Salmon Fly Hatch

Near record snow pack, with a near record breaking heat wave followed by a cold front. This spring has brought chaotic weather and water conditions.  In spite of the unsettled weather, the spring hatches are coming off as they have for millions of years...at their own discretion.  Stone flies and mayflies are the main fair on most rivers including the lower Deschutes, which is a great spring fishery.  The big  golden stones and salmonflies get the most attention and anglers often over-look the smaller olive stones and hatches of mahogany duns and pale morning duns.  It's

 understandable. You can fish the river any way you want to.  Fishing trout during the salmon fly hatch has got to be one of the most visually exciting piscatorial pursuits.  The flies are huge. You can see them.  The trout come to the surface with real aggression.  The take of your fly often throws water in the air.  Salmonflies are the biggest insects that our trout feed on.  It takes force from most fish to bring them down!  Salmon flies  hatch enmass.  The streamside vegetation gets covered with resting , crawling,

mating, giant, harmless insects.  All of the spring hatches of stoneflies crawl out of the water onto a solid surface and then shed their nymphal skin while at the same time becoming air-breathing. This huge population of insects is condensed at the waters edge in a vertical layer, from the grass to the tree tops. In some ways a day on the Deschutes River is like a journey in a time-machine in which you are transported to the "coal age" 200-million years ago.  There were stone flies then like the ones that Redside trout find so tasty now.  According to scientists, there were salmonflies long before there were trout to eat them.  It can be somewhat humbling to realize that you may be participating in the 200-millionth annual salmonfly hatch. There may have been more than 199.95-million hatches that happened before man took notice of them.  Fishing the salmonfly hatch is eye-opening when you consider

 the scope of it. Yet, you and the trout and the salmonflies are caught up in the wonder of it all, the continuum.  During the salmon fly hatch you will experience a combination of bird sounds unavailable at any other time.  This is because our avian friends also cherish the wealth of protein made available by this bounty that emerges from the river.  It is nesting and feeding time.  It is spring.  The border of the river is covered with lush vegetation. The air cycles from rain and wind, interspersed with moments of intense heat and humidity as the sun breaks through holes in the

 clouds.  The air itself is charged with the scent of billions of large insect bodies breathing.  The salmonfly hatch on this river has it's own distinctive odor. It is most apparent in the late morning as the sun climbs over the canyon walls, but before morning breezes.  At this time air is soft and heavy, yet invigorating.  As the sunlight reaches the canyon floor and the air temperature rises, the big stoneflies; salmonflies and golden stones begin their activity of mating and laying eggs.  Some land on the water.  Others simply fall on the water.  The trout know this cycle.  They too have been involved for millions of years.  It is breakfast time.  You see the first splashy rise of the day and begin your stalk; watching and waiting and getting yourself into the perfect position to make your first cast.  The cast is made and suddenly you are in a place where time does not exist at all.

Bullet Head Salmon Fly
Around 1990 Dick Bushnell showed us the current version of the Bullet Head Salmon Fly.  He and his buddies had been playing around with, and improving our Bullet Head Salmon fly. Dick leased the cabin, directly below the Reregulating dam on the Deschutes River; a place loaded with very large Redsides. The pool in front of the cabin probably provides the best Salmon Fly hatch fishing in the world.  That gave Dick lots of time to study how fish reacted to a variety of Salmon

Fly patterns.  Their fly sported black rubber legs and strands of orange Krystal Flash in the wing.  We copied the improvements and the fly has remained about the same ever since.  It is still very productive.

Salmon Fly Rope
In 1981 Ed Henry (who at the time was a guide on the Deschutes River) showed us a unique salmon fly pattern. Up to that point all the Salmon Fly patterns we had seen had bodies of yarn or dubbing wrapped directly on the hook shank.  This one had a body that was separated from the hook; being only attached at the front of the fly. This gave the fly a very life-like appearance. However, these flies were very time consuming to tie because the extended body was constructed from poly-yarn braided on a needle.  Patty Barnes had been building some plant-hangers for our shop from orange polypropylene macramé cord. It was the same color and diameter as Ed's fly. I burnt the end of the rope with a cigarette lighter. The rope instantly fused together.  When trimmed to length we had a Salmon Fly body.  It was much faster than braiding a body on a needle.  The original flies and the copies made

from rope were bright orange, and they caught a lot of fish.  A couple of years later, we found that a fly tied with a burnt orange body caught more fish because it more closely matched the color of the real insects.

It always brings a smile to the face of the fly shop guy when a customer picks up a hand full of large stone fly nymphs and big fluffy dries and a package of fine 6X leaders. It's is a sure thing that guy will be in for another hand full of flies tomorrow. Trout keyed on big bugs usually aren't very leader shy. Fine leaders lack the strength to dislodge big nymphs from the bottom. They don't transmit enough energy to propel large flies very accurately either. The lack of strength and casting accuracy can result in lost flies, lost fish and much frustration. Leader length and diameter should be matched to the size of flies you will be using to maximize your performance.

Want to tie your own? Here's a big dry fly leader formula.

Sandy River Spey Clave 2008
Saturday's air temperature peaked at an unseasonable 96-degrees. The warm weather caused the incredibly deep snow pack on Mt. Hood to flood down the Sandy River and raise it to record breaking levels, which drowned our normal presentation area gravel bar. With no option but to adapt or go extinct, we moved our on-the-water programs upstream a quarter of a mile and wound up being blessed with shade from the tall forest to protect us from the heat.

It was the best Clave ever. If you were there, we were glad for your company. If you missed it, well better luck next year. More report later. It's after quittin' time, after a long day.