Day 50 – May 23 (from Phil alone,… sick puppy)

After a comfortable night buried under our comforter we hosted a late breakfast of potato omelettes and toast. A quick visit to stream side showed that my trout had moved on, possibly preceding me upstream. As we were not far from our destination of Bend a 10:15 start seemed fine.

On the way we stopped at an information centre/grocery store where I found a wifi connection and could post the previous days epistle – it had provided a lot of blog fodder -and send an e-mail to Sean and Carla, who according to their post won’t be joining us until Friday.

We also took advantage of the nearby gas station to fill our propane tanks. In talking to the owner about our Crater Lake ‘experience’ she was surprised to hear that there was 4 feet of snow in the woods. Straight faced she said normally this time of year they have 9 feet, which is why they opened the road that is usually closed until mid June. Imagine our good fortune to be here in a year when the road to the 3 foot drifts was open for us to explore. This is exactly why I don’t buy lottery tickets.

We got into Bend about 2:00 and found an information centre on the outskirts of town where they were very helpful, trying to book a camping site for us. Unfortunately the upcoming Memorial Day weekend has most of the camping grounds close to Bend fully booked. We took advantage of their wifi to FaceTime with Sean and Carla to confirm that we had arrived and that they would join us on Friday night.

Bend has the largest collection of micro breweries in Oregon so we headed downtown to find a brew pub to have a late lunch. The drive in took us through some lovely residential areas with a number of spectacular craftsman style homes on large well landscaped lots. Bend was making us want to stay and linger a while.

We found a lunch spot at the Deschutes Brewing Company where we had a great waitress. It is always such a pleasure to be served by someone who loves not only their job but also their offerings and who can give great advice. She was thrilled and a bit surprised that we complimented her service, making her even more endearing.

Jane, initially excited by sighting a Birkenstock store, was once again thwarted in her search for new Birkies due to the shops limited selection.

As accommodations were now our primary concern we headed out of the city towards a private campground that we were told might have a vacancy. Just outside of town however we passed the Tumalo State Park so we stopped in on spec to see if there were any vacancies. We were looking for two sites for Thursday and three sites for Friday and Saturday. The camp host was not optimistic but the very helpful park ranger did her best to accommodate us and although requiring moving from night to night we eventually had some confidence that we were covered until Saturday night.

Conveniently this park was also located on a river, the Deschutes, which is one of Oregons better known rivers and the section of the river next to the park was open for trout fishing.

After getting settled in and arranging for our upcoming accommodations Diane and I walked along the river for about an hour. It was not as clear a river as we had seen the night before but was very accessible and appeared to easily waded. The park ranger said that the cold weather had stopped any kind of insect hatches but she directed me about a mile upstream to the confluence of the Deschutes and the Tumalo where she said the deep pools were typically more productive.

I returned to the BRT and started unpacking fishing gear from its up till then undisturbed travel spots. Tomorrow promised to be an early rise for me.

As we were all still quite full from our brew pub fare we decided that we all decided the we didn’t need supper and retired early.

Day 51 – May 24

It was an early rise for me, 6:00, as I was goin’ fishin’. I followed the directions of the park ranger from the night before and headed up stream. The path through the woods was well marked and amongst the ponderosa pines there was little undergrowth to impede my progress. She had told me that there would be a rock slide along the path that I would have to walk around/over and she did not understate the task.

The rock slide was more of a boulder slide, with many of the ‘rocks’ the size of small cars. The ranger told me the best route was to go high over the slide, which may have been good advice for someone not dressed in chest waders, felt soled boots and carrying a fishing rod and wading stick. But there was promise of fish beyond so I persevered. It took me about 20 minutes to traverse the rock pile with several moments of reconsideration as I wondered how long it would take someone to find me down one of the many gaps created between what I hoped were solidly wedged boulders.

Once on the other side of the slide I headed further upstream to the promised deeper pools where I started to fish. Unlike the lower reaches of the river, which were shallow with low banks, this section was at the bottom of a steep sided valley and could not be waded so I had to find opportunities along the way to drop down from the path to fish from prominent rocks in the river. Long story short, I had a great walk along the river through beautiful scenery with only one interruption caused by a small rainbow trout – that’s why they call it fishing , not catching.

Close to the end of my walk Diane, Jane and Ike joined me as they walked along the stream. After a hasty late morning breakfast and a clean up we all got into Jane and Ike’s vehicle and drove to Bend. We moved our vehicle to the site that Jane and Ike were going to have that night and hooked I to the power so they could leave the cooler that normally occupies their back seat in the BRT. We were sort of playing musical RVs with the mixture of accommodations that we had set up.

The first stop in Bend was a fishing tackle and outfitters shop where I had a chance to find out good spots to fish and buy some local flies. We also spent some time in the bakery/coffee/wifi spot next door and contacted Sean and Carla to give them the location of the campsite. They were still a couple of hours out so we headed further into Bend to visit the historic mill district, named after the lumber mills that used to support Bends lumber industry, the original reason for its founding.

The mill district was a very upscale shopping area with a mixture of historic and modern brick buildings. Like the rest of Bend we had seen the Mill District was beautifully kept and in very understated good taste. We shopped in the REI outdoors store finding some RV related items that up until then we didn’t know we needed. As I walked out of the store I saw what looked like a familiar vehicle. Upon closer inspection it was the MRT, Sean and Carla had made better time than expected and knowing we were in this area stopped to look around. After a brief discussion we agreed to meet back at the campsite.

Once we juggled vehicles again and settled in, only Jane and Ike had a hookup for the night, Diane and I barbecued shish kebabs accompanied by Carla’s Caesar Salad and Jane’s baked potatoes. Although it was chilly we ate outside next to a campfire.

Day 52 – May 25

Diane and I were up at 6:00 as we had about an hours drive to the Crooked River where I had been told I should be able to get easy access to the river and where there would be lots of small to mid sized trout. There is 10 miles of river where the road is directly along side making access for a tourist fisherman like myself very convenient. The original plan was for Diane to drop me off and then she was going to spend the morning in Prineville and then come back to meet me for lunch. However after having driven through Prineville on the way to the river and not seeing anything extraordinary there and once we realized how far the open part of the river was from Prineville Diane opted to stay with me and follow along with the vehicle as I moved downstream. I have a great wife.

As it turned out once we picked a place to start fishing she only had to move once as the wading was slow due to the moss covered rocks. Although the day started slowly, with few signs of any insects on the water, as the morning wore on and the heat began to build I began to see fish rising to a hatch on the water. Within an hour, the grass on the banks and the air over the river were full of flying insects which started a feeding frenzy amongst the trout. I have been in hatches before but I have never seen this many fly in the air. At times, when the wind picked up, it was like being in a hail storm as these half inch flies peppered my face.

The beauty of being in a hatch is that you get to see how many fish are in the water. The disadvantage is that in a hatch fish will key exclusively to a specific insect and unless you have something that looks exactly like what they are eating you might as well go home. Even if you are fortunate enough to ‘match the hatch’ your fly is now just one of a million that are in the air and on the water so it can be very frustrating as you watch fly after fly being picked off the water all around you while your fly is ignored. I was fortunate enough to catch a few lovely rainbow trout which I returned to the river and I missed dozens more that rose to my fly but I couldn’t hook. Trout make up their mind in an instant if what they have in their mouth is food or foreign matter. Miss that instant and miss that trout. I speak from a world of experience on that matter. Experience that trout continue to give me every day I fish.

I only had three of the ‘magic’ flies that seems to be on the menu that day, having bought a couple of several likely flies at the fishing shop the day before. After straightening out one on a fish, snapping one off on another fish I jealously guarded my last remaining fly which lasted me the rest of the day. Diane made lunch and brought it to the riverside where we sat and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Did I mention that I have a great wife.

While I fished Diane sat in a chair on the bank reading and working on lexicon puzzles while pointing out rising fish to me. By 4:00 I was feeling the toll of two early mornings back to back so we headed back to our campsite where we were planning to go out for supper with the rest of the gang.

When we arrived back at the campsite the others were already there. In our latest round of accommodations musical chairs we were booked into a yurt. The plan was that we would sleep in the yurt and park the BRT in overflow parking while the MRT and LRT would use the two available parking spots on the site and sleep in their vehicles. The park ranger had approved this arrangement. However in just one more switchback on our road to sleepy time we were advised that we couldn’t park two RVs on the site. Luckily there had just been a cancellation of a tenting site so Sean and Carla took that site and we were finally set for the night.

Jane and Ike spent their day visiting Sisters where they had a great day in a lovely quaint town where they enjoyed the opera singer at the cafe along with the many galleries and shops.

From Sean and Carla. We had a late start to our day (13:00), catching up on some much needed sleep and went into Bend for the afternoon. Went to a local fair in a park with lots of cool stuff, mostly crafty stuff I have no time for… (kidding). Then headed to Pine Tree Micro-Brewery and tried a few lagers not yet released commercially. Then sat out on their deck overlooking the river and had a very nice lunch. This restaurant/micro-brewery is known for having a large (actually 2) pine trees growing through the center of the dining area.

I have poked fun at the Novi Spring weather as ours has been phenomenal for almost 40 days but some slight revenge took place this morning with 7 deg C and rain overnight, I mean rain, wow! But of course we are in Oregon in Spring near 5000ft so that may have something to do with it and all the hills around us are snow covered but I will cease my anti-Novi-Spring rants for a while as a result of this recent experience 😉

End section from Sean & Carla and back to Uncle Phil

We loaded up the BRT, which has seat belts for six, and headed into Bend for supper. We had made reservations at Greg’s Grill in the Mill District based on several recommendations. We were not disappointed with either their meat, fish or dessert offerings.

My apologies for the lack of photos in the posting. This fishing business can be a distraction.