shape after runoff and it hasn't hit a consistent 95-100 degrees. Last year my buddy bailed on me at the last minute and it unfortunately happened again. I don't like to hike in this canyon alone, so needless to say I was pretty bummed (but to be honest, I'm pretty sure it's still blown out).
Regardless, I didn't want a 3 day weekend go to waste. Especially what was essentially our first summer weekend of the year.
Friday started with an early rise and drive up to a well known put and take lake up on Mt Hood. This lake has been largely inaccessible for the better part of the last two years and reports we're that the catchin' was good and there were some large holdovers. I spent about 3 hours trolling and stripping leeches and was on about every 10-15 minutes. 2 fish swallowed the hook too deep so I opted to bring them home for the kid. The catch rate will definitely go down, as I saw a family with maybe 5 or 6 rods, and honest to god, I'm pretty sure they limited with like 25-30 fish
.
From there I headed up the inlet of this lake to fish for some resident cutts. This stream is hit or miss for me. I can either catch nothing or catch countless 10" cuts while blind prospecting with an Adams. This day, I only caught one juvenile cutt on a stimmy.
Then some weird shit happened.
First a bald eagle flew 15 feet over my head directly up stream. Hell Yeah.
Then, I heard a fighter jet in the distance and then the next thing I know is it's taking a 90 degree turn literally hundreds of feet above me.
I was shocked, it was so god damn low. So I gathered my marbles, kept fishing down stream and 5 minutes later (what I presume) the same fighter jet is flying even lower from directly downstream over my head and on upstream. It was SO. GOD. DAMN. LOUD. It almost knocked me over and was pretty on edge for the next 10 minutes or so.
From there I headed even farther up the system past another lake to the same stream but in a completely different setting.
I want to be clear that none of these streams are particularly productive and none of them are a secret
I walked up and down the meadow just patiently waiting for risers, where I normally pound the banks blindly. It paid off for me and I was rewarded with two risers and two 10" rainbows (again, odd for this stretch) on two casts.
I've been hiking and backpacking with my kid since she was 3 weeks old. But she's 4 now and just getting to be a little to heavy to carry her and all our gear. So we decided this was going to be the weekend she was going to do her first self propelled backpack. We chose one of our favorite early season hikes since it's only about 1.5 miles and maybe 600 vertical feet. I say early season because it's on the dry side and we can usually get a nice day out there while it's still socked in in PDX. There's a fishable small stream where we camp so I always bring my 4wt and fish between fatherly duties. I can report, that she hiked the whole way in and out on her own! Even had her own pack with her sleeping pad, mug, headlamp, snacks and water. The water was still pretty high from the hot weather and rains so the first day I caught nothing and I finally gave in and threw on a small dropper on my stimmy or chubby. The dropper took this smaller 8" fish in spot A but then I hooked a hog for this stream. No picture (it was too precarious to get my camera out and I didn't have a net) but right behind the rock on the seam was a 15" thick brown (position B). Everything I've ever caught here was on the smaller side, but it's always been with dries and always been in run off. It connects to a river with big fish so I always knew they were there, but it was cool catching such a good fish in such small water. It was so damn cool.
While I missed getting out East again, it was a pretty damn good 3 days.
Edited all the awful typos
Regardless, I didn't want a 3 day weekend go to waste. Especially what was essentially our first summer weekend of the year.
Friday started with an early rise and drive up to a well known put and take lake up on Mt Hood. This lake has been largely inaccessible for the better part of the last two years and reports we're that the catchin' was good and there were some large holdovers. I spent about 3 hours trolling and stripping leeches and was on about every 10-15 minutes. 2 fish swallowed the hook too deep so I opted to bring them home for the kid. The catch rate will definitely go down, as I saw a family with maybe 5 or 6 rods, and honest to god, I'm pretty sure they limited with like 25-30 fish
.From there I headed up the inlet of this lake to fish for some resident cutts. This stream is hit or miss for me. I can either catch nothing or catch countless 10" cuts while blind prospecting with an Adams. This day, I only caught one juvenile cutt on a stimmy.
Then some weird shit happened.
First a bald eagle flew 15 feet over my head directly up stream. Hell Yeah.
Then, I heard a fighter jet in the distance and then the next thing I know is it's taking a 90 degree turn literally hundreds of feet above me.
I was shocked, it was so god damn low. So I gathered my marbles, kept fishing down stream and 5 minutes later (what I presume) the same fighter jet is flying even lower from directly downstream over my head and on upstream. It was SO. GOD. DAMN. LOUD. It almost knocked me over and was pretty on edge for the next 10 minutes or so.
From there I headed even farther up the system past another lake to the same stream but in a completely different setting.
I want to be clear that none of these streams are particularly productive and none of them are a secret
I walked up and down the meadow just patiently waiting for risers, where I normally pound the banks blindly. It paid off for me and I was rewarded with two risers and two 10" rainbows (again, odd for this stretch) on two casts.
I've been hiking and backpacking with my kid since she was 3 weeks old. But she's 4 now and just getting to be a little to heavy to carry her and all our gear. So we decided this was going to be the weekend she was going to do her first self propelled backpack. We chose one of our favorite early season hikes since it's only about 1.5 miles and maybe 600 vertical feet. I say early season because it's on the dry side and we can usually get a nice day out there while it's still socked in in PDX. There's a fishable small stream where we camp so I always bring my 4wt and fish between fatherly duties. I can report, that she hiked the whole way in and out on her own! Even had her own pack with her sleeping pad, mug, headlamp, snacks and water. The water was still pretty high from the hot weather and rains so the first day I caught nothing and I finally gave in and threw on a small dropper on my stimmy or chubby. The dropper took this smaller 8" fish in spot A but then I hooked a hog for this stream. No picture (it was too precarious to get my camera out and I didn't have a net) but right behind the rock on the seam was a 15" thick brown (position B). Everything I've ever caught here was on the smaller side, but it's always been with dries and always been in run off. It connects to a river with big fish so I always knew they were there, but it was cool catching such a good fish in such small water. It was so damn cool.
While I missed getting out East again, it was a pretty damn good 3 days.
Edited all the awful typos
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