As some of you know, I don’t tend to blog a lot about my actual fishing in “real time.” Fishing is often a rather personal affair for me, and I typically use fishing events to later enhance “how-to” pieces and so forth some time after the fact. This week, though, I wanted to do an abbreviated write up of some fishing I had a few days back, just after I attended the Metolius River Bamboo Fair in Camp Sherman, Oregon.

On the drive back to Portland area, I spent an afternoon and evening on the Warm Springs Reservation side of the Deschutes, fishing a handful of locations along a dozen miles of water. I had stopped in at the Deschutes River Camp to spend a few minutes talking casting and business with the Camp’s owner, Matt Paluch. The talk quickly turned to “let’s go fishing,” and with the warm, rainy afternoon, we figured the river might turn on early. Matt made a phone call and we were off.

The DRC shop, on a sunnier day.

The afternoon started fast and furious, with the fish already working strongly when we got to our first stop. Matt had pre-rigged for fishing deep with two different rods, including a Czech-Nymph set-up. I had rigged with a dry CDL Caddis and added a dropped soft-hackle at the suggestion of our guide. It proved to be a good combo literally from cast number one. I ended up getting into one of the best stretches of swung soft-hackle fishing that I have had in some time. Plump “redside” rainbows all around and it was “drift, swing, tug, jump, land, release, repeat.” That’s a sequence that I like! Several nicer fish came to the fly, mixed in with more modest trout, and then it seemed like it was all small fish, and then suddenly no fish—just like that.

CDL Caddis and Sparkle Soft Hackle, still linked together, from this week’s Deschutes evening outing.

The time had gone very fast, and although I had lost my fair share of fish either on the take or the fight, I hadn’t lost a fly. Both the caddis and soft hackle still had their points, too, so I left them rigged, reeled up, and got ready to head to the next spot. Matt, meanwhile, had been fishing a huge, almost unnervingly strong, reverse current maybe 75 yards downstream of me, and had a several nice fish to hand, but not the numbers I had managed to find above. Neither of us was disappointed, though, and we strapped the rods to his rig and followed our guide back onto the main road and then further upstream.

With the rain continuing, we moved to a few other locations in quick succession, finding a few small fish, but not what were looking for. The rain continued to ebb and flow from leaden skies as we headed to a final spot for the evening. It was higher on the river, and had a character that said “big fish.” It also reminded me of certain areas of New Zealand, with it’s compact, complex water types and the sprays of long grasses and dripping, water-kissing trees.

As we dropped over the hillside to find the entry point, our last location also brought with it the unmistakable smells of the Oregon desert, with the fragrance of juniper and sage wafting through the evening air. As we descended and dropped into the river, the smells of the desert were replaced by the cooling scent of water. Dancing silver highlights mixed with the blue-black depths below us as we crossed the head of a run and sloshed into a shallow area on the near side of an island.

The water in front of us was complex, textured and fishy. The run we had crossed poured in along what was now the far bank, bordered on the near side by a shallower riffle which framed a skinny little flat that dropped into a deep, dark pool whose currents moved with real purpose. Below was a tightened throat that held another swift run along with a deeper, narrow riffle that rushed along beside. A lone boulder wedged apart the current of the upper run, leaving a choppy slick that melded into the pool. It was not an ordinary piece of water.

A few exploratory casts across the shallows made sure that we didn’t miss any unexpected fish, and then Matt and I set ourselves up for more a serious approach. He took the high end of the run and I worked the boulder and drop-off. Matt was quickly into a fish, a very plump redside that ran into the upper teens in length. I looked to congratulate him, and as I began to turn back to my own swing, the line went heavily tight. I set, even though the fish was already hooked, and the trout jumped. It was easily the biggest of the day for me, with heavy shoulders and a deep, purplish stripe.

The fish dogged hard and then ran with the current, aiming for some sticks and low-hanging branches on the swift, far side of the pool. I inverted the rod and pulled hard back, ultimately winning that move, and then the fish slid toward me in the pool. Thinking that I might be able to hold the fish there and work him at close range, I began to alternate side-pressure angles, hoping to tire him in the currents before trying to get him into range. The fish humored me for a bit and then bolted down into the throat below. It was decision time.

I had never waded this section of river and with the light the way it was, I couldn’t see how deep the water really was along the near bank. It looked wadeable, but I also didn’t want to find out the hard way. I decided to get as close to the lip of the pool as I could and use shallow-angled side-pressure to work the fish back up. I never like trying to pull a big fish upstream, but I had committed at that point.

I got the fish closer more quickly than I expected, and saw the rainbow turn in the current. It was bigger than I first thought—maybe 20 inches. I started setting up a current break below me where I could get a hand on the fish more easily. Then, the fish turned one more time, and I tightened up the pressure in return. I had more of bend in the rod than I would have liked, and then suddenly I had slack. I was disappointed with the loss, but not surprised. The tippet, as it turned out, had held; it was instead the hook gap that had opened up. I was left with only a memory and story.

Matt and I fished for another hour on both sides of the island, getting into a number of smaller redsides, almost all of them on swung or skated flies. Neither of us made contact with another fish as big as the first two we had found, though, and as the sky began to turn pastel under the clouds, we decided to head for the truck.

As we aimed for the head of the run that first brought us fish, we were greeted a cool breeze wafting down from the cliffs above. It carried with it the rich smells of the high-desert, swirling with the scents of river and rock. With the rosy sky high overhead, it made for a perfect end to the day, a day marked by swung soft-hackles and rain on junipers.

End note: You may have noted a lack of pix later in this post. There’s a personal reason for that. For a long time—really seemingly every time when I went fishing—I had a camera with me, either still or video, or both. In the last few years, though, I’ve started to grow tired of that. Yes, I still love to take photos of fish and fishing, but I don’t like to do it every single time I wet a line. Sometimes, I like to just. go. fishing. So, on this last evening’s trip, I took seven frames, then switched the camera off, stuffed it into my vest and didn’t take it out again for the rest of the night. Want some more pix? How about if I paint you one or two instead? Stay tuned on that.