Happy Father's Day!

I seem to be in a rut - but a pretty nice one. I've fished 8 of the past 21 days, and today was another great opportunity. The fishing in Central Oregon is just spectacular right now. The rivers and lakes are in great shape with all the snow melt, and the recent hot weather has been creating some wonderful insect hatches. The salmon fly hatch in particular has been a great new experience for me. These are really big (I've seen them up to 2 inches long) flying orange bugs that get the big fish to come up to the surface. I've never caught so many brown trout on dry flies before. It's been a blast.

Today Karen and I decided to try a somewhat remote spot where a large creek - Squaw Creek - hits the Deschutes. It's a long drive down a dirt forest service road followed by a 3 mile hike down into the canyon. But, what a beautiful hike. High desert canyon with sage and juniper all around with an oasis of water and green cutting through it. This picture shows Squaw Creek in the background before it hits the Deschutes.

Miles Landing His Fish

I really need to get some editing software for these QuickTime moives from my still camera, but you get the idea.

Miles' Fish

Here's Miles' first fish on a fly. Another decent brook trout from Hosmer. That's Mt. Bachelor in the background. We saw what we think is a weasel in the trees behind Miles. A canoeist going by thought it might be a marten.

Fishing with Miles on Hosmer Lake

Another day of fishing yesterday, this time up on Hosmer Lake - about 45 minutes from home. This blog has many many photos and videos of Karen, Sydney and I canoeing on Hosmer, but this is the first time I've fished it. Miles and I had a great day.

Hosmer has been snow and ice free for just a couple of weeks, so it was still early season up there. The water plants have not come back much yet, but the surroundings were spectacular as always.

Great views of all the Cascade peaks still very much covered in snow. We also saw bald eagles, an osprey take a nice trout from the lake, and what looked like a weasel along the shore. And, I caught this very healthy brook trout. Miles is not the best photograher, but you get the idea. This fish was big, thick, and a real figther. Strong take on a wounded minnow nymph and a fight through the reeds. A really fun fish that will fight again another day.

Fall River 2006

With the rotten weather on this trip, I did not get a lot of video footage captured. But, here are a few interesting shots of Elise expressing her opinion about blogs, a snake visiting Jeff and Kelly, and Sydney with a bird. Not my best video, but I guess they can't all be winners. A very fun trip nonetheless.