Winter on the Metolius is the quiet season. There is the sound of water, a wind in the pondero-sas—but the only other sound is that of your own muffled footsteps in the snow. Every winter is differ-ent, and sometimes you can hike along bare ground through the ponderosas. Other times snow and ice prevail, the ride along the straight road to Camp Sherman becomes surprisingly dicey, and snow lim-its where one can pull off to fish. The Forest Service roads serving the area are plowed to Camp Sherman and downstream as far as the fish hatchery—which still provides stock for nearby rivers in the Deschutes basin—for the benefit of the residents. In winter and early spring, I look for those rare loca-tions where a sliver of sunshine hits the water, some-thing I didn’t always do. I’d always noticed patches of sun on the river, but never thought to fish them until one late winter afternoon a decade ago, while walk-ing upriver to my Jeep, I ran into a bearded gentleman who I recognized from a flyfishing seminar at a local club—John Judy. John is an angling naturalist, author and former fishing guide whose name is synonymous with the Metolius River. Until recently, he resided in Camp Sherman, and probably spent every single day observing life on and in the river during his time there. We passed through the small talk of beautiful morn-ings, fishing observations and how days on the river are never wasted. Then John explained that he seeks out the spots of sunlight because, he told me quietly, “the fish gravitate to sunny spots on the river on days like this.” John wasn’t fishing that day; he had no rod with him. After years on the river, he was out to simply find and watch fish. “I watch fish, birds and the river far more now than I ever fish,” he said. Those words, and the short lesson, stuck with me. I now have more opportunities to fish during the quiet season. And so it is, on those days, I find what I’m looking for: a fragment of sunlight through an opening in the ponderosas that illuminates the bot-tom of a glassy pool. From the shade along the river’s edge, I spy through the window of light into the water and try to recognize a tail, rhythmically fanning back and forth. LEFT Toby Nolan admires the golden-brown color and bright orange spots of a healthy bull trout before releasing it carefully back into the Metolius River. Photo: Ryan Brennecke THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 065
The Flyfish Journal Volume 13, Issue 2: Page 65
