Oregon Biathlon

I volunteered to take Zane and three of his buddies up skiing today - although it's mid-April, they had another foot of snow yesterday and are still pushing a 200 inch base. This photo of the parking lot kind of says it all.



The biathlon consisted of me hopping back in the car and driving over to Maupin for a few hours on the Deschutes. Weather was in the 40's with high clouds, occasional sputters of rain and a few sun breaks. By around noon the swallows were racing up and down the river chasing the hatching mayflies. I parked at the bridge and walked upstream along the tracks until I found a really nice stretch of boulders and riffles.


I started with a brown Stonefly with a dropper - a funky little purple and black thing the guys at the Deschute's Angler set me up with. It wasn't long before I had my first take - a feisty 14 inch Whitey. Now you may scoff at a mere whitefish, but after a winter of chasing steelhead it was nice to know I could still coax something to take my fly.


As it started to warm up I started getting strikes when my fly was dangling in the current, so I switched to a combination of a Stonefly and a nymph that would better imitate an emerger. This was the ticket. I managed to bring a couple of small redsides (8-10 inch) to hand and lost a couple more. The only really big take snapped off my 6X tippet before I knew what hit me, so I switched to 5X.






The fish were really aggresive - the oddest take happened after I got a big tangly mess in my leader from the stonefly, dropper, and split shot all wrapping around each other into a bird's nest. When I realized I needed to switch leaders I just let the line dangle in the water while I waded to shore - on the way a 10 inch redside nailed the stonefly.

I started to see splashy rises but never had a chance to actually toss the March Brown dries I had, it was time to jump back in the car and drive back to Mt. Hood Meadows to get the boys. That was also an adventure, I hit a blizzard about 2/3 of the way back up to Hwy. 26. It was a great day, and the fishing was totally hot. Though the fish I caught can't compare in size to a 12 lb. spring chinook, there is nothing like a day on the D.