"REDSIDES AND WHIRRING BUGS", published by Trout and Salmon

July 2004



I hadn’t really planned to fish the Deschutes River in Oregon: our schedule took us across the fabled river very early in the season, when only heavy water nymphing could reasonably be expected to produce a few fish. With a multitude of the American west’s classic dry-fly streams ahead of me, I thought I’d probably keep my powder dry, make a brief pit-stop on our way down to San Francisco, and rack up a few ‘brownie points’ with Cath, my good lady wife. That, however, was before I drove over the river: a broad crystal stream studded with rich green streamer weed and long, delicious glides that instantly set the hook in me. Having made sure that my family were happily settled into our new accommodation, I casually offered to go and grab a few groceries. So it was that, half an hour later, I was innocently wandering into Jeff Perrin’s shop, “The Fly Fisher’s Place” in the pretty little town of Sisters, clutching the shopping bag that provided my alibi.

The store was unnaturally quiet, and looking around, I saw that every person in the shop was huddled up at the far end, peering into the cupped hands of the young guy behind the counter and whispering in hushed, reverential tones. I tip-toed up to see what all the fuss was about and my eyes met the grinning face of Nate, the man in question. Following his twinkling gaze I looked down into his palms. There, sitting perfectly still, was a ridiculous, joke-shop insect: a stonefly, just like the ones we have at home. Only huge. Silly. Perhaps two and a half inches long. As I peered at this ludicrous, b-movie horror, wondering vaguely if it was indeed real, the thing twitched. “That’s a salmon fly” said Nate, catching my stifled gasp of incredulity, “Pteronarcys Calafornica - one of the first this year”. Pulling myself together, I said that I’d read about these huge flies, but was under the impression that the hatch didn’t happen for at least another three weeks. “Not this year!” said Nate, and as the shop regulars fell into an animated discussion about the why’s and wherefores of this freakishly early arrival, I drifted into a reverie full of possibilities: I’d desperately tried to shoe-horn the famous Deschutes salmon fly hatch into our itinerary but it just couldn’t be made to fit. Now, out of the blue – quite literally – I’d been gifted a chance to see this phenomenon after all. As the discussion behind me progressed to the evils of global warming, I cornered Nate and started babbling questions about where and when and with what. Cutting me short with a grin, he said simply: “I’m going out fishing tonight – wanna come?”

Five hours later, my wife only partly mollified, I was bouncing down a dirt road in our hired four by four, following the dusty trail of Nate’s station-wagon as we headed for the river. The sun was already low in the sky and as we turned a corner, the fabulous, rushing waters of the Deschutes stretched out below, snaking through the red-rock canyon that slices through central Oregon’s high desert plateau. We pulled into a lay-by and as I hastily fumbled the leader up through the rings of my five-weight, my host fished a couple of icy beers out of his cooler and told me to relax: “Nothing much’ll happen until that sun’s off the water” he said. The beer knifed deliciously through the parching dust in my throat and I laughed at my childish enthusiasm to be on the river. Nate casually opened a fly box and a whole menagerie of giant flies came bouncing out: huge, extravagant concoctions of foam, deer-hair and rubber legs all vying for my attention. Nate picked out a particularly ludicrous, leggy monster on a 4X long-shank, size 6 hook.

“They tend to splash at anything bigger and you miss a lot of strikes” explained Nate, without any trace of irony, as I knotted on the giant fly. We finished our beer and Nate led the way down a steep track into the canyon, the brick-red basalt softening to a delicate purple hue as the sun fell rapidly into the west. We picked our way through the sagebrush and, after wrestling our way across a shallow but deceptively powerful riffle, we arrived at a long, deep pool. As I gazed across the river back up at the canyon wall, what looked like a small, clumsy-looking bird bumbled out of the cottonwood trees and across my peripheral vision. ”There’s one!” shouted Nate. I looked again and realised I’d just watched my first salmon fly of the evening fly by. Grinning at my astonished expletive, Nate waded to the head of the pool and as he tapped the fly free from its holder, another monstrous fly came stumbling through the warm evening air. Then another. And another. Inevitably, it wasn’t long before I watched one of these hopelessly erratic flyers pitch onto the gleaming silvery surface of the river. It bounced down the foamy water on the far side of the pool, flapping hopelessly in a forlorn attempt to get airborne again. The current whisked its twitching victim into a small slack behind a rock and as the hapless creature twitched in the back-eddy, a sudden scarlet eruption slashed up through the foam and engulfed it. Nate could fish: he made an effortless upstream reach-cast and instantly threw more slack into the line to counter the wildly rushing mainstream between himself and the slack water on the far side of the river. His fly drifted gently behind the rock and just as the main, centre-stream current started to gobble up the last of the slack line, there was a violent assault on his fly. He struck and missed – the fish hadn’t really got hold of the fly – and I didn’t need to be told: the action had started.

I almost ran down the bank to a spot around forty yards below my companion. A tumbling, foam-flecked run with a big boulder slowing the main flow and offering a seductive seam-line that just had to hold a fish or two – I edged gingerly down the bank and stripped line from the reel. Nate’s cries from above signalled that he was in business, and as I applied the best part of a bottle of Gink to my huge fly, I glimpsed a huge swirl out in the stream. I stopped to watch another struggling fly come flailing wretchedly down the river and as it tumbled past the rock, a big “V” shaped wake rushed after it and pounced in an explosion of foam. I lengthened the line and tossed my fly up above the boulder. There was a boil at the fly and then nothing – I knew instantly that the imitation had just accelerated a fraction at the crucial moment, due to drag, and had no doubt aroused the fish’s suspicions. I moved slightly upstream and imitating Nate’s stack-mend, I got exactly what I was after – a perfect, drag free drift. As I squinted at the fly in the gathering gloom, there was a sudden implosion on the surface. Before God was even midway through saving the Queen, the five-weight wrenched round and a big, angry silhouette was leaping frantically around the pool, shaking its head in a defiant rage. I slithered down the rock-strewn bank after the fish, and after a few frenetic minutes, was cradling an exquisite speckled rainbow of a little over two pounds. I switched on my head torch and saw the stunning, iridescent scarlet that gives these fish their legendary moniker: Oncorhynchus Mykiss Irideus- the Deschutes “redsides”.

As I watched the fish glide back into the depths, I heard Nate shouting to me to look up. I did as I was told and saw an astonishing sight: in a scene plucked straight from a Hitchcock movie, the rapidly darkening sky had suddenly become a blizzard of the huge, whirring, gyrating bugs.

I felt a slight sensation on my neck and reaching to scratch it, I almost jumped as I felt one of the huge flies in my fingers. Another landed on my cheek and suddenly the whole experience was more than a little unnerving. Then I heard another big splash and forgot the horror show – a quick cast up around the rock in front of me, a drift of maybe two feet and an almost inevitable swirl had me wrestling with another scarlet-sided rainbow – a reckless, demented berserker that crashed around the river for an almost embarrassingly long time before I could draw him over the net.

I managed another fish – a beautiful sleek brown, again around the two-pound mark: aggressive and bullishly strong, but markedly less acrobatic that his red-flanked cousins - before the darkness closed around us and the activity came to an abrupt halt. I wandered back up to where Nate was fishing. We splashed back over the river and trudged our way wearily out of the canyon, as the stars started to sparkle out of the clear desert sky.

“It’s a shame you’re not around for a while,” Nate said, wrestling his boots off and passing me another delicious Deschutes Brewery beer, “they’ll really go off in the next few days.”

They did too. Three nights later, having done my best to placate Cath, I was still there, peering into the last faint light of the evening, as another ‘redsides’ came rattling up through the glossy, moon-silvered water to wolf down my fly. Sitting on the back of the four by four once again, kicking my waders off and accepting another beer, I really didn’t want to leave. Nate’s friend, Damian - another really likeable, talented young angler - had joined us for one last night of hectic action, and when I told him about my round the world trip, he was fascinated and full of ideas: ”How long you here for, Matt? You know you really should have a day on the Metolius River - its stunning - and the Crooked River is really fishing well right now. And then there’s some great stillwater fishing too…”

“This really IS the last night, I’m afraid” I cut in, shaking my head and resigned to heading south the next morning. Nate nearly spat his beer out as the laughter came rising up through his throat – we turned to look at him: “Don’t listen to him, Damian” he grinned, attempting a straight face, “He says that EVERY night.”



Contact:

Nate Turner guides for
Jeff Perin @
The Fly Fisher's place
Sisters,
Oregon

phone: 001 541 549-3474
e-mail: caddis@outlawnet.com

Jeff’s shop is a hive of activity and is the place to find out what’s happening on the Middle Deschutes. His guides know the river intimately, are good company and will put you onto the river’s famous, psychotically aggressive “redside” rainbows, as well as the Deschutes’ biggest draw, the mighty steelhead, which run between July and November. Jeff can also offer some huge stillwater rainbows and browns. Oh, and one other thing: the price of Sage rods and Simms waders will make your eyes pop – around half the price of those sold in the UK.


Accommodation:

We stayed at a lovely little house called Deschutes River Retreat just outside of Redmond, Oregon – a few miles up the road from Sisters. The house is beautifully located and the Upper Deschutes is two minutes walk at the bottom of the hill. Oregon is staggeringly beautiful, offers some great skiing and wild hiking and mountain biking country – definitely a place that you could bring a non-fishing partner to.

Contact Jim Taylor on 001 541 548 5460







Tackle:

Rods:
A steely, tip-actioned 5 wt is just about beefy enough to throw these huge flies.

Flies:
Jeff Perin can supply exactly what you want at any given time, and the fish I encountered ate his flies with abandon. You’ll want lots of big, fussy dry stones: Maxwell’s Jughead, huge Orange Stimulators and so on, and an assortment of stonefly and caddis nymphs for the day-time fishing – which is also fantastic!

Wading:
The Deschutes is a deceptively powerful river, and I would strongly recommend carrying the Simms wading staff, which is light and portable but also extremely strong.
Cleated wading boots are also a great boon on the Deschutes’ treacherous, slippery rocks.




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