In town fishing-Bend

[fisherwilly]

I always see posts about being in Bend and wondering where to fish. If you just want to catch fish and are on a limited time schedule might I suggest the Deschutes in town. Most of the fish I catch are small rainbows, small browns, and medium to big whitefish. Pretty much any part of the river with current will hold fish. Most of the good places to fish are at least 30-60 minutes outside of Bend (Fall, Metolious, Lower Deschutes, Crane, Paulina, Wickiup...). If anybody thinks I am giving up there favorite places they can complain to the Bulletin about already writing this article. Even in sight of Highway 97 I can have the whole river to myself. The city limits of Bend have roughly 3 miles of the Deschutes to fish the way the crow flies (google earth measure tool). I took my brother to a park on the river and his first time fly fishing he caught 4 fish. All of them were 6-8", but he probably missed 30 strikes to his size 16 adams. In the summer it can be some pretty fun fishing. Even among the small rainbows I have heard stories of large browns and rainbows. I saw a 20+ inch brown in STS in a article called "Downtown Brown" and the guy was fishing by the Old Mill District. I think that Mirror Pond is stocked and you can use bait from the Colorado Street Bridge to the end of Mirror Pond. Anyways here are some pics from some fish I caught in town.

Fisherwilly

 

[Kais]

What about all of the private property down near la pine, because i rented a house there last year and caught nothing but some 3 incher. like , maybe two

 

[Kais]

Oh and

Oh and

not to mention striking out at lapine state park and Little D.

 

[TTFishon]

A couple of years ago I stayed at some Hotel in Bend and fished the section of river that flows in between the rooms and caught a bunch of bows all 8 to 10 inchers.

 

[skunk]

Try harder Just kidding, the D is loaded with trout almost the entire length. Some places have a higher concentration so you work less to catch fish, like any body of water. If you work the banks hard enough, you'll find them in there.

 

[bigsteel]

nice fish willy,i saw that sts article you mentioned about the old mill district..this year im gonna head that way and fish the upper D...ill let you know when i do

 

[fisherwilly]

I was just talking about fishing within the city limits Bend. Up higher you should try for the large browns. An upper D fishing mission would be sweet.

 

[steelhead_slayer]

i like fishing the town run when other places slow down. it's a place that can't handle much pressure though

 

[fisherwilly]

It is kind of hard to hide that there is fish in the river when you have a hundred people walk by and see you fishing. I mainly target the whitefish in town because I know they aren't targeted or kept very often. My new "whitefish candy" fly pattern variation caught more rainbows last time I went than whiteys. WTF? The main culprits for too much "pressure" are people keeping more than there 2 fish limit or using bait. I think there are plentiful fish in the 4-8" range and people don't usually keep them. An OSP officer never seem to be close enough when I call though.

 

[steelhead_slayer]

i never keep a fish from town. i like to know there out there getting bigger every year. not that i'm against keeping your limit