Nature – Page 9

May 28, 2023May 27, 2023

Chasing Bugs

Just a brief post this week as we’ve been busy tracking Stoneflies.

Flyfishing is always about the aquatic insects. However, in late spring there is an increase in activity. As rivers come out of their winter hibernation, water warms and invertebrates start to move about.

This usually means dry fly fishing . . . that’s the best kind.

Plecoptera; stonefly (Pteronarcys californica: Salmon fly and Calineuria Californica; Golden Stones) have been burrowed in gravel on the river’s bottom for a few years.

When the water temperature gets around fifty degrees, these very large bugs crawl to the bank, shuck their aquatic shell and fly up into the bushes.

Come evening they fly back over the water and deposit their eggs, which sink to the rocky bottoms and the cycle starts over.

To a flyfisher this means those large fish who normally hold in deep pools are lured out into the shallows along the bank to feast on stoneflies. Thus, we are prowling river’s edge hoping for a hook-up.

May 21, 2023May 20, 2023

Return to Maupin

Spring shifts to summer quickly in Central Oregon. The days are already getting near eighty . . . not complaining, but rivers will get crowded soon enough.

In the spring the canyon is all shades of green

In a typical year the Deschutes has a salmon fly hatch at the end of spring. This is not a typical year and with the high run-off we’ll not see salmon flies for a few more weeks.

The other infamous Deschutes River event is the ‘rubber hatch’ which fills the river with rafts overloaded with happy boaters. This year it’s looking like that event will overtake the salmon fly hatch, at least downstream from Maupin.

Musical trills of redwinged blackbirds echo through the canyon

This week we made one more trip to Maupin, hoping to enjoy a relatively uncrowded river and a canyon just coming into summer foliage.

The day was sunny and warm, though we didn’t hit any hatch, the fishing was good.

Caught in mid-flight protecting his territory

As is usually the case, wildlife was active along this stretch of water. JQ managed to get some great images of Red-winged blackbird and a Heron who seems like a permanent resident of this stretch of river.

Male Merganser, the perfect shape to hunt fish

We’ll try to fish salmon flies a little further upstream in the next few weeks. In the mean time, we just set up the camp chairs and enjoy a rare quiet day on the Lower Deschutes.

May 14, 2023May 13, 2023

Runoff continues

Our weather lately has looked like this.

Haven’t seen the Crooked this full, ever.

Months of snow, in what normally would have been spring, have translated into an extended runoff.

Rivers and reservoirs are at capacity and that means fishing isn’t at its best.

While we wait for the flows to subside, it’s still interesting to witness all that water.

Someone has jury duty, and while she’s not happy about it, this week we’re sticking closer to home. Thus a return trip to the rushing Crooked River.

May 7, 2023May 6, 2023

Spring Thaw

One more summer-like day was forecast this week, so we headed up to the Crooked River. It was mostly to check on spring run off. This winter, as we’ve noted many times in posts, we saw a lot of snow days.

The Crooked River canyon has come into it’s spring colors and the water levels pushed up on the banks.

I think the saying . . . feast or famine, accurately describes Central Oregon’s water issues. Last year, even after runoff, reservoirs sat at about twenty percent full.

When we visited the river it was running at 1340 cfs and the Prineville Reservoir was at 85 percent capacity. The late winter snows have improved drought conditions and hopefully will help avoid last fall’s disastrous 10 cfs levels in the Crooked River.

Years of drought conditions are not easily fixed. There are still severe and extreme drought conditions across most of the east side.

These little guys blend into their surroundings

The Crooked River’s flow has dropped to fishable levels but the mountains are still snow covered.

Oregon rivers are showing the signs of heavy runoff, filling reservoirs, as well as irrigation ditches.

It’s good news for farmers and fisherman, at least for this year.

April 30, 2023April 29, 2023

Birding

White-fronted geese trail behind two Sandhill Cranes

This week Central Oregon skipped spring and went straight to summer. Not complaining, but it was an abrupt shift in weather and attitude.

We’re long overdue for a Summer Lake trip, so we loaded up the bird books and headed east.

It might be a bit cliche . . . turn seventy and post a piece on birding. Is that too much, old guy? In between trips to the river, which by the way are great places to bird, we do regular bird-centric excursions.

Over the years we’ve sat, eyes pinned to lenses, along a lot of different marshes. Living on the northern edge of the Great Basin puts us close to a few stopovers on the Pacific Flyway. One of the best, in our opinion, is Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge.

Unlike wildlife areas with better ‘press,’ Summer Lake never disappoints. Here we squint across a hundreds of yards of field. The loop road, often just a couple of tire ruts along the top of a dike, allows for great birding opportunities.

It was an unseasonably warm spring day, perfect time to catch the first round of migratory birds moving across the country. Some will spend weeks, others will move on in a few days.

The great thing is they never cease to amuse; like an acrobatic yellow-headed black bird bouncing from stalk to stalk, or Clark’s Grebes hunting a secluded section of the pond.

There is another visit scheduled for later this spring, well before the summer heat.