Day 1 and 2 of the Redband Hunt |
Day 1: Sunday June 24th 2007: My dad and I left Gig Harbor early in the morning with rainy weather that
would follow us all of the way into central Oregon. Normally when heading
to the Bend Oregon area we travel along US 26, but due to all of the traffic and
stop lights outside Portland we decided to take US 20 across the Cascades instead.
This ended up being a good move; it took a little longer, but there
was next to no traffic, and the scenery along the Santiam River was amazing.
Above: Rainy weather in the Willamette Valley near Albany Oregon. Below: Mt. Bachelor and Hosmer Lake. Our first stop for the trip was Hosmer Lake, which is about an hour southwest of Bend to target landlocked Atlantic salmon. The lake was beautiful, but the weather was cold and windy and the fish didn't appear too interested in biting. I tried nymphs, dries and streamers including some of my staple patterns for resident coho in the Puget Sound and only came out with two hits. Due to how cold it was already at 7:00PM and the dark clouds hanging out over the Cascades, we decided to cut our losses here and continue on toward the next species that I was going to target. From Hosmer Lake we headed southeast into the Fort Rock basin to target it's native redband trout. We arrived at the stream that according to my research had the best population right as the sun went down and set up camp for the night. Above: Fort Rock (Left); An average Fort Rock Basin Redband (Right). Day 2: Monday June 25th 2007: When I got up in the morning the thermometer on my car read 33ºF so I decided to scout out the creek until it heated up a little more. Once it warmed a little bit, I started fishing with size 12 Royal PMX and a size 18 black Copper John, which had proved to be a great double team set up during my trout hunting expeditions of 2006. I started at a good pool that I had noticed earlier in the morning. The pool had been carved out by a culvert where the road crossed the stream and seemed to hold a good amount of fish. It didn't take me long to catch my first Fort Rock Basin Redband, and while I fished both up and downstream of the road the most productive spot was the culvert pool. The fish were actually so thick in this pool that at one point I had two fish on at the same time. Below: The stream above the road. After successfully catching and photographing the first variety of redband, we continued toward the Chewaucan Basin to try to catch its redband trout. My research indicated that the purest population of these trout was in a small stream draining to Summer Lake. We drove up to Summer Lake rim and the headwaters of the creek, which was only about a foot across in most places. I decided to make my way downstream to look for some beaver ponds or pocket water. There was evidence of beaver activity, but it looked like it was all five to ten years old and all of the ponds had washed out. I fished downstream about a ½ mile but couldn't find any trace of fish although there were plenty of cows enjoying the meadows along the stream. Above: The small stream (Left); Summer Lake (Right) After failing to find any fish here, we continued on to my backup spot and I caught my first Chewaucan Basin Redband on my second cast on the Royal PMX again. The fishing at this spot was amazing and every likely spot seemed to hold a redband with some in the 12" to 15" range. The water temperature at this spot was some of the warmest that I have ever seen trout in and was a testament to the adaptations of these fish. Below: Me at the second Chewaucan Basin stream (Left); A Chewaucan Basin Redband (Right) Day 2 Continued and Day 3 |
