A rough start

Friday marks the beginning of my hunt for a  winter steelhead on the fly. I went once before last year but i did not know jack about fly fishing, it was the beginning of my fly angling career..reading the water was something i was just learning that day, my casts were terrible and i got snagged in multiple trees.But now i am back for revenge on that little coast range river. unfortunately it will be a rough day chasing winter steel, The water is cold,low and clear..the average rainfall for the area is 5 inches in december. we have had less then an inch or around that. Thats is the river and the fish basically giving me the middle finger saying you can't catch me..but im always up for a challenge.. thats why they call it fishing and not catching.  it's game time. back with a report and pictures  anywhere from friday-monday




B.Hill

stuck in the house...old report

I'm stuck in the house, broke looking for a job right now so i guess i will post a bunch of pics from late spring and summer on the upper end of my favorite stream


So first, July 2011 

My friend andrew came down from the portland area to come fly fish for trout in the coast range , we did a 2 mile hike to reach our fishing spot.we packed in waders,food,boots etc..heavy load to say the least. We stopped at the top of a small steep trail through some poison oak and suited up and rigged our rods, we both went straight to nymph rigs, i tied on my favorite fly, the possie bugger with a bead head prince on the dropper. We headed down to the water and within 30 seconds i landed a nice 10 inch cutthroat..the rest of the day was Pretty much the same story, Every good riffle had some nice cutthroat. The last fish of the day was caught by  me, a very bulky and hard fighting cutthroat..around 16 inches. We ended the day with 27 caught and plenty missed and a few that came unbuttoned, andrew even missed the same nice cuttie (13-14 inches) 4 times before keeping the hook in him! what a day it was. here are some pictures..enjoy!!

sorry for the blurry pictures

           




-Brandon

OUCH!!

well..we fished the mckenzie river  yesterday and it was a painful skunk..The temp  stayed aroudn 28-30 degrees the entire trip and the fog never lifited off the river... had one strike,felt the pressure then gone.. now i have that bitter taste in my mouth after months of  no skunks on rivers... taking a break for a week or so from  hoping for  a job  so i can support my addiction (fly fishing)  ill upload  a video i took of myself nymphing a run at armitage park  thats about all i have..besides frozen toes and leaky waders!








BH

season ender?

friday and saturday marked the end of my season chasing lake dwelling cutthroat in the coast range. I went twice last week, once on friday with my friend noah out of kayaks and once on saturday with mmy friend brad out of the float tube. both were fun trips and  nobnody  was skunked either.  the first day noah caught 7 fish on bait and i caught 4, 1 on a soft hackle and 3 on dry flies. We even went up the mouth of the creek then shot down the current witch was a blast. Saturday we arrived early and fished a few hours before the civil war (ducks Vs beavers)   we both missed several fish throughout the trip but each managed a nice fish before leaving. ill put a picture up for now  to hold everyone over

14 inch dry fly cutthroat caught while casting to rising fish

darn rain!

Well .. the rain has been  dumping on the rivers  lately and it is not looking good, most rivers are bown with a few still fishable,  After the rain stops it marks the beginning of winter steelhead season, several fish have returned to the north fork nehalem and nestucca rivers. After the water levels start to drop it will be prime time for steelhead.  the first two weeks of december  will be good as long as the rains hold back. Most early returning fish are hatchery steelhead  so rivers that generally get a good hatchery run would be a better bet. 3 rivers, a tributary of the nestucca  can be a good bet early in the season , though the hatchery hole can be crowded by flossers and snaggers  there are several good holes and pull outs along the road before you reach the split at the tackle shop and hwy 101.  best bets for fly fisherman in this area would be nymphing a size 6 egg pattern under a strike indicator or drifting the egg pattern with a split shot and no indicator.  when water levels are higher using brightly colored  marabou flies or leeches  could nab a fish or two.  Good luck out there!   possibly tomorrow and the next day i will be fishing aaron mercer reservoir for cutthroat while waiting for the rivers to drop,so expect  my first winter steelhead report within two weeks.

winter steelhead  fishing three rivers 2010

Brandon

coastal trout event 2011

my first stillwater cutthroat on my micro sparkle leech

dry fly cutthroat upper 30's weather middle of november oh yeah

nathan's dry fly cuttie

nathan's landlocked coho

the reservoir

brad arrived late and caught this coho on his spinning gear

Yesterday  was the first annual oregon fishing forum  trout event  in the coast range,  quite a few people dropped out at the last second leaving a very small group of anglers but it was still a great time with alot of suprises. We arrived quite early so we had time to fish (gate opens at 7am closes 4pm) we arrived around 8am i believe,  started to unpack and chat a little then finally got on the water,  there was frost on alot of the downed timber in the area and you could see snow on the hills surrounding us, i figured the fish would be lethargic and less active today  so i threw on a thingamabobber , set it at 6 ft and  tied on a micro sparkle leech in size 14  to search for the fish.  after a few minutes casting around nobody had yet  caught a fish until out of the corner of my eye, the bobber went down i set the hook and stripped line  to keep pressure on the fish then netted it, this was my first stillwater  cutthroat so we got a pic then released it. After that things only got better as the clouds cleared and it started to warm,  i had missed several bites   and could not seem to get a hookup. my friend nathan managed a fish while i struggled, he caught a landlocked coho on a black zebra midge and further down the lake chris caught a coho on his spinning gear.  i had missed even more bites then drew landed a nice landlocked coho on his custom black bugger,  then the bite seemed to die for a short amount of time then a hatch occured as drew left further down lake and decided to bank fish...   small black looking stoneflies..  i did not know what they were.. they just looked like stoneflies based on length of the body, the way the wings lay back etc. But the fish were eating them ,small black midges,brown midges and some water spiders..a smorgasboard of bugs for the fish.There were so many fish rising it was unbelieveable. We threw on dries like the griffith's gnat but no success, then nathan threw on a small dry, (ive never saw what it was ) then i decided to go just under the surface with a royal soft hackle i came up with.  we both casted and i hooked one that snapped me off and nathan caught a nice cutthroat on a dry!!  that got us really excited. It was at  that moment i remembered what i heard about dry fly fishing a lake on a brian chan internet radio thing, very shrot trips of line slowly to make a v wake like a bug skittering.  I tied on a size 16 BWO cripple  and casted, fished it for a mintue then a fish decided to smash thefly hard. I set the hook and managed to hook this one and get a picture. we continued to cast dries for another 10 minutes, i landed another one and hooked a fat fish (approx 16-18 inches)  and a smaller one on the same cast!  after a while the hatch died, the weather cooled off and the fish activity was gone. We decided to pack up and call it a day and head out.

some stillwater action




the reservoir

 



a landlocked coho salmon that fell for my micro sparkle leech

 



one of brads cutthroat he caught while gear fishing

  yesterday i came home from the lake, this time not frustrated and not skunked. It started out in the morning   at the gravel boat launch  and  it was the first time me and my buddy brad were going to float around the reservoir. I was using a float tube and him, a pontoon. We launched off   headed to the upper end of the reservoir and trolled alogn the way. i was trolling a heavily weighted black krystal bugger he used a different fly and his gear rod we trolled all the way there  only to have one bite .  we floated around i casting flies,him using his lures..for what seemed like  4 hours  without any hits action started heating up for brad. He caught and released several nice sized cutthroat  while i was still getting skunked, i started to get frustrated and decided to try something new. I tied on a thingamabobber strike indicator and set it a 7 ft.  then i tied on  a fly i came up with, a micro sparkle leech size  12. First cast within seconds i had a fish take my fly, i set the hook  and my line was tight...yes! i thought to ymself as the fish tugged and tried to escape.. i netted the fish  (approx 11 1/2 inches)  and realized it wasn't a trout, but a landlocked coho salmon  result of  outgoing offspring of trucked in adults from the creek that decided to call the reservoir their home and the creek above, their spawning grounds. Anyways, we got a picture  and i released the fish only to get a bite the very next cast, i had several bites that were  missed while brad was still catching a few on his spinning setup. after a while of taking a lunch break and re rigging with a smaller micro leech (size 14)  i casted to a rising fish and hooked up, this one slightly smaller then the other but still  put up a fight.  After that fish it died off  pretty quick and the time neared 3pm. we headed back to the ramp and called it a day, one without a skunk for me finally!  (i'm new to stillwater fly fishing)   it has a great day, now thta i partially have the fish figured out it hink i will have better luck saturday, but it's suppose to snow/rain up ther ein the hills so it will be tough!