"Red sky at night, a sailor's delight"!

     Wow, the evening at Depoe Bay was gorgeous promising the next day to be just as calm!  The marine forecast over a 6-day span was the calmest I've ever seen in my 23 years of fishing out of Depoe Bay!  Seeing 3 days of flat ocean is pretty special but 6?  That's a miracle!  For fly fishing out of a boat on the Oregon coast, you couldn't ask for better conditions and even the fish cooperated as well.  I hope days like these are not far off for the rest of the year.
     It didn't take very long at all as I found a nice shallow reef when fly fishing friend, Dave Kilhefner, hooked up.  His fly rod more than doubled, and I knew right away it was not a black sea bass!  Dave managed his rod perfectly without breaking it or the leader to keep the deep critter from going back into its rocky hole.  Only two fish pull this hard and that is either a lingcod or a cabezon.

     After going back and forth on the reel, a good sized, cabezon (aka cabie) finally revealed itself.  With those giant pectoral finds and broad tail, they possess incredible pulling power!  Much to my surprise, Dave's cabie is the first one I've seen caught on a fly.  But then again, lingcod eagerly take flies, so why not a cabie?  These are delicious table fare, a bugger to fillet but are well worth it!

     The fly fishing was pretty consistent and the fish were spread all over the water column from 10 feet below the surface to the bottom.  We fished in 30-45 feet of water.  The sonar showed good numbers of suspended blacks which eagerly take a fly when you drift over them.  Big schools of black rockfish typically means a fish every cast as long as they're under or around your boat.  However, if you want a shot on catching a ling or cabie, you have to wait a bit longer for the fly to reach near the bottom before you start your retrieve.  One technique to reduce casting is, once you strip your line in and you come to the fast sink tip portion (usually 30'), you can just start stacking your fly line back into the water and as you drift, the line will straighten out and likely be near the bottom.

The ocean was like a like a lake!

     We used the same flies as last time, all white with flashabou; works very well.  My friend, Dave, fly fished with a 9-ft., 6 wt fly rod using a 300 gr Airflo Depth finder and easily held his own on hooking up.  But if you have a 7, 8, or even a 9 wt fly rod, I would go a little heavier.  A short, 20 lb test leader, four feet long works great.  It also allows you to handline the fish into the boat easily.  But you should have a larger, salmon size net just in case you hook a big ling or cabezon!  I actually experimented with a steel leader attaching a Mustad quick connect to change flies instantly.  The leader worked great but eventually the end became kinked but that didn't stop the fish from grabbing the fly.

     I spend a lot of time researching the marine forecast.  No one likes to fish in a rough ocean or waste a trip over only to find you can't get out and you certainly don't want to miss a good ocean.  I like to use several websites and apps.  www.weather.gov/portland gives you the NOAA forecast.  Type in the location in the upper left hand corner.  Then scroll down to the little map and click a spot offshore from the destination you chose.  You should get a forecast on marine conditions but it only gives you about 4-5 days out.  This forecast is typically on the aggressive side.  Another one I really prefer is Windy.com.  Get the Premium subscription.  This will give you 10 days out on the marine and weather forecast.  I also use tides4fishing.com and the app called NAUTIDE.  These have many tools to use for ocean conditions and fishing.

     As calm as it was this last week, I wouldn't have hesitated to take out a 14-foot boat.  But also keep in mind that Depoe Bay is very popular with the kayakers, although I don't know how feasible it is to fly fish from one in the ocean.  Just make sure you a have marine radio which is required for exiting and entering the harbor!

Hope you give this fishery a shot, it's a blast!

Best wishes on your fly fish pursuit!
Joe

    

     It's always a crap shoot on what the ocean is going to bring you in the way of weather.  As I began to monitor the marine conditions, I finally see an open window and hope it will be close to accurate!  I anxiously ring up Tracy Peterson from Hareline to tell him, "now is the time"!  This is the first trip of the season to take the Josie Mae over to Depoe Bay and start the season, only this time with the fly rods!  I've waited a long time for this and having fly fished many times in other locations on the coast, I would finally fly fish in my own boat!
     Nature has a way of telling you that you that a good day is before you.  As we cleared the Depoe Bay rocky gateway, a young grey whale gently porpoised off the starboard side only a few boat lengths away.  Very gracefully as if to say, "you're gonna have a great day boys!"  First thing in order is dropping off the crab pots.  With fresh shad for bait that was caught only a week prior (see shad fly fishing post),  we scatter four pots at various depths.  Now it's time to find the sea bass and whatever else lurks from the reefs!
     I've been fishing out of Depoe Bay since about 2000, rarely missing a season whether it was for rockfish, salmon, halibut or tuna fishing.  Most of these trips were with my father, Jim.  But one fateful day, he didn't come back from the ocean.  In September of 2017 his boat capsized and he and his fishin buddy did not make it.  I was fortunate to have fished with him only 3 days before the accident.  I learned many tactics and techniques from my dad and have been blessed to continue catching!  I didn't miss a lick on going back to Depoe after my father passed away.  I bought my own boat the next year and kept fishing ever since.  The first few years I continued taking out guys who regular fished with my dad and we recalled the good o'l days, fishin with Jim!  It was also with my dad on his boat out of Charleston, OR, many years ago, that I caught my first black rockfish and lingcod while fly fishing.  He and my uncle couldn't believe how fast I out fished them!  Frankly, I was rather surprised myself.  Fly fishing can be very deadly!
     There are basically two options for fly fishing the Oregon/Washington coast.  From a jetty or from a boat.  I've done my fair share fly fishing off of jetties and it's not for me.  Kudos to those of you who are good at it, but quite frankly, I find it a hazard.  The boat fly fishing is my game.  The key to fly fishing from a boat off the Oregon coast is knowing the reefs and shoreline paying close attention to the depth.  Fishing with gear first is a good way to learn locations.  Next is picking a day or days when the marine conditions are calm enough to cast and fish with a fly rod.  If the drift is too fast, forget it!  Yes, you can strip out fly line without casting, and let the drift take it down to the fish as long as the sea bass are in a big area, otherwise you might lose out on drifting past them before the fly has a chance to reach them.

     I always take two rods, one with a 400-490 gr sink head connected to an int. sink line such as the Airflo Depth Finder and Sniper and the other rod with a floater or int. sink line just in case the fish are on top!  Other comparable sinking fly lines are the Teeny T-series, Cortland Compact and the Orvis Depth Charge.  I like to use an 8-wt fly rod, in glass of course, but rod weight really depends on how heavy your fly line is.  My rod can easily cast 300-490 gr, so this gives me a lot of leeway on making sure I can reach the fish.   Leaders should be stout!  I highly recommend at least 20 lb. tippet, 4-6 ft long.  I made the mistake of starting out with 15 lb and hooked into something very large, likely a ling or cabie, and before I could get the boat moving, it broke me off.  Wire might not be bad idea either if you're in ling or cabezon territory.  Another trick we used to make sure our flies sank quickly was adding a 1/8 oz tungest sliding bullet on the leader.  No doubt this makes for some serious, "chuck n duck" casting.  Bring a hard hat :)  Also you can use the Popvic's Jiggy Head, a tungsten cone on the fly or again let it slide on the leader.
     Flies don't have to be fancy, good types are oversized buggers (use rabbit or schlappen for the tail), Clouser minnows, basic streamers that imitate an anchovy or sea lance, rabbit strung flies, like or close to a Dolly Lama, on size 1/0 to 4/0 hooks.  White or pink flies seem to draw a lot of strikes and are usually my first pick for a pattern.  A fair amount of flash on the fly is always good too!  Be sure to throw in a few poppers (pink n white or blue n white) just in case the blacks are on top!

     Good electronics is your best friend when hunting for fish and saves time!  The weather can change instantly, so the sooner you get on fish, the better!  The primary candidate is the black rockfish or sea bass, which are found in many locations and depths.  A suspended school is what you hope for.  For example, if you're in 40 feet of water, hopefully the rock fish are in the first 15 feet of the water column.
     If you allow your fly to sink close to the bottom, you stand an excellent chance of hooking up to lings, cabezon, greenlings and other species of rock fish.  Earlier I mentioned fishing next to rock shorelines, which, can attract many fish especially if there is kelp and sometimes never get touched by anglers.  But beware of ocean conditions and make sure you have two motors!  Keep a respectable distance, getting slammed against the rocks is a high risk!
     Last but not least, is the harvest!  All of these fish are delicious and I love sea bass tacos!  There are no size limits on the blacks but you can be selective, I would toss back any bass under 15-16 inches.

     And in case you are wondering what that green fly rod is that I am holding in the top image, it is a custom built fiberglass 8 weight on a Gary Loomis Northfork blank built by George Krum.  It rocks!

Good fishing in your fly fish pursuits!
Joe

     Earlier this year, a fly fishing partner introduced to a native trout quest called, Western Native Trout Challenge, westernnativetroutchallenge.org/.  WNTC is a multi-state program hosted by the Western Native Trout Initiative.  The ultimate goal is 21 native trout species from 12 states!  There are three level of achievement, Expert Caster, Advanced Caster, and Master Caster.  The Expert Caster can be repeated numerous times.

If you have photos of western native trout you have caught before you sign up, the catch can still be applied to your application as long as it is after 1997.  Fortunately, I had four species I could use and added two more to complete Expert Caster fairly quickly.  The above image shows my catch of species and state.  The cost is $25.  Upon completion of the first stage, you earn a nice ball cap, the above certificate and a nice colored decal that says, "I love native trout" with a beautiful colored trout illustration.  Being retired, this program gives me a very interesting opportunity to sort of collect these native trout species over a wide variety of landscapes and environments.  Besides this program there are also quite a number of trout slams across the west from many state fish and game departments.  California has a very impressive program called the Heritage Trout Challenge.

There are no time limits to complete the program.  I believe these native trout challenges are a great way to impress upon outdoor seekers and anglers the importance of native trout conservation. 

For more information, there are some very exciting and interesting You Tube videos on the WNTC.  Check it out!

Best wishes on your native trout fly fish pursuit!
Joe

     Here they come!  As of yesterday, the total count is 2.3 million!  The daily count for June 19th was 121,285 shad.  Will the run reach 4 million, or 6 million or  a new high of 7 million?  Your guess is as good as mine but one thing is for certain, you can't beat the action with a fly rod!  I took my 11 year old grandson out last Thurs and this is his favorite time of year.  You know how kids are, if it's not happening, they get bored pretty fast, but with shad, that is definitely not the case!

     I'm in my usual place on the lower end of the shad rack below Bonneville Dam anchored in 6.5-8.5 feet.  This is great time to use the fiberglass fly rods, 8 wts.  The Airflo Depth finders in 300 and 400 grains work perfect.  The 400 only goes out about 5 pulls on the color change and the 300 gets 10 pulls.  The usual fly is my own, Sunshine Shad fly, tied with hot yellow glass beads!

     From the boat, it's just a matter of setting the lines behind the stern and wait for the grab or you can jig the line to entice strikes too.  Swinging the fly towards the shore will catch fish, especially in the evening.  Catching shad is a lot of fun and especially for people who are new to fly fishing, or new coming anglers and kids love it!

The shad run is good at least till the end of June or when the run starts to taper off at about 75K per day.  Otherwise, you can chase them up the Columbia and on to the Snake River below each dam!

Best wishes in your fly fish pursuit!
Joe

     I am especially blessed to have crossed the finish line and into RETIREMENT!  My immediate plan was spending the first 10 days of it on Rufus Woods Reservoir on the Columbia River below Grand Coulee Dam.  In short, it was epic!  I easily caught well over 200 rainbow trout of mixed types; wild, typical diploid hatchery, and pig, triploids!  I have been fly fishing here, on and off for over 28 years and it remains to be my most favorite water to fly fish in the Pacific Northwest.  Rufus Woods offers exciting streamer  and stillwater fly fishing!

     As usual, streamers were very effective in most places.  I enjoy drifting out from the shoreline and using the bow mount electric motor to control the drift while casting towards shore and striping back to the boat.  My preferred line is a 300 gr Airflo on a glass 8 wt.  My fly choice is a weighted black bugger or an olive crayfish, sizes 4-2.  Many times you can pull fish up from a 20-ft bottom, the trout are super aggressive!
     Nespelem bay held its usual swarm of hatchery rainbows, often grazing on the midge hatches.  Literally hundreds of trout gather here to feed.  The bay is the most popular spot on the reservoir for other fly fishers using float tubes, pontoon and small car topper boats as you can launch from the beach (so long as your vessel has no motor).  Most fly anglers resort to bobber fishing using their favorite chironomid pattern.  Red is a very effective color and a black balanced leech will draw strikes too.  However, I prefer a clear intermediate sinking line with a #10 black beadhead bugger/leech or a balanced leech, which is deadly too.  A florescent orange bead on a black body is my favorite.   Four, five and six weights rods are common for this.  The fly fishing experienced in Nespelem bay is also common on many parts of the reservoir, you just have to hunt for them and likely, you will be the only one fishing it.  Nespelem bay is a "huge" back eddie.  Back eddies gather significant midge hatches.  It is not uncommon to see rising trout over 30-50 feet of water.  The fish are in the top 8 feet of the water column.  It's pretty impressive.
     Though the lunker rainbows (both non triploid and triploid) often move to different locations, it is no secret that the double digit triploids tend to keep close to the net pens to continue feeding on trout pellets that fall out.  Three net pen groups are used by Pacific Aquaculture to rear the triploid rainbows, which, are actually all female steelhead.  I was told years ago that the pens had a bottom or diaper to collect all the waste and non-eaten food (therefore the pellets couldn't escape).  However, pellets still manage to fall out and as a result, many planted trout tend to congregate near the pens.  It's not my favorite place to fly fish but you'd be surprised how many hold over planters, 10-20 lbs, are hanging out there waiting for free meals, lol.  If you like eating fish, the triploid rainbows are excellent table fare.  They are especially delicious when smoked!  Just saying.

     Different species abound in the reservoir such as smallmouth bass, walleye, pike minnow, brown trout and brook trout.   On this trip, I caught my second brook trout ever since fly fishing here in 1995.  Simply put, not too many brookies around.  I've also caught browns too and know of others that have been caught.  I have not caught any monster browns (yet), mainly 15-20 inches but I do know of plus 24 inchers that have been caught.  Hopefully the hatchery trout rule will protect these fish for a chance to grow BIG!  The hatchery trout rule means that only trout with a clipped adipose fin may be kept.
     Incidentally while fly fishing for the trout you stand a good chance of catching a walleye, smallmouth bass or large pike minnow.  I don't release these fish for reasons of preserving the trout populations.  There are natural spawning rainbows in Rufus Woods and my hope is they become more prolific in the total trout population.  The walleye and smallies are excellent table fare.  Can't go wrong with fried breaded fillets.  The pike minnow become eagle food.  One of the recent changes in the angling regulations is that the limits on walleye and smallmouth have disappeared!  Hopefully this is a good sign that the tribe and state are managing towards a much healthier trout population.  Let's hope so!

     The best way to explore and fly fish Rufus Woods is in a motor boat.  The upper fourth of the reservoir from Timm Brothers Farm to Grand Coulee Dam (only to the HWY 155 bridge in a boat) is the best water for a fly rod hands down.  Make good use of maps because there are plenty of other places to launch small inflatable crafts.  It may take a few times to become dialed in, but the dividends are well worth the time and effort!

Best wishes in your fly fish pursuit!
Joe

  The smallmouth bass started out with a reasonable bite by the end of April with a few streaks of warm weather to so spur things on.  The shores and side ponds of the Columbia River between Bonneville and McNary Dams started well and continue to produce great bass fishing.  Most of all, popper fishing is in tall order and raising big bass is definitely probable.  I noticed the weeds are choking some areas but no worries, look for the open pockets (even as small as a bathtub) and cast to it.  Right now, intermediate sink and floating lines are the ticket as bass continue to feed near shore and are spawning.  Fly choice is pretty simple, anything white or black does the trick.  If your fly mimics a 2-4 inch bait fish or crayfish, it will produce too.  I'm a big popper fan myself, so, I tend to fish on top most of the time.  Killer popper time is the first 1 1/2 hrs of daylight and the end of daylight!  I don't think popper color is a big deal, but I like, red/white, green/yellow, and black/yellow.  the popper body is just about the size of an acorn or slightly larger.

I prefer fly fishing from a boat but there are plenty of side sloughs and ponds along hwy 14 on the WA side and I-84 on the OR side.  Float tubes provide a lot of versatility to get into tight places.  Bass fishing should be good through most of the summer and the bite will become crazy again when the juvenile shad begin their out-migration.

Wishing the best in your fly fish pursuits,
Joe

I suspect both places can only improve as the weather and water temps start to raise.  On the Fall River, I was quite surprised how strong the BW hatch came off along with an odd caddis now and again.  The fish responded well as the bugs came out which made for some decent dry fly action.

I hope you are finding some good water to fish in between the wet and cold fronts moving through.  As for me, the next fly fish pursuit is Pyramid Lake in two days and I hope the weather is more on the crappy side than nice!  Stay tuned!

Tight lines in your fly fish pursuits!
Joe

1/16/2023

    With a break in the cold blustery weather, it was time to go see what was happening on Lake Billy Chinook.  Fly fishing friend, BG Eilertson, joined me for my first fly fishing trip this year to go hunt for bull trout.  Since the Metolious arm is closed, that leaves either the Crooked or Deschutes arms open to fish.  We chose the Deschutes side.  Not much happened below the bridge crossing, so we picked up and headed upstream to the narrows.  It did not take long to find grabs.  The upper reach has always produced browns in the winter, but mostly smaller ones in the 12-14 range.  However, the bull trout venture in and out and at times you might catch a decent pack.  We managed only a few as seen in the photo above.  A couple of rainbows also came to the net as well.  I suppose one could say that BG and I caught the LBC trout slam!
     Streamers worked very well on the small side like 2-2 1/2" long in olive and white, although my largest brown did grab a 4" streamer.  We used about a 250 gr sinking head on intermediate running line casting with 7 weight rods.
     It was nice day to get out of the house, catch a few fish and think about the next trip to find the big bulls!

Tight lines in your fly fishing pursuits!
Joe

Wow!  First question I have for the author is, how long did it take to write this book?  On the back cover it says, ". . .most comprehensive book ever written for the top water lure maker."  That's an understatement, lol. Mr. Schweitzer did not miss ANY detail on this subject !  I just happen to come across this book in Amazon and when I saw it, I just had to get one to check it out.  No disappointments at all!

305 pages, softcover spiral bound (very cool) and the photography is top notch!  Eight sections of information from cork to foam, markers to paint, glues to resins, eyes, and tons more.  There's even a page of the author's recommendation of "Best" products he prefers himself.  He makes very good use of charts and diagrams, especially color charts for paints!  There are 17 topwater patterns with complete step by step photos to duplicate.  How about tying a "Harvey Wallbanger"? :)  He also included a half dozen fly tyers with an "Artisan Galleries" showing their popular patterns from guys like Pat Cohen and Kirk Dietrich.

For me, this book is a slice of heaven simply because it has helped me over come my frustrations with important details like painting, body patterns, adding eyes, final finishes, etc.  I like to play with wine and lab corks and lathe them to different shapes.  I know, this is very time consuming but it's fun to start from scratch!  Also, this book is not about creating just a common everyday popper.  There is a plethora of top water types, which, even includes tying with craft sheet foam with an example of a foam hopper!

Folks, you're not even going to come close to finding all this information and technique on Youtube.  I HIGHLY recommend this book!  This fantastic work of penmanship and photography makes it the best fly tying book I have ever seen!

Suggested retail, $44.95 (worth every penny)
Available asap on Amazon

Please note:  I am not endorsed by any means by the author or a retailer for this review.  I purchased the book and the review is strictly my opinion.  Thanks for reading!

These are just a few of some of my own creations.  The book really opens up a fly tyer's creativity.  I didn't realize there was so much one could do to create a top water fly!

Tight lines in your fly fish pursuit!
Joe