sigh-YOU-slaw

Now that the water has come down out here in Oregon (it came down quite some time ago), it occurred to me that I had taken a short drive out to the Siuslaw river west of town a few months back.  The river looked like a fun river to fish with all kinds of pools and runs.  There was plenty of great structure all over the river to hold fish and keep me entertained.  The downside at the time was that the water was HIGH and FLOWING.  The rivers in Oregon, I have come to find out, are quite different from the rivers I'm used to in Colorado.  Out here everything is built upon old lava flows, so the river beds are solid rock that has been warped and worn by the water over years.  Apparently what that results in is flat shallow areas that instantly drop off to 3 foot deep pools, which makes the wading a little frightening.  And when water is high it's even worse.  One wrong step and down river you go!

But back when I took my trip out there in high water I did try fishing for a while.  I probably spent about two hours tossing a variety of nymphs into the water in different spots to no avail.  I also couldn't walk around much due to the crazy drop-offs even in the grass.

Now, however, the water has come down nicely and I can walk all over the river, although still cautiously.

There was on curiosity, which I also noticed last time out.  There are crawfish all over the river bed.  They probably aren't crawfish because they're in a cold water stream and they are bright red (before being cooked).  I thought it was odd because I had never seen it before.

 

I didn't see any fish coming to the surface, but in a small stream I figured my old reliable dry dropper was the best bet.  I tied on a stimulator and a P-tail dropper and started throwing.  I got quite a few hit in all kinds of places.  The deeper, slow moving pools produced.

Quite a few of the faster moving runs with seams to slower moving waters produced too.

In all I think I may have caught anywhere from 30-50 fish.  I should bring along a little counter next time I go out.  Most of the fish were pretty small, but quite a few of them were fairly decent.  Nothing was bigger than 12inches though, sadly.  :o(

I tried getting some video of me catching fish, but every time I set up the camera to record, I got skunked.  I will keep trying and eventually I will succeed!