Kevin and I met up in Portland on Halloween and drove over to Condon OR for a long weekend fishing steelhead on the John Day river.
Our first stop, after aquiring some staples like apples, beer and whiskey, was a saloon in Condon called the Round Up Grill where we met up with our guides and host for the weekend. Mia Sheppard of Little Creek Outfitters who is a fun, passionate person and world champion spey caster (www.littlecreekoutfitters.net), Dave Tucker, owner of Dreams on The Fly, who is the epitome of a no nonsense, down to earth guide who seems to have found his calling, (www.dreamsonthefly.com), and Reid Curry from Emerald Water Anglers (http://www.emeraldwateranglers.com), who is a humble and talented caster and photographer.
We stayed in a small guest house on the upper part of Rattray Ranches acreage, way above the river valley and most trees, in the middle of a flattened panorama of cut wheat field stubble and a few sparse trees. It was a 6 mile drive down the canyon to the river each day, and the first day gave us a beautiful landscape highlighted by early morning sun hiding red rock cliffs and burning fog off of the river. Within 30 minutes I had a hard strike at the end of the down drift but didn't stick the fish because I was caught admiring the scenery.
Each of the three days we made the drive down into the canyon, slowly bumping over a roadbed of large rocks that sliced between steep mountains of rock, stopping a handful of times to open cattle gates, giving us private access to six miles of river. One day was very windy, producing whitecaps that swam upstream causing a bit of disorientation as to which way the river was actually flowing. We were taught how to improve our two-handed rod casting, had great stream side lunches, and enjoyed good conversation with our guides, host and fishing partner, Den. Bighorn sheep, mule deer and turkeys provided nice add-ins to the vast and rugged scenery.
Overall, I think we caught 14 fish for three rods. Of my five fish, my highlights on the last day included two good sized fish, one of which was caught on a green highlander. This fly was one of my Atlantic Salmon flies I brought with me from my days in Europe and the guide mentioned they had not seen a fish caught on the JD with such a bright green fly before. The other fish of the day was caught after we all had a short break drinking a beer while sitting behind the trucks for shelter from the howling wind. It was a very windy day, and the crew had essentially thrown in the towel, but I decided to give it one more go and within 5 minutes had the fish on.
