It rained steadily with few breaks between Wednesday night and all day and night Thursday. Talk about a soggy camping experience. I was in our camper van, a friend was tent camping and was buried under blue tarps that managed to keep his stuff dry. Other campers weren't so fortunate. One poor soul, Mike from Boise, the walking sponge, had been there for over a week and had experienced one rainless day. That Mike was a gamer, however, as he put in more than his fair share of time, in a float tube in icy water, no less.
Those braving the rain, wind and cold managed some decent fishing. I managed a couple of 14"-16" brook trout as my best fish, and brought to net a couple dozen Atlantic salmon and brook trout overall. I was content with conversation by the campfire while the diehards were out fishing, so didn't put in the usual marathon fishing hours. Going again this week, and will be meeting Jim Burbank and his family there at the end of the month, so many more opportunities are coming.
Spring has been wet and cold here in the Cascade Mountains, and the hatches are all delayed. A few days of hot, dry weather in a row, and the bugs should really explode (which unfortunately includes mosquitos).
The big caddisflies are what bring the big brookies to the surface, and that's the hatch I look forward to every year. The morning hatch is the Grey Wing Sedge, and the evening hatch is the smaller bodied Traveling Sedge (the 'Motorboat' Caddis). As caddises go, these are big bugs (1 to 1-1/4" long including the wings), and it takes something like that to bring the normally big cautious brook trout to the surface. There's a 19" brook trout there that hopefully has my name on it...
Wes Wada Bend, Oregon
Here's some photos of Hosmer to give a sense of place:
from the trip: panorama of the marsh channel area between the north and south lakes of Hosmer. The dark arrow-shaped patch to the left of the central pine trees is a portion of the 1-mile long channel.
<img src="http://www.info-fx.com/vfb/hosmer02.jpg";>
from another web site: south lake of Hosmer with Mt. Bachelor in the background
<img src="http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/centraloregon/recinfo/fishing/ photogallery/lakes/hosmerlake1.jpg">
![http://www.info-fx.com/vfb/hosmer02.jpg"](http://www.info-fx.com/vfb/hosmer02.jpg"){kind=link}