the drift

The Drift--February 2003

By Scott Richmond

What happens when an angler is on a mission to catch a fish most people don't want? Also, steelhead etiquette, guide tips, and a server upgrade.

ast week I went after whitefish. I know, I know: why would any self-respecting angler deliberately target this poor relation of the noble rainbow? Trust me, I had good reasons related to a feature article for a fly fishing magazine and a need for photographs.

So I headed to the Deschutes with a fellow fishing writer. My fly box was stuffed with big Rocky Nymphs and little size 18 Pheasant Tails--ideal gear for chasing whitefish in mid-February.

As we walked upstream, boots crunching on the rocky road, we passed a big backeddy. "That's one of my favorite backeddies on the Deschutes," I said to my companion. "When the blue-winged olives hatch, that's where you want to be." The sky was spitting rain, the air temperature hovered at 43 degrees. "And we could get a hatch today," I added, "although it's a tad early in the season for a good one."

Actually, I was half hoping there wouldn't be a hatch. I was here for whitefish and I hadn't brought my fly box with the size 18 Sparkle Duns and Baetis Cripples. I was after whitefish and would pursue those nymph-oriented fish no matter what.

I selected some whitefishy water and waded in, using tight line tactics when the fly was close to me and trout indicator tactics when it was farther out. After couple dozen casts the indicator went down and I tightened. The line shot for midriver and the reel spun. This was no whitefish, but a hefty Deschutes redside trout. Was I disappointed? Mildly. I was on a mission and trout weren't part of it.

A little later, another trout grabbed the Pheasant Tail nymph. Yet another disappointment. Where were the whitefish? Usually you couldn't keep them off the hook, but today seemed to offer nothing but eager trout.

My companion noticed a few blue-winged olive duns drifting down the river and decided to chase trout before taking photographs of winter insects (he had a mission of his own). I moseyed down to my favorite backeddy, just to see what was happening. There was some whitefish water just upstream from it, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to look.

Four-inch chinook salmon smolts dimpled the water and I was ready to move on. Then I noticed some dark shapes moving just below the surface. No smolts, these were nice-sized trout. I didn't have the right flies. I didn't have the right leaders. But I did have some tippet spools and a few size 16 Parachute Adams (don't leave home without them). I doctored the leader into something that could cast a dry fly--sort of--and tied on my wrong size, wrong color Adams. A 15-inch trout sucked it down.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but over the next hour I nailed nearly a dozen trout in that backeddy.

I left while the hatch was still in progress and refocused on the elusive, hard-to-catch whitefish. I fair-hooked a sucker on the stonefly nymph.

By the end of the day I had hooked about 15 trout, one sucker, and not a single whitefish. It reminded of when I was a Boy Scout and had practiced tying square knots until I had them down pat. Then someone asked me to tie a granny knot and I couldn't do it. Kept getting square knots.

If you're supposed to learn something from every fishing trip, what did I learn from this one? Mostly that the fish gods have a sick sense of humor. Whatever plans we anglers make, the deities of piscatoribi will laugh in our face and throw something different at us.

Next week I'm going on a trout trip. I figure I'll catch about 70 whitefish.

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 02/19/2003.

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