Just got back from Oregon this morning. Had a wedding in Portland saturday, and fished the Upper Nestucca, near the oregon coast, on friday and sunday. Definitely the best days of fishing I've ever had.
I caught about 100 fish on friday, and 40 fish in 2 hours on Sunday (then proceeded to lock the keys in the trunk of my car). It was ABSOLUTELY insane. The river is pretty as hell, and the fish were going nuts. I grew up about 20 minutes from this river, and can say that this is the land of nightcrawlers and panther martins. Most of these fish have probably never, or very rarely, seen an artificial fly. They were hitting adams parachutes and royal wulffs nonstop, probably got a rise on 75% of my drifts.
Most of the fish were small rainbows and cuts, between 2" and 13", with an average size of probably 7". Regardless, it was the most fun I've ever had out on a river.
To top it all off, at about 6pm yesterday I stumbled upon a deep pool holding 8-10 of the biggest steelhead I've ever seen. Some of the monsters must have been 3 feet long! I tried fishing for them for about an hour, but didn't have any luck. The water was realllly slow moving, and they didn't seem to have any interest in the wet flies I was swinging by them. Plus, I don't really know how to fish for steelhead, and those beasts would've broken my 5wt in about 30 seconds (Though it'd be worth it!).
These two days really improved my fishing. I definitely left with a much better understand of where trout (at least bows and cuts) like to hang out. I took my dad with me, which was his first time fly fishing. And by the end of friday I was pretty much able to point to a spot in the river and guarantee him that if his fly landed there he'd catch a fish. Hopefully some of that will translate over to the water around here.
I'm heading down to Kings Canyon this weekend, going to fish the South Fork, and while I'm pretty sure I won't catch 140 fish, hopefully I get into a couple of nice ones at least :)
