McKenzie River – Fantastic Scenery – Fabulous Water – Wonderful Fishing – Great Memories

RT enjoyed a magical 2 days on the McKenzie River in late September. We did several different runs on the upper river targeting trout on the fly. Ron did an exceptional job of placing the flies right where fish live and the fish were indeed quite responsive. Both days he landed a bunch of scrappy trout, both wild and of hatchery origin. We used a combination of dries and nymphs with the wets working better in the morning and with the dries proving more productive in the afternoon. On the second morning we decided to mix the plan up a tad and search for late summer steelhead on the lower river. What a great call! Just as on the other drifts, we had the river virtually to ourselves, no other fishing boats. We figured one hook-up would make for a successful morning as Ron was hoping to try out his new spey rod. In an effort to save time, I handed him an 8 wt single-hander with the fly already in place. Within just a cast or two, Ron was into his first hot steelhead. Suffice to say, we never broke out the spey rod as over the course of our morning drift we had 5 grabs in 4 different locations of which Ron deftly landed a total of 3 nice summer-runs all on the same fly. I’m sure it will be a special day to remember for both of us!