Deschutes River Fly Fishing

Cory Godell Reports on 1.3.2018

Happy New Year from Deschutes River Anglers. First things first, Thanks to all who fished with us last year. We look forward to fishing with you this coming year. 2017 was a year of ups and downs, but mainly ups. We usually start our season on the Owyhee fishing it’s skwala hatch. Normally when we show up the river is flowing around 50 cfs. This year it was flowing in the realm of 3000 cfs. Needless to say the river had way, way to much water to fish last spring. 

Next came the Salmon fly hatch on the Lower Deschutes. It started a little on the late side due to the crazy winter we had. But once the big bugs showed, it fished good as always and  fished well into June.

Late June through August produced some of the best caddis hatches that the Deschutes has seen in years. This made for some of the most consistent fishing that we could ask for during the hot summer months.

In June, July and August we also spent several days on the John Day River fishing for small mouth bass. The John Day is a river where you go to catch fish, not to go fishing. The amount of fish in this river is nothing short of amazing. Come one come all, this is truly a river for all ages since you can fish from the boat. 

Come the latter part of August and September, we switched gears and headed for the Owyhee River. If you haven’t been there before, the Owyhee is a beautiful tail water fishery in far Eastern Oregon. In August and September we are primarily fishing hoppers mixed with the occasional caddis and mayfly.

To finish out our season, late September through most of November we were back on the Deschutes fishing for steelhead. The numbers were down this year but the great news is that so were the anglers, which made fishing much better than expected. Plenty of steelhead were found and for the trout fisherman the trout fishing during that time was off the charts.  

2018 should be another great year. Steelhead returns can only go up from last season. The Owyhee River should be a great early spring option if we have a normal winter. The Lower Deschutes trout season starts the last weekend of April. This is a lot to look forward too.

We look forward to fishing with you!
Tight Lines
CoryDeschutes River Anglers