Ana Reservoir, 2018
Sometimes a weekend just means getting out of town, soaking in some sun, listening to the birds, a campfire, and getting up in the middle of the night to look at the meteor shower. What do you have planned for the weekend?
Chickahominy!, 2018
We’ve driven by on the way east many times, the sign always beckoning, but the time not allowing a visit. This past weekend it was finally the destination.
Chickahominy is a reservoir in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Several hundred acres of water seem a bit out of place in the sagebrush ocean of Harney County. Along with the reservoir is a campground with well over 30 sites, a nice boat ramp and lots of fishing opportunities with views for miles. Saturday was going to be the nicest day in a week and it was time to start getting out and about. After a short drive we had a campsite with a lake view and were quickly trolling. Before long we started getting some takers and it didn’t take too much to figure out where the biters were.
Reflecting on Rivers, 2017
November typically signals the end to river floating season. In the past, seeing November roll around was a bit depressing. No more floating, fishing is pretty much over and the days are really short on daylight. It seems nowadays there’s no shortage of things to get done in November, so it’s not all that depressing, but it still marks the end of river floating season. And wow, was 2017 a season for floats.
I feel very lucky to be able to live in a place that I can float 7 rivers in a year (some multiple times) all within a one day drive of the doorstep. So these are my thoughts reflecting back on a year of being lucky enough to float over 360 miles on 7 rivers in Oregon in 2017.
Deschutes
How amazing is it to have the Deschutes as your backyard river? 1.5 hours to the put in, abundant permits, amazing trout fishing with bonus steelhead in the fall, and great camping and even hiking if you make the time for it. Trips to the Deschutes are kind of the bookend to the floating season. It is typically one of, if not the first trips of the season and is also commonly the last trip. It seems like it is always a good time to float the Deschutes with a wide season of good weather, predictable flows and great fishing, I don’t know what else to ask of a river. Fishing seems like it is on the decline, but I don’t ever see a year in the future without the Deschutes.