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Sorry for the delayed report, but thought I’d go ahead and post it anyway, in case anyone is interested.
As the torrential downfall continued outside my window, I stared depressingly at the weather report, trying to figure out where to fish on my unexpected four day weekend. I went through a mental checklist of places I knew. Streams and rivers were out of the question, it had been raining for four days straight and the stream flows were reaching the amount of numbers in Mr. Gates checking account. Lakes were out of the question, mainly because I didn’t have a floating device or a lake line. Saltwater, too, was a bleak proposition, the marine forecast was predicting 40 knot winds. At about this time, an idea popped into my head, and I called my friend Eugene in Ashland, Oregon.
“How are the rivers fishing?” I asked, hopefully. “Great!” he replied, “they’ve been forecasting rain for days, but it hasn’t showed up yet.” Checking the long term weather forecast, Doppler radars, and various other resources, I made plans to leave on Thursday around noon, make the long slog, and arrive in time for Thursday night.
Thursday came sooner than I expected, and I managed to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before loading up the car and heading south. The drive was long, but bearable, thanks to a copy of 1984 on tape I had checked out from the library. Books on tape are the key to any solo long haul.
About an hour and a half north of Ashland, I stopped into a grocery store to buy a fishing license. When I came out of the store, the rain had started, and dark was falling. I began to get a bit nervous, and the farther south I headed, the stronger the rain got. Hurtling through the mountains at a high rate of speed, passing semi’s and hydroplaning across the highway, I passed the North Umpqua just as the last bit of light left the sky. The rain poured on.
The next morning Eugene and I met his friend, Abe, at a local spot for breakfast. The flows had risen sharply over night, but we decided to investigate a spot on the lower Rogue to see just how bad it was. The river was muddy and high, but we spent a bit of time exploring around anyway. The Rogue is renown for it’s slippery bottom, but wading was even more difficult due to my five year old felt, lack of studs, and almost zero water visibility. Eugene, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a problem and powered waist deep across a strong rapid like it was nothing.
Our next location was further upstream, by the hatchery, where we found ourselves fishing among a variety of gear fishermen and being assaulted by the constant flood of drift boats that seemed to think they owned the river. However, the river was much clearer and lower above some of the lower tributaries that dumped farmland run-off into the system. Eugene landed a couple of resident rainbows, and we explored up river to the No Boundary sign below the hatchery. On the way back, we stopped to check out the steelhead spawning in a little side channel flowing off the dam. It was a beautiful sight.
Abe headed back to town to take care of some commitments, and we explored a few other locations, but to no avail. As one drift boat floated by, bouncing gear off the bottom, they hooked up to a steelhead below us. That was the only action we saw, aside from nearly stepping onto a steelhead as I waded into the river to fish a run.
Not being a hardcore steelheader, I can only take so many hours of fishing without seeing a fish, and we headed up to fish the Holy Waters. Here we found trout rising, and Eugene hooked one on his third cast, as resident trout about 16-17 inches. The colors on the fish were outstanding, spots covering the entire face, even the lips. I hoped this was a pretense to the fishing we were about to have, but it was not so. I missed a strike on a 70 foot cross-current cast because of too much slack, and eventually gave up on dry flies when the fish went down and the wind picked up. Nymphing didn’t seem to provide any more success either.
On a whim, I switched to a small black bunny leech with a piece of split shot and began swinging my way across an area I had seen fish rise earlier. This resulted in a couple of fish, which made me happy for the day.
The next morning, Eugene, Mike and I were hurtling over dirt roads on our way to fish a large tributary of the Rogue. It had rained constantly all night, and the flows had risen considerably, rendering the Rogue and even the Klamath unfishable.
Upon arriving at the tributary, however, we found the discharge from the dam was twice the normal flows, and the fishing was very difficult. We tried everything, including deep dredging some of the deeper holes, to no avail. About the only thing that seemed interested in our flies were the two state patrol men that ambushed us, blocked our trail from both directions, and inspected our licenses.
Despite the general lack of fish, steelhead-wise, I had a great weekend and had a chance to explore some new terrain, which can sometimes be a rewarding substitute. I met some cool people, drank a few beers, cast some flies, but all in all, I never managed to escape the rain.
Ryan Davey MSN GSC
Calling Fly Fishing a hobby is like calling Brain Surgery a job. - Paul Schullery
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