I’m sure Ed K will fill in the gaps for this trip. Let’s just say some really nice fish were landed, the weather was really good, and the food passable. Ed, Carpy and I left Chico on Monday morning and after an overnight in Oregon on the way, we arrived at the Owyhee River, just below the Owyhee Dam in mid-afternoon. I’m old and my memory isn’t what is used to be, but that seems about right. The first evening, Ed, Carpy, Sanger Dave and Betty hit the river below the dam with mixed results. This is a picture taken from the road leading up to the dam. Paul and Dave can be seen in the river below flailing away at the fish.
As you can see, this is NOT a clear water stream. But, even with the limited visibility, it has a large number of good sized Browns and some rainbows. All of us caught one or two rainbows on the trip and the rest were Browns. Few fish under 10” were taken and the vast majority were 15-20”. This one was over 20” and took an extremely large Foam Hopper.
There were regular hatches of BWO in sizes 18 to 20, thousands of midges in size 64 and smaller (I didn’t have any of those, even my 32’s were too big), and some activity daily from caddis of various types. The stream had a large population of hoppers on the banks but the fish, when flies were hatching, seemed to concentrate and key in on one or two flies. We used four to six weight rods. The wading was easy but the higher water this year made reaching some spots difficult because of depth. The current is fairly gentle in most areas and the bottom is generally gravel-like. The hidden rocks due to turbidity of the water does make interesting wading if you rush too much…as I found out. No falls but some close calls. After a morning’s or evening’s fishing we retreated to our home away from home for sustenance and beverages, usually adult in nature in the evening. In the picture are right to left, Betty, Sanger Dave, Ed K, Victor from Idaho and Carpy.
Ed had some fun on the trip, taking some nice fish. Here he is fighting one from a high bank and the result. Goes to show that even a Blind Pig can find an acorn every once in a while…LOL
The river has absolutely beautiful scenery and loads of wildlife, such as deer, chuckar, and quail living along the banks, along with coyotes serenading us at night, owls, golden eagles, and various other critters. Cottontails liked to dash out from underfoot if you went through the brush and several does took off almost running a couple of us down. But our time was spent fishing. Here is Victor with one on in late evening…sorry about the quality but I’m not an expert cameraman. The spots are insects in the air.
Carpy caught a lot of nice fish this trip on the Owyhee River, but I think Ed got more photos of those than did I. Here he is enjoying the evening hatch laying out some great casts with exceptional drifts on fish. If you look you can see several rise forms in the background. The fish were really drag shy and showed some reaction to too heavy a leader. I got away with 5X much of the time but tying on a #20 BWO was tough with bigger than 6X.
One evening I was having a difficult time getting the fish to take. I noticed that there were a lot of caddis flitting around so I tied on one of the special downwing caddis imitations I got from a friend last year. It paid off handsomely with several fish and several takes. I broke one off on a fish that was at least 24” at the end of the evening, a fitting end to a fine day. Here is one of the fish I got on that pattern, which shows it well.
Ed managed to catch some really nice fish and I was lucky enough to be near him to capture a couple on my digital. Here is another nice brown, a good example of the type of fish we were catching. I’m sure Ed will provide more pictorial fish porn in his report. If you get the chance to go to this river, do it!!! Although it is heavily fished, especially on the weekends, because it is only about 1.5 hours from Boise and is open year round and normally fishable except during the really high water in Spring, there are always places to go and the week days generally leave a lot of area free. These fish are hit hard but continue to feed. All Browns must be returned to the river, which makes for an excellent population.
It was windy one evening and that made casting more than a little difficult, especially when you HAD to lay your fly down so it drifted drag free right into a specific feeding lane. This picture shows some of the beauty we experienced on a daily basis and also the wind that was giving me fits.
We left the river after seven days of fishing and returned to California but our fishing was not over. We stopped for 2 ½ days at a ranch in Northern California. This resulted in some pretty good fishing. We had Callibaetis hatches every day but again the wind made the catching sporadic. We did catch some really nice fish and as you can see in this picture, they are brilliantly colored at this time of year. I’m going back up with Paul week after next to see if we can entice some more. This is also definitely clear water fishing.
Ed caught some really nice fish from these ponds. I think it was more entertaining to listen to him talk to himself during the trip, hearing expressions like, “Wait, don’t strike too soon”, or “Mumble, mumble, mumble, ahhhh, there he is!”. Like I said, entertaining. But that’s why I love to go with my friends and wouldn’t trade them for anyone. We do give each other a lot of flack, but it’s all in fun and taken that way too. The smile says it all in this pic!!!!
Here is Carpy with another nice fish there. He caught several really good ones and I think Ed has some great photos of his success! The following one is Ed fighting a REALLY large fish. It finally straightened his hook but he got the best part of it…especially since he hooked it on a #16 Callibaetis Emerger that I tied…got to love that!
The last afternoon I had to drag Ed away from the fish. The Callibaetis were hatching out and the following photo shows a bunch of them next to show shortly after emerging...all of these are flying. But we had to get on the road on the way home...I really hated to do it.
The evening before we left I got this photo of the last little fishing light we had. A great way to end a great trip with great friends and many wonderful memories. And, just think, we’re going to do it again soon!
Tight lines all!!!!
Charlie
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Well !!!! maybe next time,Don't think anyone lost any weight on this trip !
