LEFT TO RIGHT Paul Snowbeck can’t believe he has one of the most popular holes on the Metolius all to himself. Usually three or four other anglers are working like windshield wipers for the same three rising redband trout. Photo: Arian Stevens Black Butte and Mt. Jefferson, central Oregon. Deschutes National Forest Historic Photo. Photographer and date unknown. Photo: Courtesy U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region friends and I were encased in Gore-Tex and half-immersed in the river most of the day. The quiet sea-son was approaching, and once-lush islands scattered through the river had given way to matted straw and bare trees in November. The morning started crisp, but the fleece came off by lunch. We found a downed tree that served as table where we put out a good loaf of bread, some olives and a nutty gruyere. After lunch we turned our attention to bull trout, hiking a riverside trail to a point where it fades to little more than a game path used more by local fauna than anglers and hikers. Shade overtook the entire river, making any sort of sight fishing impossible, but we knew this deeper pool, probably as deep as the tallest among us, held the bulls. Eschewing the local favor-ite—light-colored bunny leeches—I took out a trout spey rod and cast a prettier intruder-style fly that could be mistaken for a juvenile trout that had lost its way. The pool was just long enough to swing and step sev-eral times before a long, hard pull turned into a fish moving downriver, peeling off line and backing. We always take turns fishing this pool, and this time it was a friend, the first angler, who hooked up to a nice two-foot plank of a fish. It was a solid, muscular trout that showed no signs of previous encounters with an-glers and shook its tail to hasten its release back to the depths. That time of year the days get short, and the hike upriver to the Jeep is long, but we could not ask for any more on a day like that one. THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 063
The Flyfish Journal Volume 13, Issue 2: Page 63
