Greasy Beaks Fishing Adventures

Greasy Beaks Fishing Adventures
Guided Fly Fishing with Capt. Eliot

Friday, May 29, 2009

Summer Fly Fishing in Eugene



Rock Bassin' in Coos Bay is awesome, day or night. Andy and I took his 17ft Jetcraft out to the bar in Charleston in search of Ling Cod, Rock Bass, Stripers, or anything else that would hit a 5inch baitfish pattern. We caught around 30 fish a piece with having no prior knowledge of the area and structure. The bite remained good right throught the wee hours untill our casting started to fatigue and hunger set in. The highlight of the evening came in the midst of hooking rocky's at a fervent pace, and then having the coast guard come over and kick us off the bar due to swells.



Davis Lk. was slow but still produced some large LMB's all while being able to spot fish cruising. Casts of > 60ft were needed to get there undivided attention without them feeling the boat or seeing the fly line. Long leaders and natural colors seemed entice a few, but overall the bite was tough. An interesting moment came while pulling anchor. I had let a bait fish pattern settle to the bottom, when I gave it 2 strips, a large elusive Davis Lake rainbow picked it up and began tail walking across the surface with the white streamer hanging out of his mouth. The fish was a plump lake bow that was pushing 25 inches, in the 5-6lb range. The bastard eventually got away when he made a line ripping run. With a sudden stop and 180 deg. change of direction the fly fell from his mouth and the fish swam right past the boat adding insult to injury! Anyway it was cool to hook one and they are considerably hotter than the bass.



Springer fishing has been awesome this past week. One ate my spinner 10ft off the bow of Jason's Alumaweld this morning on the town run and it was awesome to see him actually chase down the spinner and suck it in. The Santiam fished well on Wednesday where I hooked 6 in a few hours on gear. Going back out tomorrow!






Tuesday, May 5, 2009

May 1st Davis Lake Bass Fest!




With the warmer temps and spring rains, the ice is off most of the high cascade lakes. JC and myself decided it was time to go strip big flies and poppers for the elusive Large Mouth Bass. Davis Lake had been illegally planted with LMB in the mid to late 80's which quickly vaulted it into one of the most controversial lakes in Oregon. The history behind the lake was that it had, at one point, been one of the states best stillwater fisheries for trout. It was not uncommon to catch native lake 'bows in the 30in. range. Today those fish are still out there but have been largely decimated thanks to the voracious appetite of the LMB. We felt we had to do our part in order to sore-mouth a couple of those "ditch pickles!"



Davis, is a fly fishing only lake which makes it nice and sometimes easy to catch big bass on flies. Shooting heads & sinking lines can be a must for catching pigs, but as summer temps take over the bass will move into the shallows and become vulnerable to surface flies. We had temps in the upper 40's and I'm guessing H2O temps around the same. We figured poppers would not produce because of the frigid spring temps. Towards the end of the day we were pleasantly surprised to see Bass actually waking after, and devouring our frog patterns and poppers.