Fly lines

Cold, wet, weather and high water go along with the salmonfly hatch on the Deschutes. It is, after all, the first major hatch of spring.

It is normal to get some sunshine and some cold, wet weather. The river levels are usually falling right during the hatch. The insects emerge with the water up pretty high - by the end, when they die off, it is low and clear.

This year has been a little bit ridiculous on all fronts.

Our efforts to catch the early, mid-May, hatch below Sherar's Falls in the area from Mack's Canyon to the mouth of the river where a bust. The bugs were out, but hunkered in the grass. We spent four days in a light rain, nymph fishing. (I am not complaining about nymph fishing or the rain mind you. It simply wasn't the salmonfly dry fly we had hoped for).

As the hatch progressed upriver the weather continued to be cold and wet. The insects arrived in the Warm Springs-to-Trout Creek area right on schedule just before the Memorial Day weekend. They did not offer very much in the way of dry fly fishing. It was still cold and wet. The bugs continued to burrow in the grass.

Memorial Day weekend, which is traditionally the big salmonfly weekend, was a disappointment too. Campers on the rivers had raindrops dripping from their noses.

After Memorial Day, the hatch started to get rolling. Still no significant dry fly action. Cold weather slows the bugs to a standstill. If the bugs don't crawl around, they don't get on the water. The fish can't get interested in them and get a taste for them.

If we had some warm weather early, followed by a cold snap, fishing could be good even without much movement from the bugs. Fish would have seen and tasted the insect; they'd be looking for them. But this year, even that type of fishing could not get going. The bugs where held down from the start and we did not get any temperature breaks.

By the end of May, the forecast was for increasing sunshine. But Mother Nature had one last trump card to play. The spring storms finished with a flourish in the Ochoco Mountains east of Prineville. The last day of rain was the best one. Ochoco Creek, the Crooked River, and Trout Creek all flooded.

Downstream on the Deschutes, there was no protection from the reservoir. Lake Billy Chinook was already full in preparation for the water skiing season. The water that came into the lake was simply passed on.

The evening of Friday, May 29, the river jumped from 6,000 to 9,000 feet in just under 12 hours - an increase of 3,000 cubic feet per second in flow. To put that in perspective, this increase is only slightly less than the entire summer low flow. Boats at a campsite on the river that were not well secured could easily have been lost.

By Saturday morning, when the break in the weather finally came, the river was off-color and well out of its banks. Guides were canceling trips; everyone was scrambling. However, even in the midst of the confusion over canceled plans and disrupted fishing trips, with the warm weather the salmonflies started to fly.

Now the major peak of the flood is past and the spring storm track is broken, but it does not appear the river will be dropping to normal levels anytime soon. The last half of salmonfly season is likely to offer some interesting fishing challenges. With warmer weather the bugs will be flying and the fish will be feeding. We, the fishermen, are going to have to be creative in where and how we fish with all this excess water around.