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can see into the depths.  The best all around lens color for fishing is tan.  Copper is good for bright days.  Yellow or amber are good for dark days.

To understand polarization you first need to understand glare. Normally, light waves move more randomly. However, when light reflects off a surface, it is concentrated - polarized - at a specific plane or direction, which intensifies the light into reflective glare. Light reflected from a smooth shiny surface, such as water, a wet road, or snow causes glare. Wherever there are horizontal surfaces producing glare, the use of polarizing lenses is recommended. Non-Polarized sunglasses reduce visible light, however they have little or no effect on reflected glare. Only polarized lenses eliminate glare.

Polarized lenses utilize energized iodine crystals that are positioned in vertical rows on a thin piece of film. This film is sandwiched between two layers of the lens material. The filter within the lens allows selected light rays to reach the eye, while absorbing reflected glare or polarized light. when a polarizing film or filter is properly positioned in front of such reflected light rays, the glare is blocked. This is how polarized sunglasses are able to eliminate glare.

The amount of polarization a lens achieves is proportional to the density of the film. The lighter the PVA film the less polarization a lens can offer. Lenses that utilize a dark film will, in turn, have more effective polarization than a lens that possesses a light film. tinting a light polarized lens does not increase polarity. It simply darkens the lens and reduces brightness.

Polarized lenses are constructed of a sheet of polyvinyl alcohol film (PVA), sandwiched between, or cast into, two pieces of lens material, either glass, plastic (CR-39), polycarbonate or toriacetate. The PVA film molecule alignment is such that it allows only vertical light waves to pass through the lens (somewhat like a venetian blind), thus eliminating glare. (Thanks to the folks at Action Optics for this explanation of polarized light and glasses.)

Being able to watch your  quarry and see its reaction to your presentation is a great advantage.  Being able watch your bass is even more important if the angler is fishing subsurface with a slow moving fly.  Bass can suck in a fly and eject it so softly that it can be virtually impossible to feel the strike.  If you see the bass take the fly, then you will know when to set the hook.
(to be continued in 07/17 FFS Insider)                                                                               To Top  

REWARD OFFERED FOR INFORMATION! A dozen flies will be sent to the first angler who phones in the first confirmed landing of a fresh steelhead from the Deschutes.

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Why we love the Deschutes River

The trout are obviously feeding on the surface.   Their rises are often lazy and blatant.  At times you will see the roofs of their white mouths as they inhale insects from the surface.  Healthy duns will be plainly visible, riding the surface with upright wings.  The emergers and cripples will be difficult to observe with their lower silhouettes.  You may tie on one of your best dry fly imitations.  Your presentation may be flawless.  It is almost guaranteed that an uncivilized vocabulary will be the only reward for your efforts.

The first duns usually appear about 11:30 a.m.  They are very well camouflaged for mid-day.  Their graceful up-right wings are pastel gray.  The top of the body is yellow to yellowish-green to blend with the mid-day surface glare.  Their bellies are pale green to pinkish-orange, matching, to the trout’s eye, the surrounding vegetation or the fireball sun.

            On warm days Pale Morning Duns reach the surface and hatch quickly.  They are especially fast to leave the water after they are free from the nymphal shuck.  The full length of the hatch may be over in a matter of minutes.   The hatch may come and go before the trout can adjust to an efficient feeding rhythm.

Cloud cover or rain slows down metamorphosis, and the hatch can continue for hours.  The higher humidity must hold a key to survival as some wet days produce hatches of unbelievable density.  Drying time is slowed and insects may ride the surface of the river for hundreds of yards before wings and exoskeletons are hard enough to support flight.

            Duns, which have hatched in a healthy manner, are usually ignored.  They are too much of a risk; too much of a chance at calories missed while energy was expended.  Instead, the trout concentrate on the mayflies as they are sliding out of their nymphal shuck.  A low floating comparadun with an Antron tail (often called a Sparkle Dun) is the answer.

            As the days hatch tapers off, fewer emerging insects are available to the fish.  Or so it would seem to the casual observer.  This is true in moving water areas where the currents can carry them away.

            Injured and deformed insects are unable to leave the water and ride the currents aimlessly.  Often they end up as flotsam in back-eddies where they can collect in vast numbers.  Some eddies are situated so that they collect nearly all of the dead and crippled insects that come down the river.  Here the currents revolve slowly, and the insects are carried round and round until they are rafted upon the shore or are finally brought to the vortex of the eddy.  Often trout will concentrate on these places where maximum numbers of insects collect.

            I watch the vortex of the eddy and several trout are rising there.  Their dorsal fins often break the surface as they quietly inhale the mayflies.  The binoculars are replaced inside my shirt, and I pick up the four-weight rod that lies in the sparse vegetation beside me.  There is an opening in the trees to my left from which to cast, and I slowly start to stalk the feeding fish.  The tippet and the fly are examined while getting into casting position.  My movements are slow but efficient and fluid.  The trout are thirty feet away, and clearly visible while suspended just below the flat surface.  And now I am in position.  The rod is raised in preparation for the cast...

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            From high in the air another predator watches the trout through steely eyes.  The Osprey floats silently on the gentle up-drafts that rise from the deep canyon.  She adjusts her long, slim, muscular wings and loses elevation, being careful not to let her shadow fall upon the pool.  Saliva runs from her triangular tongue and the vicious, hooked beak opens and closes.  The killer singles out its victim, folds its wings tight to its streamlined body, and drops from the sky like a falling stone. An explosive geyser erupts from pool as the feathered bullet slams through the surface. Sharp talons bite into the soft flesh of a trout’s back, and the big bird rises instantly from the cool water with the captured, writhing fish.  It is not until then that the Osprey sees the man crouching under the umbrella of streamside alders, a fly rod in his hand and an astonished look on his face.

            As often is the case, one predator's gain, is another’s loss.  The surviving trout are instantly gone deep into the pool, hiding for their lives.

(to be continued in 07/17 FFS Insider)

If you would like to read a more detailed Deschutes River Fishing Report, click here.

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Sandy River Fishery Information Bank
Daily Fishing Report
Watershed Over-view
Sandy River Book
Biology Etc. 
Watershed Council Web Site

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