Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife employees are predicting a healthy fishing season this summer, despite below-average precipitation that is threatening to cause a drought. This is good news for all fishing aficionados, including fly-fishing fanatics.
Tim Wright, manager at the state’s Leaburg Fish Hatchery on the McKenzie River, said now is the time to go fishing rather than later this summer.
“By late July, we’ll run out of water,” he said.
Wright said good fishing can be found on the McKenzie River between Leaburg Dam and Blue River, where the hatchery stocks trout. But fishers need to be aware of current regulations.
“If it is a hatchery fish, you can tell because we clip a fleshy part of the fin — the adipose — to mark them,” Wright said. “If the fin is intact, you need to release them.”
Wright said fishers are required to release everything except hatchery fish because the native fish are protected. The policy is an effort to maintain adequate levels of native fish in area rivers.
The area above Blue River is closed to bait fishing. It can only be fished using flies and lures, which includes spin fishing and fly-fishing. Devotees attest to the attraction fly-fishing holds as a skill sport.
“A good fly-fisher is like an ice skater or some polished athlete,” Wright said. “It requires coordinated, rhythmic movement.”
McKenzie Fish Hatchery manager Kurt Kremerf said the hatchery stocks the river with salmon. He said 1,200 salmon have come into the hatchery so far, and the salmon season is open until Aug. 15. Kremerf said fly-fishing attracted him because it has low impact on the fish population and because he likes the area.
“Part of it is just the aesthetic value of being on the river,” Kremerf said. “The other part is the thrill of seeing the fish leap out of the water to take the fly.”
Chris Daughters, owner of The Caddis Fly Angling Shop in Eugene, said he has seen the sport grow in popularity ever since the movie “A River Runs through it” — featuring Brad Pitt fly-fishing in Montana — was released.
“Fly-fishing has grown immensely,” he said. “It is now considered more of a leisure sport instead of a specialty sport.”
Daughters said people are buying flies now for trout and steelhead. These include pale morning dun, green caddis and little yellow stone flies for trout, and egg-sucking leech, green butt skunk and silver hilton for steelhead.
Instructor Chris Culver teaches the art of how to use the pin-sized flies to University students through an Outdoor Pursuits class. He said spin fishing involves a single throw of a rod, while fly-fishing is a more complex process.
“The differences are in how to present the fly,” he said. “With dry flies, you don’t use a lot of movement, and with wet flies you may use movement or you may not.”
Culver said fly-fishers try to imitate the natural life of insects with their techniques. Wet flies are intended to mimic the nymph stage of an insect’s life while dry flies represent the adult stage, each serving to attract fish in different conditions.
The 24 University students in Culver’s class have spent six to eight hours learning how to cast, and the class has taken several field trips to fly-fishing sites in Lane County.
“I would recommend Armitage Bridge on the McKenzie, Holden Creek Bridge and Deerhorn Road,” said Culver. “There are also a few holes I won’t tell you where they are because like a lot of fishermen, I have worked at finding [my own] spots.”