End of August Adventure

A couple of years ago, while reading up on the Redband Trout of the Northern Great Basin, I found a genetics study that indicated that beyond the Great Basin Redbands, there was also an ancestral form of Redband Trout found in a tributary of the Deschutes River, that is unique enough to warrant being considered a distinct subspecies. These fish are the White River Redband Trout and have been isolated upstream of a barrier falls for thousands of years. Due to this isolation, they have more in common with Fort Rock Redbands than what the do with the Redbands in the Deschutes River. While I was able to make a trip to the White River a couple years ago, I was limited on time and only managed to catch a couple of Redbands on that first trip. Due to this I have had plans to make it back to the White River watershed ever since. After discussing the White River Redband with one of my friends and fellow native trout enthusiast Steve, it looked like our schedules would line up at the end of August, so we made plans for a trip. In addition to White River Redbands, Steve had yet to catch an anadromous Coastal Cutthroat so we also hoped to check that off his list as well.

Friday August 27th 2021: Steve flew in the previous night and I was up bright and early and picked Steve up at his hotel at 5:30AM bound for a small stream in the White River watershed. It was a gray and drizzly drive through the western Cascade Mountains, but as soon as we crossed the crest of the mountains, the sun came out, the clouds broke and we were greeted with a breath taking view of Mount Hood.

Clear skies over Mt. Hood - bare of snow after a dry summer

The quickest route to the stream was off a forest service road off the slopes of Mt. Hood, however after following the road for several miles we were greeted with a barricade blocking our way due to a wildfire. This came as a pretty big surprise to me as I had checked the forest service's webpage for current conditions and there had been no mention road closures in the area. With our first route in blocked, we set out to find a way around, unfortunately the next two forest service roads were also closed and we ended up having to drive an extra hour around to get to the stream. Luckily the fire had no impact the creek we were going to all and upon arriving the creek looked perfect. 

The Creek

I rigged up with my 1wt and a dry - dropper combo, while Steve went with a dry fly on a tenkara rod. While I had struggled to find fish on my last trip to the watershed, this time my research hit the mark and within a few casts we had both risen fish. I started out downstream, while Steve went upstream and after working downstream a ways had caught a half dozen 6-8" Redbands, primarily on the dropper. While the fish that I had gotten on my previous trip were rather pale, these fish had darker tones, with a much more pronounced redband. Given quick fishing, I checked in with Steve, who had also managed to get some decent Redbands. 

A small White River Redband

Steve was still working a good stretch of water, so I hiked a bit further upstream until I found a promising stretch of the stream. As I was a bit further from the road here, the size of the fish seemed to have gone up a few inches and the fish also started rising to dry flies a bit more consistently. After fishing for while, I found a larger pool that had good cover, from an over hanging tree. I managed to get a bow and arrow cast up and under the branches and was rewarded with a nice rise and a solid hookup. This fish was a bit bigger than the others I had hooked and really made my 1wt work, but after a short while a landed a close to 12" Redband. A monster for this stream.

My big fish of the day a beautifully colored Redband.

After getting this big fish, I worked my way upstream until I connected with the trail and headed back down to where Steve was. Steve had also managed to get some nice Redbands, and as we had a 3.5 hour drive back wanted to try for some sea-run Cutthroat we hit the road again. 

After getting back to the Olympia area, we headed for a local beach where we hopped to catch the end of the tide. Unfortunately, the wind was up and after and after an hour of fishing the good tide was running out and we still hadn't seen any sign of fish so we decided to call it a day and regroup in the morning.

Saturday August 28th 2021: After a success for day fishing for Redbands, we hoped that today we would be able to find a few Coastal Cutthroat and Coastal Rainbow Trout on one of my favorite rivers. The plan was to fish a combination of egg imitations and streamers and hopefully find a few fish that were starting to think about spawning salmon. Like the previous day we got an early start and upon reaching the river, it seemed that there may be a complication. Odd years in Washington are Pink Salmon run years. Most of the time this doesn't have too much of an impact on trout fishing, but apparently this river was experiencing a particularly strong Pink Salmon run this year. 

Lots of pinks (every dark shape is a salmon)

Typically during conditions like this, I find the trout concentrated in the faster riffles, but this time with how thick the pinks were, even nymphing primarily produced Pinks, although I did get one smaller Rainbow to grab an egg imitation. This did end up working in Steve's favor however, as he had not caught a Pink prior to this and given the conditions one could not help but catch a Pink checking yet another species off his list. The only sea-run Cutthroat that we saw was holding in a tailout behind several thousand Pinks, which we too aggressive to allow us to successfully get a cast to it. Given that Steve still hadn't caught his Cutthroat, we headed to my back up stream for the day, a small creek on our way home. 

A Pink Salmon caught nymphing

A small but native Coastal Rainbow Trout

The stretch of stream were going to try was only a few hundred yards upstream of the saltwater and sea-run Coastal Cutthroat will commonly dip into these lower reaches during high tide so I figured it was as good of a bet as anything. As Steve was the one looking for the fish, I let him do the fishing and sure enough at our first hole we spotted some Cutthroat and on his first cast he landed a bright fish fresh out of the saltwater. We fished for another 30 minutes or so and Steve got one larger fish and had a couple other grabs before it was time to call it a day. We managed to check three fish off of Steve's list while seeing some beautiful water, not a bad way to spend a couple of days!

Back on the Road Again: Native Redbands and Cutthroat of Eastern Oregon

With all of the changes that life has thrown my way over the last few years. For the first time in years I headed out on the road (along with my cousin Derek, who has joined me on several other past trips) with some new native trout to target as well as some old ones to revisit. This trip was all revolving around the American Fisheries Society in Reno, Nevada at which I was presenting, but I was able to add a couple of days on each side of the conference to target some native trout.  The main targets of the trip were the White River Redband, John Day Westslope Cutthroat, Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat, Quinn River Cutthroat, Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout and possibly some McCloud River Redband Trout.

Day 1: Friday September 27th 2019: Derek and I hit the road bright and early, heading south from my home in Olympia, Washington towards the White River watershed in north-central Oregon. The White River flows from the glaciers of Mt. Hood into the of the Deschutes River just downstream of Maupin, OR.  While the Deschutes River holds Columbia Basin Redband Trout, the Redband Trout found above a series of waterfalls on the White River are genetically distinct from the fish in the Deschutes and identify more closely related to Fort Rock Redbands in the Great Basin, with recent studies indicating that they likely warrant a subspecies designation. As the White River is glacially fed, it has very poor visibility so I selected a couple of tributary streams to fish for these trout. Unfortunately, when we arrived the first of these streams had no public access on the lower end and the flows on the second stream were so low that we could not find any holding water and only managed to rise one small fish. Luckily we were able to find a small irrigation impoundment on the second stream that offered some great looking holding water.

The irrigation pond

This spot called for beaver pond tactics, so Derek and I tied on some Zug Bugs and started fishing. Letting the Zug Bugs sink for several seconds and retrieving them with short twitches proved quite effective and in short order I had caught a a few beautiful Redbands including a 10" beauty.

A White River Redband Trout

While we were successful on our first fish of the day, it took much longer than planned and we still had a long drive to the upper John Day River to look for Westslope Cutthroat and it looked like with the shorter days of fall every minute of daylight was going to count.

The middle John Day River from the road

We arrived at the stream with about an hour of daylight to spare and got to fishing with a dry dropper rig right away. We were able to locate a good piece of holding water almost right away, and on one of the first cast I hooked a fish. Could it be that easy? Unfortunately not, it turned out the fish was a small Columbia Basin Redband - likely a juvenile steelhead and the next fish out of the hole also turned out to be a Redband too.

A small Redband from the stream

After the second fish, the hole shut down so we started heading downstream. Unfortunately it seemed that this stream was lacking in good holding water and while we found a couple more small Redbands and a juvenile Chinook, there was no sign of any Cutthroat nor any water that was likely to hold them. After trudging downstream close to a half mile and watching the daylight fade, I finally came across a great looking piece of holding water where a tributary entered the stream. However, while the first spot had produced fish right away, this spot which looked even better showed no sign of life. After a number of a great drifts through every inch of the hole, I crept closer for a better look. Right where I figured a trout should be holding, there was a nice summer run Steelhead, which also saw me and decided it was time to head for cover.

Steelhead holding water

At this point the daylight was fading fast and it was time to head back upstream. While it seemed that I was going to have to admit defeat on the John Day Cutthroat, I figured a couple more casts in the first spot I tried wouldn't hurt. On the second cast I was rewarded with a rise and after solid hookup and after a short fight I brought a nice little John Day Cutthroat to hand!

A John Day Westslope Cutthroat

By the time I let the Cutthroat go, it was clear that there wasn't enough light to continue fishing so we hit the road for Burns, Oregon where we were staying the night.

Day 2: Saturday September 28th 2019: Overnight a cold front had blown in an we woke to a frosty morning in Burns with the possibility or rain and snow in the forecast. Our goal for the day was to fish for Willow-Whitehorse Cutthroat in southeastern Oregon before crossing to border into Nevada and trying for Quinn River Cutthroat. I had fished for and caught Willow-Whitehorse Cutthroat in 2006 (over 13 years ago already - yikes!), but fire had ravaged the area in 2012 and I wanted to return and see how it was looking and if I could find a few trout. By the time we got to the stream it was mid-morning and the temperature had warmed to the mid 40's F although a stiff wind was blowing. Luckily the fire had missed this stretch of stream and looked almost exactly how I remembered, so it was time to look for some trout.

Desert Cutthroat water

Looking for trout didn't take too long, and the first spot that I came to, the outflow a beaver pond produced two nice Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat.

Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat

Just like the last time that I had been to this stream a dry dropper rig with a black Copper John appeared to be the ticket. We fished up and down the stream for a couple hours, running into on lethargic rattlesnake and catching a bunch more Cutthroat in the 6-10" range before the weather started to turn on us, with snow clouds visible on the hills just a few miles off and it was time to hit the road again.

The rattlesnake

Another Willow-Whitehorse Cutthroat

While we were doing to just fine on daylight this time, the weather was whole other matter was turning fast. By the time that we hit the Nevada border, it was snowing in earnest and the Quinn River Cutthroat which required some rough roads up into the mountains was going to have to wait for another trip, so we headed on for Winnemucca, NV to grab a hotel for the night.

Snowed out of for the day

Day 3: Sunday September 29th 2019: With a good coat of snow on all of the hills around Winnemucca in the morning there was no way we were going to have any luck fishing for Quinn River Cutthroat so we headed for Reno, NV for the conference.

Day 4: Monday September 30 - Day 7: Thursday: October 3rd 2019: These days were all spent at the conference. Lots of great talks and I even got myself a great new book!

Also picked up a new book at the conference

Day 8: Friday October 4th 2019: We got up in the morning and made the drive out to Eagle Lake, California to try for Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout. We were still a bit early as the trout are known to move into the shallows in mid-October as the water cools. However, I was hoping that recent cold front might have done the trick. This proved to be wishful thinking. We fished for the better part the day, trying everything we could think of, from casting into the tulles to trolling flies deep. We only saw one fish rise and may have had one soft take but other than that lots and lots of fruitless casting.

Eagle Lake, California

Fishing Eagle Lake

The Eagle Lake Rainbow had been the fish I was most keen on getting on this trip, as I have had a number of potential trips planned over the years but had never been able to make it happen. Hopefully I will be able to make another try at the Eagle Lake Rainbow next spring, but regardless it is always hard getting skunked on a trout so far from home. After trying Eagle, we headed north towards home and ended up camping on a McCloud River Redband stream near the slopes of Mount Shasta that I had fished back in 2007. We got camp set up right before dark and temperatures plummeted quickly on us dropping into the 20's F and proving to be one chilly night in a tent.

Day 9: Saturday October 5th 2019: It was quite chilly in the morning, but the sun was out and it warmed up rather quickly. Once it was warm enough to feel our fingers, we got the rods rigged up and went to check out the creek. The last time that I had been to this stream, the fishing had been great, with every likely looking spot holding a trout. However, a lot can change in 12 years, and unfortunately for this stream those changes were not good. Upon checking out the stream, it was clear that cattle had been unleashed on the watershed and had done serious damage.

Cattle caused erosion

We covered more than double the water I had fished last time, but the habitat was absolutely destroyed, with caved in banks and erosion and we saw not a single sign of trout. 

Incised stream channels

Given the habitat, it would have been a miracle if we had found a trout in this stream and as we had a long drive home still we decided that it was best to cut our losses and get on the road again. Along the way we stopped at Crater Lake National Park and had a nice quite drive back to Olympia. 

Crater Lake

All and all, it was a great trip, with us getting 3 of the 6 fish that we had hoped to catch. Hopefully next year I will be able to get out again, as it felt great to get out for another native trout road trip after such a long time.