Deschutes River Fly Fishing Report

Cory Godell Reports on 9.1.2015

Steelhead

Here’s the plain and simple of what’s happening on the Deschutes. The river is clearing up, the days are getting shorter and the weather is cooling and is partly cloudy. And if that’s not good enough for you, there seems to be quite a few fish in the river and they are on the bite. What more could any steelheader want. With the Deschutes running colder than the Columbia River a good chunk of the steelhead coming up the Columbia are turning their noses into the Deschutes to cool down. This is a good thing, because it puts more steelhead in the Deschutes which increases our chases of hooking one of these amazing fish.

Trout

The cooler weather that has hit us these past few days has slowed the trout fishing. Even though the fishing has slowed, there is still plenty of fish to be caught. We were on the river yesterday and we were the only fishing boat on the upper 10 miles of the river. It’s quite an experience to be on one of Oregon’s top Blue Ribbon trout rivers and not see another fisherman.

John Day River

That’s a wrap for another season of Smallmouth Bass fishing on the John Day. Even though it was a low water year we were able to do trips through August. The nice thing about the low water was it was like fishing for fish in a barrel. We will be back over on the John Day starting in November chasing steelhead.