fishing – Page 2

September 1, 2024August 31, 2024

Preserving the Season

A couple of things this week, Steelhead and seasonal fruit canning.

If you’re a regular on this blog, you might recall we’ve combined trips for Summer Steelhead on the Lower Deschutes and orchard visits before.

Well, it’s that time of year again. Fishermen refer to Steelhead as a fish of a thousand casts. It can take that many or more to actually catch one.

Our favorite stretch of the Deschutes River.

In simple terms, this is a Rainbow Trout smolt that spent a few years in the ocean and then comes back to the fresh water river of it’s birth to spawn and repeat the cycle.

Late summer on the Lower Deschutes offers a chance to add to your cast number in pursuit of large fish. Mostly, I’ve been trying out fly patterns, improving my casting skills, and a little more.

This week I did manage to hook up a large fish, but lost it before a positive identification. In a week, I’ll try again. The Lower Deschutes Canyon in late summer is worth the trip.

Suncrest peaches feature in a new recipe, Ginger Peach Butter

August and September are huge canning months as farms and orchards overflow with new harvests. We eat “seasonally” which requires the preservation of some of what you are enjoying at the moment.

Pickling and fermenting are on this month’s menu

Stone fruit have started to show up at the Hood River orchards so that is what we gathered extra of this week. Peaches, plums and some crabapples are getting sliced for breakfast today and loaded into jars for meals this winter.

Tree ripened fruit from the farmstand outshines anything you’ll find at the mega-mart. It is always worth the trip.

May 19, 2024May 19, 2024

From River to Market . . .

The Lower Deschutes is open to fishing year-round. However, as winter turns to spring, fishing improves. Run-off hasn’t started, but water temps rising triggers the metamorphosis in aquatic insects.

By the middle of the month insect activity has come full swing. Most anglers await the big stoneflies to crawl on to riverside bushes. This week we’re content to chase Blue Wing Olives and the Baetis hatch.

Salmon flies, a giant variety of stonefly, attracts more fishers than fish. It also marks a point when the rafters start to flood the stream and camp sites.

We try to get at least one trip to the Lower Deschutes during the big stonefly emergence, before heading to less crowded water.

At a favorite parking spot on the Lower Deschutes

This week was that trip. We had a blast. There could still be a trip to fish over salmon flies, but river spots are already getting a bit too crowded for us.

The real highlight of this week’s travels was a trip to a grocery store. Just half an hour north of Maupin, in the town of Dufur is a unique market.

Years back, while researching whole grain suppliers, JQ came across Azure Standard. At the time they offered local delivery of a limited variety of bulk grains. We ended up getting our wheat berries from Bob’s Red Mill, as it was easier and closer.

Jump ahead a dozen years, our lives have changed, but not a need for organic, clean products.

In that time Azure’s offerings have expanded and are being trucked nationally. Turns out one of a growing number of ‘local drop sites’ is a five minute drive from our house. We’ve become Azure Standard regulars.

A wide variety of grains and beans fill shelves in the market

This last week, JQ discovered the company operates a brick and mortar store in Dufur, Oregon . . . The Dufur Market. The Azure Standard catalogue is quite extensive, with some items we’d love to try, but on a smaller scale than the delivery order.

Mt. Hood as backdrop to a winter wheat field

Thus the trip to Dufur.

In case you’re ever in that part of Oregon, it’s worth a stop. And the sprouted corn tortillas were as good as the reviews said.

March 15, 2024March 30, 2024

This Might be Spring

It’s only been a week, but what a difference that has made.

We enjoyed clear sky and spring-like weather for the first time in months. Well, it seems like months.

This season has started to shift, bringing on a typical Central Oregon spring . . . that is, frigid mornings with warm afternoons.

It’s about time.

You don’t need to catch fish to enjoy fishing

We headed to the Crooked River, and while layers were still required attire, the camp chairs and picnic at river’s edge were a welcome change.

No fish were caught, but a good time was had by all.

Runoff has started. It will fill streams and hamper fishing, but the weather it seems will not interfere with our outings . . . at least for a while.

And with that we’ll get back out into the High Desert.

March 3, 2024March 15, 2024

Weather . . . again

Making paw prints in fresh snow is good fun

Don’t mean to complain about the weather . . . but . . .

Again this week we’ve been under mostly gray skies with a few inches of snow flurries thrown in.

One of the consequences of a wetter than normal winter is rivers are at or above capacity. Streams we frequent are running at April levels.

Un-fishable water is usually a product of run-off and right when ODFW opens the Upper Deschutes River as an alternative.

These dreary days mean we’ll fill the blog with more domestic tasks.

Oh there was activity, just mostly indoors and with fewer photos captured.

Not fishing doesn’t mean not thinking about fishing. Limited stream access just means more sitting at the desk spin’in feathers.

I even posted some of the patterns on Instagram. Winter is the season to refill boxes with patterns depleted last summer.

Books occupy another segment of daily activities. What an Inter-library loan can’t find, Hoopla and Kindle can.

Ken Forkish, owner of Ken’s Artisan Bakery In Portland, Oregon has written several books on bread. Evolutions in Bread and Flour Water Salt Yeast make for great reading.

There is always an eclectic mix of titles stacked on the living room table. This week that pile contained an inordinate number of cookbooks.

The other activity associated with dreary weather is cooking and we’ve done quite a lot of that. Soup Sunday returned this year and we’ve sampled and canned a couple of good recipes. JQ tweaked her chocolate pound cake recipe to perfection and fourth time seems to be the charm on finding a truly good chocolate chip cookie.

We didn’t get out much but that will change with the season. For now we’ll start a new book and wait for the real thaw.

February 18, 2024March 15, 2024

Time Flies but Still It’s Winter

As I’m writing this post the snows have returned.

Not as deep as before, but there is still some shovel work required. We understand it’s winter and yet days under gray sky seem more numerous this year than any in the past.

We don’t lament the inevitable and in fact look forward to a seasonal shift. It has been common in Central Oregon for snowy winter days to be followed by sun and blue sky. Usually in equal amounts.

Not this year.

The week didn’t start with snow on the ground. Mid-February started with a spring-like feel.

It’s referred to as false spring, but regardless, we took advantage and headed to Maupin to spend the day on the Deschutes.

Rivers remain swollen from January’s melted snows so the fishing wasn’t great.

However, the day was sunny and temperatures pushed into the fifties. We sat up chairs on river’s edge, enjoyed the day and waited for winter to return.

We didn’t have long to wait.