Document text
Now's time to grab fly rods By MARK FREEMAN It's time for fly-casters to dust off their rods and head to the upper Rogue River in search of the wily steelhead. After a summer when high river flows have made any steelhead fly-fishing difficult, fly-friendly low water is finally back. Couple low flows with water temperatures still warm enough for the steelhead to consider rising to an artificial fly, and the next few weeks clearly become prime time for prime fly-fishing on the upper Rogue. "I wait all year for this," says Jack Jermain, a fishing guide and owner of the Fishin' Hole in Shady Cove. "We have the right kind of weather and water right now." The good conditions also mesh nicely with season restrictions, which close the upper Rogue upstream of Gold Ray Dam to all angling except with artificial flies. Flies can be fished with conventional fly rods and lines, or with spinning rods, monofilament line and plastic bobbers -- as long as there are no added weights attached to the monofilament. Flies-only fishing lasts through October, but late-season fly-fishing is usually poorer because of colder water flows that leave steelhead more sluggish. The fall fly-fishing season for summer steelhead is one of the storied gems of the Rogue, which prompted novelist Zane Grey to wax poetic in the 1920s and still lures rod-toting tourists today. Since Lost Creek dam was completed on the upper Rogue in 1977, fall fly-fishing for steelhead has been an on-again, off-again proposition. The fall water releases from Lost Creek Lake make the Rogue higher and cooler than normal early in the season. The higher water disperses the steelhead, which are holding in riffles and near creek mouths as they await their winter spawning. This year's higher-than-average snowpack has exacerbated these conditions, making traditional fly-fishing tough. Conditions began to change recently as water releases from the lake dropped almost in half during the past two weeks. On Wednesday, the water releases from Lost Creek Lake were at 1,117 cubic feet per second -- the lowest of 1999. The dramatic drop in water levels have subsided, and now the steelhead are ready to bite flies again. "Last week, the fish were bouncing all over the place not knowing what they should do," Roberts says. "Now that things have settled down, they'll be much more on the bite." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will have Lost Creek Lake ready for winter flood control this week, and the agency's hydrologists will set the dam's outflows to match the amount of water flowing in. On Wednesday, the flow into the lake was 1,035 cfs. To catch summer steelhead on flies now, use floating or sink-tip lines to swing streamers like tiger paws, red ants and green-butt skunks across riffles. That is the traditional Rogue fly-fishing style, which relies on the steelhead rising up from the bottom to take the flies. By using weighted flies like ugly bugs or bead-head hare's ears, anglers can free-drift the flies along the bottom, beneath strike indicators, to hook the fish where they live. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] .) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA