Deschutes rafting trip 5/20-5/24

M
Modest_Man
We left Friday around noon, camped out at Trout Creek. Put in early Saturday. Took out today around 3 at Sandy Beach. Rained hard Friday night, fairly pleasant the rest of the days with today being the nicest by far.

This was primarily a rafting trip, I just brought some fishing stuff along for the afternoons after camp was all set up and the rafting was done for the day to dink around on.

I managed my first fish ever on a fly rod (whoo hoo), a northern pikeminnow. Then I managed two more pikeminnow, all on a large nymph. Then the last night of the trip I managed two trout on large dry flies. I also caught about a dozen trout on spinners (I know, what a sin on the Deschutes; 92380469 fly fisherman and 1 spinner fisherman). The largest of which was probably 16" or so, average size of 10-12" with a few below and a few above. Photos of trout will have to wait until I get some photos back from others. My fiance managed 3 trout in 10 minutes (and a sucker) one morning on spinners to just show me how good she was. Everyone who fished managed some fish, though we didn't try that hard.

Talked with lots of fly fisherman (hundreds on the river this weekend into today); most said the same thing. River is cold, river is high, fishing isn't that great yet. Saw all of one fish caught while we floated past, and we floated past literally hundreds of fisherman.

Rapids were fun. Ran Whitehorse and Oak Springs without scouting (oops, river was fast and we made way better time than expected). Scouted Boxcar and had my worst run yet right into the hole but popped out just fine. No one flipped or even came close, the worst thing about the trip was the TICKS.

I also took plenty of bug photos for the hatch guys.

First of all, here's the cataraft loaded up -
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Here's everyone else - three cats and a raft -
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Camp the first (and second) evenings
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My $50 in flies from the Welch's fly shop. Fish caught on the lower left nymph and lower right dry.
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I need to work on my flyfisherman pose.
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My fiance's mom getting into the action. She landed a pikeminnow and lost another
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And some bugs.
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Reactions: OnTheFly
S
skunk
Cool report, used to float that river before I took up fishing. Good times.
 
R
RunWithSasquatch
Ticks are horrible creatures.

Awesome photos, fun area.


Side note, to bad all of these adds constantly make viewing photos a pain by taking up the page.
 
T
TTFishon
Great report dude!!! Looks like it was an awesome float!!!
 
B
bigsteel
very nice report
 
M
Modest_Man
Thanks, still waiting on some epic photos.
 
B
BankWalker
Very cool pictures. Sounds like a great camping/float trip. Good job getting into the fish wtih the fly rod.
 
M
Modest_Man
One of my trout-
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Can't believe I forgot my waders.
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Here we are going over Oak Springs
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Others in our group going over Oak Springs-
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Reactions: chris61182
L
lilsalmon
Excellent pics!!! There is TICKS there? I never seen one tick and I have been there a lot...great....now I am jinxed
 
T
Thuggin4Life
Great report man! NIce photos!
 
M
markasd
Looks like ya had a blast! Nice pics.
 
M
Modest_Man
Best 5 days I've had in a long while. I ended up picking off over 20 ticks (off of clothing and skin; didn't find any latched on). My fiance found 3-4, other people didn't find ANY. I don't know why I was the "chosen one". Probably because I camped in the grass and was trekking through it everyday fishing (really should have brought my waders...).
 
C
capblack
looks like you have your tune dialed in!! nice post
 
M
Modest_Man
Not quite yet. Next on the agenda are some higher oar stands. The ones I have now sit LOW so I can't get the oars much higher than parallel to the waves. I'd like to get them angled above the waves, as Oak Springs rapids about ripped the oars from my hands since I couldn't get them up enough to miss the waves. That's the reason why I'm leaning so far forward and right in the photo, the wave on the right popped my oar way behind me so the grip was up by the cooler. Not cool. Oar rights would be nice too. I'd also like to figure out a different storage system where I can mount gear behind me better. I need to make a shelf or something. Other than that frame was awesome.
 
O
OnTheFly
Man, I could tell you stories about Oak Springs.
 
brandon4455
brandon4455
OnTheFly said:
Man, I could tell you stories about Oak Springs.

save them for the campfire the night of june 3rd ;)
 

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