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SmallStreams
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Started out in French Creek. No fish seen despite the lovely pools. It's possible that we just didn't go upstream far enough, but since we didn't even see the juveniles zipping around the very clear pools, we moved on.
Humbug Creek doesn't look quite large enough to bother with (and realize this is said by the guy that likes small streams!). Maybe someone has a favorite hole on one of the forks?
Breitenbush River, characterized by deep narrow fast pools, between Humbug Creek & the Breitenbush community, it was full of spawning salmon. At one large wide pool with 5 salmon cavorting in it (and another 4 trying to clear the rapids below), they'd swirl around and then the biggest one would stick his head out of the water 6-12" to look around, standing on his tail! I've never seen a salmon intentionally breach the water before... it was like watching a whale breach.
In this stretch, my spinners were followed by a few 15-20" fish that flashed away before they had quite caught up to the lure. Getting curious, we climbed up and looked down in the pool to realize that I was being teased by three rare & endangered Bull Trout, confirmed by a passing young lady who was counting salmon. They're quite graceful, conserving energy in their movements, and lazily follow their prey.
Onward upstream... after we'd wasted time watching salmon. Above Breitenbush community, above the river forks, we finally found hatchery rainbows. Here the stream is dominated by riffles and fishing the riffles produced the four fat rainbows we kept (picture soon). Have to give credit to my fishing buddy for 3 of them, though I did get the first.
With an eye on the dark clouds approaching, we headed back down to the North Santiam, about 6 miles above the reservoir. Here the river is still a raging angry torrent, boiling over large boulders. We worked a deep pool and its margins for 45 minutes (I catching a fingerling) before the looming darkness chased us away. Not one drop of rain fell on us, but by the time we reached Idanha, the sprinkles began. And then the downpour all the way to Salem, where we reached the edge of the cloud, but then going up I-5, we found ourselves back under the heavy downpour at about Tigard.
Biggest lessons learned this trip:
1) Blue Fox spinners stand out nicely in the riffles. Roostertail blades keep hitting the rocks, though they didn't stop dead. Krockodile wobbler is happiest here, too, but see the next lesson.
2) When the little red plastic tag breaks off a Krockodile, the fish quit biting. When I stopped to change lures because I was suspiciously no longer getting any bites, my buddy went to the riffle I'd been working and immediately pulled out a keeper. Later I came back with a Blue Fox and hooked two undersized rainbows. Yup, that little bit of red is important!
3) If a large rainbow goes sideways in the current, don't try to horse him back to shore or else you'll pop the hook out of his mouth (doh!).
Humbug Creek doesn't look quite large enough to bother with (and realize this is said by the guy that likes small streams!). Maybe someone has a favorite hole on one of the forks?
Breitenbush River, characterized by deep narrow fast pools, between Humbug Creek & the Breitenbush community, it was full of spawning salmon. At one large wide pool with 5 salmon cavorting in it (and another 4 trying to clear the rapids below), they'd swirl around and then the biggest one would stick his head out of the water 6-12" to look around, standing on his tail! I've never seen a salmon intentionally breach the water before... it was like watching a whale breach.
In this stretch, my spinners were followed by a few 15-20" fish that flashed away before they had quite caught up to the lure. Getting curious, we climbed up and looked down in the pool to realize that I was being teased by three rare & endangered Bull Trout, confirmed by a passing young lady who was counting salmon. They're quite graceful, conserving energy in their movements, and lazily follow their prey.
Onward upstream... after we'd wasted time watching salmon. Above Breitenbush community, above the river forks, we finally found hatchery rainbows. Here the stream is dominated by riffles and fishing the riffles produced the four fat rainbows we kept (picture soon). Have to give credit to my fishing buddy for 3 of them, though I did get the first.
With an eye on the dark clouds approaching, we headed back down to the North Santiam, about 6 miles above the reservoir. Here the river is still a raging angry torrent, boiling over large boulders. We worked a deep pool and its margins for 45 minutes (I catching a fingerling) before the looming darkness chased us away. Not one drop of rain fell on us, but by the time we reached Idanha, the sprinkles began. And then the downpour all the way to Salem, where we reached the edge of the cloud, but then going up I-5, we found ourselves back under the heavy downpour at about Tigard.
Biggest lessons learned this trip:
1) Blue Fox spinners stand out nicely in the riffles. Roostertail blades keep hitting the rocks, though they didn't stop dead. Krockodile wobbler is happiest here, too, but see the next lesson.
2) When the little red plastic tag breaks off a Krockodile, the fish quit biting. When I stopped to change lures because I was suspiciously no longer getting any bites, my buddy went to the riffle I'd been working and immediately pulled out a keeper. Later I came back with a Blue Fox and hooked two undersized rainbows. Yup, that little bit of red is important!
3) If a large rainbow goes sideways in the current, don't try to horse him back to shore or else you'll pop the hook out of his mouth (doh!).
What I found was that the ODFW has at times released adult salmon into the river to see if they would spawn (they did!). A January 31, 2009 report on North Santiam salmon does indicates that there are not any naturally present salmon in the river. Perhaps they are running studies year on year to check on their spawning ability. However, as far as I can tell there is presently not any way (other than hand-carrying) for fish to get back and forth between the Breitenbush and the ocean). Hopefully this will some day be remedied!
