Nick Rowell

As the summer transitions into fall I catch myself reflecting back over the bulk of the summer steelhead season, and looking forward to what the winter might bring. But, before that I enjoy what I think is one of the coolest times of the year to be out and about in Oregon.  The leaves turning from green to all different shades of yellow, orange, and red and the heat of long summer days giving way to the crisp foggy mornings of fall. In the Deschutes canyon the days get colder and shorter, the october caddis come out in clouds, and the Big Horn Sheep start making their presence more and more known. It is not uncommon to see rams squaring off with one another and smashing heads for the right to mate. No matter how many times I  see this, it never fails to amaze me.

This season so far has been a bit of a roller coaster ride as far as fishing success goes. We’ve had some excellent fishing as well as some real tough fishing, but overall the size of the fish has been awesome. I’ve seen a couple of monsters hooked this season, and even had a couple real good ones get landed. Though I think there are more productive times of the year to fish for summer steelhead, the fall is my favorite. Not just because of the beautiful scenery. The fall tends to bring out some of the biggest summer steelhead of the year, also there tends to be more wild fish around. With this seasons fish size seeming to be a bit bigger, I can’t help but wait to see what the fall will bring us. You may have to search a little longer and harder to find the fish, but it can be well worth it!

Here’s a couple of random photos I thought were cool from the summer steelhead season so far…. Enjoy!

Golden canyon lighting

Joe with his first steelhead, and a good one!

Perfect looking fish, not a scale missing

A skater eating steelie on my new favorite set-up. The 13′ 1″ 6 weight Onyx and the 6/7 Aerohead. If you haven’t tried it, you should!

Catherine Bell boobs

Something I see people do consistently while steelhead fishing is forget to fish the short cast. A lot of the time while guiding, I see people step into a run and immediately start peeling all sorts of line off their reel before they make the first cast. Usually their first cast is at least the length of shooting head plus the sink tip or leader they are using. That means the fly is fishing at least 30 to 40 feet out from the angler on the first cast, leaving the water closer in completely un-fished! Just because your fishing a spey rod doesn’t mean you have to instantly start launching casts out into the middle of the river. I know the urge to bomb it out there is strong, but don’t forget about the water right out in front of you.

Erik hooked into his first ever spey rod steelie on a cast of about half the skagit head he was using.

This winter I’ve seen several steelhead caught with no more than half the skagit head out of the rod tip, and 2 fish caught on the very first cast of just the sink tip! Sometimes this is the only fish of the day. If we hadn’t started short, we would have never found these fish. Which can be the difference between success and a skunking.

Alex got this cartwheeler on his first sink tip length cast!

When steelheading it’s important to remember that the fish can be just about anywhere. Sure, each run has it’s sweet spots or “buckets”, but steelhead (especially winter) are on the move. Obviously there are times of resting or holding, as well as times when they are more likely to be moving around than others. But, in general they are on an upstream migration until they reach they’re spawning grounds. I’ve heard a couple legendary steelhead guides say things like, “they are where you find ’em”. To me this means that where one fish decides to stop and hold isn’t necessarily where the next fish will hold in that same run. So next time you head out to the river and step into your first spot, remember to fish all the water in the run you can. This starts by not forgetting to fish the short cast, you never know where you might find your fish!

The Reward