So I went out to the Wilson on Sat and needless to say it was a GORGEOUS day out. This was my first time on the Wilson and I have to say I'm surprised that more people (that i know IRL) don't mention it and it's really not that far away. It's ideal for fly fishing, at least right now it's really more of a stream than a river. I got to test out my new Tenkara rod and this was the perfect place for it. I got a 13 foot rod with a 15 foot line (+2 feet of tippet) and there wasn't any area I couldn't reach and I hardly had to wade at all.
I started off at the Smith Homestead Day Use area at around 1 pm and found a couple of holes right in front of the steps. The VERY first cast out, I got an immediate hit, but it was such a small trout, I didn't even realize he was still on the hook, so I was casting while he was still attached until I noticed, "Hey, there's a fish on the end of my line!". I'm sure the poor little guy was traumatized for life!" :shock: After about 2 hours, 50+ strikes and landing 10 trout (all less than 6 inches and of course releasing all of them), I decided to look for this "blackjack hole" on the map so kindly provided by Jay.
So I drove down a bit and after I saw mile marker 21, I found a pullout and walked down to the river after crossing a large field of river rocks. I fished the river for about a mile, going downstream and kept catching little guys. Finally, after returning to my starting spot, I went upstream a little ways and found a little shallow riffle area under some trees. Didn't think it would hold any larger trout, but I was wrong! Within a minute, I caught a nice 9 inch cutthroat, then followed 2 min later by a 10 inch rainbow. I guess with the water that clear, the big ones seek out shelter in riffle water. Then a little further up, I found a deeper hole which was just ahead of some creek that was flowing into the river. And wow, were there a lot of fish in there. Mostly little ones, but I got a couple of 8-10 inchers. And seriously, like 9 out of 10 casts resulted in a strike. It almost made me wonder if I should got to a larger fly just to avoid the little ones. But nah, I was having a blast catching the little ones. On a Tenkara rod, the ones bigger than 6 inches actually put a pretty decent fight! And you feel EVERY little bite, even from the 2 inch fry.
So I was out there for about 5 hours and I had well over 100 strikes. I landed like 20, out of which 5 were in the 8-10 inch range. (I lost so many going barbless for the day). Released all of them. Figured I just taught all those fish a good lesson and make them tougher to catch in the future. :lol: For those of you who haven't tried a Tenkara rod, I HIGHLY recommend it. If you do a Google search, you'll find this guy who imports them from Japan and sells them for a really reasonable price of something like $85 or something. I had been frustrated for the last month not being able to catch any steelhead in the Deschutes, but sometimes a bunch of little guys can totally make your day!
Will definitely be out there again, especially when the water levels pick up. I'm making note of the currently dry areas which will be under water soon and figuring out where the fish will be. There's a large uprooted tree right where I was fishing and I think that will be a PRIME spot for the big ones this fall. Looking forward to getting back out there and checking out more spots. Not sure how this river has steelhead. Where are they hiding?? The river is so small!
