The John Day River is the longest undammed river in Oregon. We were able to get out and enjoy a few pieces of it this spring. Our first stop was the South Fork, catching up to it flowing north toward Dayville. The South Fork is a decent sized stream, especially during spring runoff, surrounded by a picturesque canyon through most of it’s run before it spills into the main fork of the John Day.
Coincidentally, on our way to the South Fork we stopped off for the night most of the way there, in the Ochoco National Forest and found a camp with barely adequate cell service to book a river permit for the last segment of this story as the second half of permits became available as we woke up the next morning. Maybe it was good karma of being in the John Day basin as we clicked through on the second permits became available, because there it was, the permit we were looking for just waiting for us. Permit in hand for a couple weeks in the future we moved on to our weekend exploration up the South Fork.
Our first stop produced a huge fish, and who cares if it had a big sucker mouth right, we’re not keeping them anyway? We also had a decent rainstorm in the morning which have been pretty hard to come by this year. Fish and no people around, this was shaping up to be a good little stream.
We eased up the muddy road trying a few more spots with one more huge sucker and a nice rainbow for our efforts. We found a spot for the night and enjoyed a quiet night around the campfire.
The south fork drainage is pretty scenic with a bit of small stream fishing thrown in. Did I say there weren’t any crowds? Well, there were those two turkeys, and the cows being shuttled up the road in semis, but other than that, not much was happening other than lots of canyon scenery and casting to a few quiet pools.
The next morning we hit a few more pools before making our way to the top of the South Fork and the falls I didn’t even realize existed before studying maps in advance of the trip. The falls on the South Fork are a pretty impressive drop and definitely the end of the line when it comes to any steelhead making their way from the Pacific.
Near the top of the drainage we made a right and circled back through the Ochocos, over the Maurys and back home, completing our circumnavigation of the Ochocos and crossing a new location off our list. My kind of weekend.
we stayed a couple miles up the river from dayville last yr, in a wall tent glamp. nice spot, but mosquito hell. and it was hot times.
going down the main fork in a few days.
We must have beat the skeeters, but good to know they could be miserable at the wrong time.