Fort Rock Basin Redbands

This trip came about when I got an invite from my sister to join her on a business trip down to Sun River, Oregon. My original plan was to fish Hosmer Lake for its landlocked Atlantic Salmon, which eluded me on a previous trip. However, due to an unusually hard winter the road to the lake was still snowed in. While I had many other larger waters likely holding larger trout close by, I chose to head out into the Fort Rock Basin to try my luck for some native Redbands.

Fort Rock

 

I had visited the stream I decided to fish back in 2007 and had done fairly well , so I figured it would be a great place to kick off my small stream native trout fishing for the year. When I got to the creek it was still flush with snow melt and running 8" higher than the previous year. However, I figured that there had to be fish around still so I got to it.

A great spot for a nice back cast

I rigged up my favorite native trout set up, a size 12 Royal PMX trailed by a small Copper John and began working my way downstream. However, after covering a good stretch of water I had only managed to turn a couple of trout. As with many small streams the pool formed at the out flow of a culvert generally provides some of the best deep holding for trout in small streams and this creek was no exception. The middle of the pool consisted of a bubbling white water froth, but there was softer water on the edges and more importantly an actively feeding trout. I missed a few takes, but finally got a solid hook up a landed a beautiful little Redband on my dry fly.

A beautiful Fork Rock Redband Trout

I managed to get one more of these beautiful little fish on my nymph, and rose a couple of others before the pool turned off and the weather started to go south telling me it was time to call it a day.