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With fly rods and telescopes packed in the truck, I picked up
my son in Vancouver, WA last week and we headed into Central Oregon. instead of
our nearly annual trip to Idaho due to the fires. With advice from several
fly shops, purchased with a dozen flies, we fished the Crooked River, near
Prineville, OR. While demonstrating right-angle, yarn indicator nymphing
to my dry-fly-experienced-but-still-learning 33 year old son, I hooked a 13 inch
native redband rainbow on the second cast of the morning last Thursday at 10:00
AM, size 16 beadhead, flashback, PT nymph. Isn't fatherhood
wonderful!
He apparently needed no more lessons because he immediately
began catching fish and beat me that morning on nymphs. We lost count at
about 6 to 8 fish each. This years Crooked River fish were bigger than usual, up
to about 16 inches, not counting escapees. That evening we again had great
luck and were also able to catch fish on dries, caddis of various persuasions,
best fly was a dark bodied Emergent Sparkle Pupa.
The Crooked River has a reputation as a winter fishery, but
according to the locals, it has been fishing very well all summer. We had
a great time over in the high desert, adding two nights of amateur astronomy
under dark star filled skies to our "Scuds and Scopes"
holiday!
Dave Humphreys
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