I’ve mentioned this week that this Oregon trip has been based around my full day of giving presentations at the Fin & Fire Fly Shop on Saturday. This was my third time speaking here. The orchestrator behind my gig is the shop manager, Paul Snowbeck. Paul really knows his fishing. Last time I was here he demonstrated this when he guided Scott Robertson and I to some serious bull trout fishing on the Metolius River.
Today Paul and his friend and guide, Russ McIntosh, treated Scott and I to a private lake on the Justesen Ranch. The ranch is about a 2 hour drive from Bend and is open to the public. But you can’t just fish here when you want. There are 15 lakes and all are pay by the day fishing. You need to contact the ranch and make a reservation. I believe it’s about $150 a day per angler.
Some are quick to snub paying for private waters. Personally, I love these places. It’s a great opportunity to not only enjoy excellent fishing and often big fish, but also to avoid crowds. The Justesen Ranch manages its lakes so that very few anglers are allowed per day. Today we were on their 20 acre, Big Lake, and it was just the four of us.
One would think that when you fish private water that the fish would be easy to catch. And sometimes they are. But the Justesen Ranch lakes don’t feed their fish. These hefty rainbows are wild and today to catch them took some skill.
Big lake, which isn’t very big by lake standards, is scenic to say the least and offers plenty of character. There’s a deep section for your fast sinking lines. There are shallow flats with weed beds throughout for your intermediate or floating lines. There’s a small creek entering. And there’s plenty of overhanging willow trees and bushes. Its an ideal home for big rainbows.
We all hooked into fish almost immediately doing nothing fancy. We had streamers and leech patterns on. In fact the first hour was excellent. But we must have picked off the hungry fish. Things slowed down steadily the more the morning went on. There was quite the lull for a while until we switched over to damselfly and dragonfly nymphs. I actually stood up on the bow and started sight fishing to cruisers I could see just under the surface with my floating line.
The last hour before lunch Paul and Russ moved into the back corner of the lake. Within minutes they started to really catch some fish. It was like they cracked the code. We joined them but by the time we did, it seemed the damsel and dragon fly eaters left the scene. The lake rainbows got tough again. No code broken.
By the time we finished lunch and a beer there were rainbows rising, but we could not get them to eat a dry fly. We tried midges, which is what they were eating. We tried mayflies. We tried emergers. Nothing dry worked. Then we went back to the leeches and streamers and damsels and dragons. Nada. That’s when I decided to play with small size 16 Pheasant Tail (PT) style nymphs. I put on three spread 5 feet apart on 3X Fluoro. My point fly was a standard PT with a bead. My middle dropper was an olive PT with a micro bead. And my upper dropper, only three feet from my fly line, was a similar fly (a concoction from Scott’s box) but no bead.
I started hitting the risers with these lightly weighted nymphs right on the head. Sure enough I had some luck. I noticed usually it was right when my fly hit the water. If they didn’t eat it then the rainbow would swim away continuing to feed. The next twist I added was a short yet very fast strip. Boom! That was it. The fish that were swimming away now turned back and ate my fly. I started hammering these fish. Sometimes on back to back casts.
Usually its me that’s stubborn but today it was Scott. He had on an intermediate line. Though he switched to similar flies, his line was sinking his flies out of the zone too fast. My floating line made all the difference. Once Scott finally took a few minutes to change lines, it was game on for him also.
I reckon we cracked the code with the small flies and stripping them fast. Scott and I managed to catch fish one after another right up until it was time to go. No doubt, I landed over 20 rainbows and Scott easily had a dozen. Undoubtedly, if he changed over sooner he too would have had more.
It was another fabulous day fly fishing in Oregon. Each time I come to Oregon I’m going to suggest a day on the Justesen Ranch. It’s been a while since I was able to sharpen my lake skills. It was great fun.
We returned to Scotts at around 8:30 PM. It was a long day considering we left Scotts at 6 AM. Lucky for us, Scott’s wife Sarah spoiled us again. Dinner was waiting. Tomorrow we’ll fish with Paul and some of his crew on the Deschutes River. Its my last day before flying home Wednesday.
Be sure to keep tabs on my IG at @jeffcurrier65
What a great trip! Ranch sounds way cool. Despite frustrating, a lot of times, trying to figure out feeding fish is more than half the fun.
How about we try the biggest lake in the world on Tuesday and see what we find?!?!