Finishing the day strong

[eat, sleep, fish]

For all the time I've spent fishing in Southern Oregon, I haven't once fished any part of the Umpqua River. It's been on the to-do list, but I've just never ventured north over the Sexton Pass. When the opportunity presented itself this past Tuesday for winter steelhead I couldn't pass it up.

We fished with guide Ben Banson of Fishin Oregon Guide Service, and the day started off super slow. We weren't finding anything but trout, and we still hadn't touched a winter steelhead by the time we started getting close to the take out. Ben made a quick call to find out where the fish were, so we loaded up the boat and booked it up stream.

It didn't take us long to find the fish after the move. The first one fell to a new Lindy River Rocker plug...



By the time we landed it the one other boat had cleared out, so we ran to the top of the run to start side drifting. First pass resulted in this...



Second pass resulted in this...



2 fish in 2 passes and three fish in less than an hour. The long fishless morning was completely forgotten, as it was nothing but high fives and smiles after that. Soon after landing the third fish the afternoon crowd showed up so we called it a day.

 

[RunWithSasquatch]

Pretty fish!

 

[nwkiller]

nice job man, way to locate them!

 

[Johnny Southpaw]

Man those are beautiful fish. Pure beauty. Wow.

 

[Santiam338]

Great pics of awesome fish are as good as keeping them in my book...Pictures last forever..

 

[rogerdodger]

those are some nice 'grab and grin' pics....

 

[Raincatcher]

Dang it! Now I'm drooling...nice job,guys! :clap::clap:

 

[steelhead_stalkers]

Nice! Where you guys fishing the south?

 

[eat, sleep, fish]

Nice! Where you guys fishing the south?

Yep.

 

[JeannaJigs]

Those are some beauties.

 

[Thuggin4Life]

Nice fish! Glad to see those endangered wild steelhead make an apperance every once in awhile.

 

[rogerdodger]

Nice fish! Glad to see those endangered wild steelhead make an apperance every once in awhile.

exactly, ESF and his crew went 3-for-3 with native fish, which caused me to wonder if this is normal for that river, so I started a new thread under the Umpqua heading to ask about native/hatchery situation (I was trying not to hijack this thread....)

 

[JeannaJigs]

It's normal. Nates are more common than hatchery fish due to poor hatchery management.

 

[rogerdodger]

Nice fish! Glad to see those endangered wild steelhead make an apperance every once in awhile.

Jigs: It's normal. Nates are more common than hatchery fish due to poor hatchery management

so I guess putting together the comments, it sounds like the Umpqua isn't so good for Steelhead....bummer.

 

[rippin fish lips]

Gotta love those "slow" days!! Nice catch guys

 

[Team CF]

Umpqua is a great river just does not have a lot of hatchery fish. This is due to a couple things.

1. The South Umpqua has a strong run of wildfish with 1 small hatchery. Hatchery fish are terrible. They are only there for the angler and 10/10 biologist and everyone else should want to keep a pure wild stock in the system.

2. It is the longest undammed system in Oregon. Not really a huge deal but with a dam usually comes a hatchery.

Hatchery fish are great for us but can have a lot of problems nobody thinks about.

 

[troutdude]

Nice! Those are some of the mintiest chrome I've laid my peepers on!!!