Posts tagged: rogue river

The Rogue River’s Gold Ray Reservoir Dam Gone Only Months; Salmon, Steelhead Already Appearing

October 29, 2010, by Tom Chandler No comments yet

When the Gold Ray dam was removed from the Rogue River, a whole section of formerly flat water suddenly became salmon habitat again – the first time since the first days of the 1900s.

This piece from Underground Fav Outdoor Writer Mark Freeman (Mail Tribune) says it well:

Gould caught a big summer steelhead on a fly Oct. 21 at the new riffle, which was exposed when Gold Ray Dam’s removal this summer drained the reservoir that had been backed up behind it for 106 years. Then Gould lost a $1,000 rod and reel in the swift water.

Before heading home the next morning, Gould and two friends launched their one-man pontoon rafts at TouVelle State Park for a float back down to see whether they could retrieve the wayward rod.

“I caught a great steelhead there, lost my rod and then found it,” says Gould, of Sacramento. “So we decided to call it ‘Lost and Found.’ ”

Whether the moniker takes or not, Lost and Found is one of a string of new fishing riffles and pools waiting for new names along a nearly 1.5-mile stretch of the upper Rogue returned to its natural meander.

Spawning chinook salmon, summer steelhead and the anglers stalking them have all descended this month upon this new-look stretch of water, which reaches roughly from the mouth of Bear Creek down past where the old hydropower dam spanned the Rogue near Gold Hill since 1904.

The dam raised the Rogue’s surface level by 23 feet, transforming a free-flowing river into an artificial lake with adjoining sloughs.

With the impediment gone, the river flows naturally again through the old reservoir and dam area, with salmon and steelhead spawning and feeding in areas unsuitable for them since Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency.

Later, Freeman reports on an ODFW crew which found at least 34 salmon spawning nexts, and guides are already reporting excellent catches of steelhead.

In other words, it’s been a bumpy road at times, but – at a time where we typically lose salmon/steelhead habitat by the truckload – we got a little back.

You can read all of Freeman’s article here.

See you on the Rogue, Tom Chandler

The “I’m Too Busy to Go Fly Fishing But Everyone Else Isn’t” Fishing Report

May 20, 2009, by Tom Chandler 5 comments

Even though I’m too deadlined to leave my office and go fly fishing (the beautiful spring weather is clearly designed to taunt me personally), I’m cursed blessed with friends eager to relate their fly fishing news.

Sure, friends like that could drive a lesser blogger to drink to excess (and don’t think I haven’t considered it), and with that in mind, I’m taking those lemons and turning them into hard lemon cider (hic).

Here’s the Underground’s Local Fly Fishing Forecast & Report (hic).

The Upper Sacramento River

On the Underground’s Ancestral Waters, the flows barely bumped up during the recent hot spell and the visible snow is going fast, so there will be no big runoff event this year. Right now the Upper Sac’s running 1300 and falling, and while the river’s far from comletely wadeable, it is plenty fishable in places – and it will get better every day.

This weekend might be OK; next week will certainly be better, and while the Harmonic Convergence of Work won’t clear for me until the end of next week, expect an evening or two worth of reports between now and then.

The McCloud River

Hawkins Creek flows are diminishing fast, and as a result, the McCloud’s fast becoming fishable, though it’s the most fishable (by far) between the McCloud Reservoir dam and Hawkins.

Someone in my Online Marketing Boot Camp class said he saw/photographed/worked rising fish two evenings ago, and that plenty of salmonflies were in evidence. (I think I don’t like him very much now either.)

UPDATE: A little birdy tells me the McCloud’s fishing was hot the last couple days. (We report, you cast.)

The Pit River

Local guide Craig Neilsen hit what he described as an “epic” hatch on the Pit, and while guides do have a vested interested in getting you hyped about the fly fishing, Neilsen’s not really in that category.

Want to catch fish? the Pit’s your best bet right now.

UPDATE: A little birdy tells me the Pit’s fishing even hotter than the McCloud. (We report, you salivate.)

The Rogue

Dave Roberts reports the Rogue is running high (4800 cfs), an amount he considers borderline unfishable. The salmonflies aren’t really showing yet. Before they kicked up the flows, the Holy Water looked interesting, but now it’s awfully high too.

The Small Stuff

A lot of the smaller streams in the area are rounding nicely into shape, though don’t think for a second I’m going to point you directly at any of them.

Let’s face reality here: I believe all the small streams in the area are mine to rule as I see fit, and the fact that others get to fish them is simply an unfortunate reality based on my inability to cheat the laws of physics and be in two places at one time. (Tomorrow’s post: Living With Megalomania in the Age of Blogging.)

Still, if you’ve had your eye on a small stream, consider giving it a shot earlier rather than later; the third year of low snowpack means a lot of the small streams will be running thin and hot come summer, and while “thin and hot” is an admirable description for a girlfriend/boyfriend, it isn’t a prescription for fly fishing success.

The Bugs

At this point, you leave the house without a fair number of stonefly patterns (both the salmonfly and the golden stones) at your own peril, though it is a little early for most rivers.

You might expect to see some caddis in places, and the Pink Alberts were already starting to pop on the Upper Sacramento.

The Trout Underground’s Secret Fly Pattern Tip of the Day

Ants.

And not the tiny little ones, but the decent-sized carpenter and flying ants. I’m looking at one right now on the outside of my office window (the teasing bastard). They work, and they work well. Don’t leave home without ‘em.

Bob Grace at the Ted Fay Fly Shop reports seeing most of his ant patterns go otu the door, though more are due tomorrow (now today).

See you in my office (you dirtbags), Tom [I'm not Bitter] Chandler.

Fly Fishing the Rogue River When Fly Fishing May Not Be the Point

April 7, 2009, by Tom Chandler 8 comments

At the end of a long winter (even an easy long winter), 80 degree feels about ten degrees hotter than the world’s ever been, and you marvel at the feel of sunlight glowing directly on skin sans a fleece buffer between the two.

Though I had to cut and run from work on Monday to fish the Rogue with Dave Roberts, I rationalized the escape thusly: I wanted to.

Dave Roberts bravely testing wading boots for the Undergrounders.

It’s not the kind of thing that makes clients happy, but as everyone knows (at least after reading this), an under-recreated writer is a boring writer, and at some point, you’ve gotta fly fish.

For those looking for big fish stories, I’ll be blunt: stop reading here.

Though Dave Roberts knows the Upper Rogue like the rest of us know our living rooms, this was not a hard-charging, balls-to-the-wall, extreme fishing adventure.

Instead, we more or less doodled along the river, fishing for steelhead (one of which bit a streamer, but came unbuttoned after a couple seconds). We also landed a pair of 11″ trout who apparently didn’t know w you’re not allowed to fish for trout on the Rogue right now, which suggests the trout have yet to invent their own version of Twitter.

Looks pretty and scenic from the shore - until you realize your ride to the ramp is leaving.

The Testing Continues

We did manage to further the world’s scientifically derived knowledge about a pair of the next-generation rubber-soled wading boots, testing the newly arrived Simms wading boots against the previously reviewed Patagonias.

The Rogue is positively filled with green snot-covered rocks the size of your average loaf of bread, making it an ideal testing ground for rubber soled-boots.

Slimy enough? Our testing grounds...

On two separate runs, Roberts and I got out and tromped around, then swapped boots and did it again. (The rocks were slimy enough that a fair amount of detached green stuff floated downstream when we waded.)

While more testing is needed (preferably on some remote BC steelhead river, though budgetary concerns suggest the Upper Sac will have to do), we both came to the rather surprising conclusion that these things worked pretty damned well in a situation where we didn’t expect they would.

The work is hard, but no sacrifice is too great for my readers.

It’s possible the Simms’ more aggressive tread pattern gave it a slight edge in the “greasy bowling ball” portion of the test, though we’ve yet to test the Simms boots in varied Upper Sacramento or small stream conditions (coming soon).

At this point, I’d have no qualms about using either boot on the Rogue. And Roberts – who admitted to reading my reports on Patagonia’s boots with some skepticism – was ready to buy either pair, though the Simms fit him best (the Patagonias felt more comfy to me, telling us what we already know – different shoes fit different feet… differently).

More Testing

Plenty more to come from the Underground; I also concluded testing on the Redington 6wt rod & reel combo, and I’ve added it to the “write this” pile (which has grown pretty sizable).

Several DVDs are waiting for reviews, and yes, there’s always the chance for another fishing report.

Hookset, in progress.

See you slaving away, Tom Chandler.

The Ultimate Web Site for Western Drift Boat & Dory Nerds? (And we mean that in a good way.)

March 13, 2008, by Tom Chandler No comments yet

Rogue and MacKenzie River drift boats and dories are elegant craft; writer Roger Fletcher has written a book detailing the history, use, and dimensions of those lovely craft.

Chasing Hatches on the Rogue: Wonder What We Found?

February 11, 2008, by Tom Chandler 7 comments

An Upper Rogue March Brown

Sometimes winter fishing is great drama. Other times, you get in the drift boat and just soak up the sun, which feels pretty damned good in the middle of a snowy winter.

I won’t cop to being lazy as much as relaxed; I sporadically fished a dry fly but Dave Roberts and I were both looking for the midday hatches; BWOs early with a chance for some March Browns later.

So we drifted along, caught up on life — which has gotten a little more complicated for both of us lately — and stuffed our faces with great big deli sandwiches (get the spicy mustard), and argued about the proper side of the fly reel for the handle.

He says left-reelers are at best misguided (at worst, we’re limp-wristed, wrong-sided, overly sensitive writer types who are bad for the sport).

I say right-reelers are uneducated, unevolved apes who need right-mounted handles because their leftside knuckles are worn away from dragging on the ground.

The knuckle-dragger himself; now guiding and tying custom flies fulltime.

With that settled, we got down to the serious discussions of fly patterns, and now that he’s guiding and tying flies pretty much fulltime, he showed me a couple of really pretty March Brown patterns we were hoping to test.

thramerflyrod Right on cue, the BWOs started coming off, but with our #1 slot occupied, we headed downriver a bit to a spot that Dave — despite fishing this river constantly for more than two decades — really only found last year (that’s a lesson in something, but I was too lazy to decipher it).

Initially, the trout weren’t much on the rafts of BWOs that went by, but you could say they took note of the March Browns that started popping at the end of BWO hatch.

It’s really too early for the March Browns, but they were hatching lightly last time I made it up, and this time — only a few weeks ahead of schedule — the hatch was stronger.

Maybe they couldn’t wait to see the sun either.

More Fly Fishing

With the fish chasing March Browns, we fell into our usual program. Outside of a few hero casts, we were just a couple of kids insisting the other take the next shot then trash talking each other when we missed the fish.

You don’t keep track in moments like that, so all I can say is we caught a fair number of trout, including a pair of cutthroats (now the Official Trout of the Dave Roberts Web Site).

My biggest was a 14 incher, and Dave hooked something large that immediately ran deep and wrapped him up on the bottom.

Clouds kept moving in, shielding the sun and reminding us we were still in the deep of winter, and once the hatch ended, the river acquired the steely glint that suggested the bite was finished.

Turns out it was, but we weren’t far from the take-out ramp and a truck heater.

rogueelk
Elk looking for a little snow-free forage.

For the gear-minded among you, Roberts fished a Raine Upper Sac Special (8′ 5wt), and I — feeling kinda basic — went with an 8.5′ Thramer PX (similar to a Granger/Phillipson 8.5′ rod) and an old Heddon reel (a copy of the Hardy Lightweights).

In keeping with the unhurried pace of the day, I think I changed flies exactly once (yes, Dave’s March Brown patterns do work).

Of course, that’s my take on the day. Now that Dave is posting his own fishing reports, you can compare the two entries and decide for yourself. It’s interesting to read his take on the same day (even if he is an unevolved, knuckle-dragging, right-hand-reeling ape).

See you some Winter day, Tom Chandler.