De-AAAAAASCHOOOOOOUTES!

Okay, that title was strange. Very strange. However, there is a reasonable explanation.

The Deschutes. Although the name sounds like a German guy sneezing, this mighty river has always daunted me in its enormity. The thing is, cracking the Deschutes is supposedly a rite of passage for Oregon fishing, and it has always been a place where I have never managed to catch fish. The thing is, the first three times I’ve fished the place, everything has gone wrong, although I at least have excuses. The first time I fished there, it was my first time fly fishing. I couldn’t even tie an improved clinch knot, and didn’t even own any waders. Got skunked, naturally. The second time was in the dead of winter. You can still catch trout, but once again, I had no clue and got skunked. The third time, it was during the supposed famous salmon fly hatch. For the first time, I had a good feeling about the place. However, we must have come too early or too late, as there were no salmon flies, and instead these mayflies hatching everywhere. I only brought stonefly patterns, and watched fish that I couldn’t catch rise all around me. Wow.

The coming memorial day, the one a few years ago, that is,  I decided to try the river one more time. If I didn’t catch anything this time, I swore, I would never fish the Deschutes again. This time me, my parents, and my dad’s friend Steve would raft further up the Deschutes than the water around Maupin that I fished earlier, and stop at Mack’s Canyon. I don’t want to write every flippin’ detail, but I’m just going to say that I FINALLY CRACKED THIS RIVER! Once again, I missed the salmon fly hatch; instead there were a bunch of golden stones flying around, which I imitated. However, when I first waded a likely stretch of water, I realized that these trout are the biggest pain in the (word I’m not allowed to say). The first one splashed my stimulator, and I missed it. I was first really excited, I could have just missed the strike out of poor reflexes, but it wasn’t for four more takes which I realized these rainbows are something else. They were incredibly short strikers, some fish not even touching the fly. Never once did I actually feel anything. Until now, I had never understood the meaning of the word “sipper” as most of my fly fishing is done in a stream where the Cutthroat and Brook trout savagely pounce on flies, and get pissed if they miss the fly. Here the trout are so-urrrrgh! I can imagine them going up to my flies and stopping right behind them to make their little refusals. “What a lousy dubbing technique”, “Oh, his size 6 stimulator has an elk hair wing, not a calf tail wing. How déclassé.” “That hook is barbed. The Deschutes regulations section 6, subsection 7a states that all hooks must remain barbless.” They will jump mockingly after fly after fly, and if you miss one, they won’t give you another chance. It’s done. And their caginess is half the challenge. These trout are fantastic fighters. The combination with their experience, the fast flowing nature of their habitat, and the fact that rainbows are already reputed as the hardest fighting species of trout, makes them extremely difficult to land. In fact, these fish fought so hard and were such an achievement to hook that I fished with tarpon rules, which state that if you fight it to the tippet, it counts as a fish. I ended up catching four, the first one out of a ripple on a Henryville special. I had just finished my drift and turned upstream to cast, and I was about to lift my rod when one bit down. I fought it and fought it when I realized neither dad nor Steve was in sight, so I took the hook out without lifting it out of the water.* It was about eight inches, and looked just like a stocker. No dark red stripe, just a silvery rainbow. The second one was on the same Henryville Special, within shouting distance of the camp we set up. I waded over it somehow, and was reeling in my fly line with the stonefly dragging across the surface as I was walking upstream, when it hit. I first thought it was the current, and then the rod started banging around. I landed a similar size rainbow that looked exactly the same as the first. Since dad and Steve were there, I took it out and had my picture taken. See, this time there was proof of my capture. Nobody saw my rainbow the first time, but I don’t lie about fish. Even if I did, you could tell. Before no.1, I was sullen and cynical. Every time someone made a comment about the scenery or anything in general I would make a smart comment. Example (mom): “Gee these flowers on the canyon are pretty.” My comment: “Yeah, flowers, that’s new.” Another Example (Steve): “Kam, you should try a golden stonefly imitation. That’s what’s hatching now.” My comment: “How but I just use a bare tippet, it’ll have the same results.”

The third* and fourth* trout were caught in a neat little side creek separated from the main river by an island about a few miles above Macks Canyon. It is shallow and resembles a small creek, the same width of the Oak Grove, and has numerous tiny tributaries that drain in and out of it. It reminds me of a Mt. Hood except for that the small stream experience is downsized by the enormous class three rapids of the main river crashing down on the other side of it. I make casts and miss a few sips, nothing new, but I cast under a tree and have my fly drift a little longer than the branches, and one bites down hard. This is more of the signature Deschutes Redside trout, as it jumped several times, and had a dark red stripe, although it was the same size as the first two. I decide it’s high time to head back to the raft. However, I have to take a whizz, which is never an easy preposition in waders. I take my life jacket off, pull down my waders, and unzip three layers of pants. I hold the rod in my teeth until I realize mid-whizz that it’s Steve’s rod, not mine. Although he said it was really cheap, child-size teeth marks in the cork of your rod might look weird, but the cork handle was already beat up enough as it was, soooo, yeah. I put everything back on and yelled downriver to my family, who were out of sight, that I was on my way back. I was about to head back down one of the two foot wide tributaries down to the main river when I had a good feeling about it. I swung my rubber legged stimulator down it and…number four. As I walked back to the raft, I said to myself that I finally conquered this river. Not during the salmon fly hatch, when the fish are drunk with three inch flies, but during a regular stonefly hatch. I said it louder, and louder, and then I tripped and nearly got swept off my feet downriver.

I guess this river doesn't like anyone proclaiming that it was conquered.