Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing John Day River steelhead report (photo)

Expended all of Saturday (11-19-06) on the John Day River after steelhead. The river was higher than average and quite cloudy. I managed 4 tugs, 3 hook ups, and 2 landed. This one is obviously not a John Day fish as it has a clipped adipose. There are no hatcheries on the John Day. Roughly 29 to 30 inches. A good day given the conditions.

That is a GREAT photo! Just the right amount of pinkish hue to make them so sexy.

That John Day is an interesting river, great smallmouth fishing on the eastern part of it from what I understand.

That's a beauty! You weren't swinging flies in that milky water, were you?

Went through Warm Springs while working today and it looks like the lower river is being fed by a glacier, (above white river).

Steelhead: It was a cloudy day, which made the photography a little easier. Everything washes out when the sun is out. Had to downsize the photo a bit to get it posted, bit it seemed to survive the shrinkage in fine style. I have not done the smallmouth thing, but hear that it's almost a fish every cast in the summer months. We have never picked any up, however, with out late fall steelheading efforts. Castandblast: Yes, the White river completly blew out with some rains a week or two ago, and a portion of the highway around the south east side of Mt Hood was blocked with boulders etc. We met some folks that came to the John Day because the Descutes was totally unfishable. In low snow years the glacier can begin eroding in late summer and pretty well trash the lower 25 miles of the river for fishing. Over the years, we've had 2 of our annual Sept trips washed out by the White River, but we still do the week long float anyway just to get out. We were indeed swinging flies - mostly bullet nosed black leach type patterns on floating lines. Still have some spinning gear, but it's not been off the rack for about 25 years now.

Sweeeet!!!!!

That hen trout is a beauty...