Grande Ronde Fall Steelhead

Grande Ronde Fall 2010

Madison Special hooking up

General Trip Overview

Date:  October 27th-29th  Grande Ronde Steelhead Trip

Location:  Grande Ronde River between Bogan’s Oasis and Troy

Trip Objective :  Learn how to catch Steelhead in the fall on the Ronde.  Stayed at the Shilo Troy resort in a room above the restaurant http://www.troyresort.com/  The room was ok, two single beds and a shared bath. Clean enough for a fishing trip.  It was basically worth the cost and that’s about it ($49per night). The restaurant opens at noon and the food was fine.  They serve lunch and dinner and have a small bar.  You can also buy gas, cold drinks and cookies the owner's were very nice...the guys name is Doug.

Weather & Stream Information :

Nice late fall days…some serious rain had fallen a couple of days before their continued to be sporadic clouds and decent showers.  The river was in good fishing shape. Not crystal clear but good visibility to 4-6 feet really just about what you want for sporadic clouds and showers.

Water Temperature:  Not really sure but it was warm to normal for the time of year

Flow & Clarity: The river was in good shape. Not crystal clear but good visibility 4-6 feet.  No Wind

Hatches:  Nothing really a few October caddis flies

Crowds:  It is a popular time…there were people in most of the runs. The Washington side above Bogan's seemed a little better than the Oregon runs to Troy.

Results:

Fish Caught: While fishing with Rick Hedding I landed 2 nice steelhead (hen and buck) and had 4 more on…one was a very nice fish about twice the size of the ones I landed

Best Flies:  Purple rabbit leach with a black bead head and red sparkle hackle,  trailing a Madison Special (pink chenille and white wing)….caught fish on both flies. Rick also fishes the purple leach with a pink bead and a red bead supposedly black was the ticket the day I was there.

Other:  Used Rick Hedding as my guide he is highly recommended. http://www.northweststeelheadfishing.com/  509-869-1444

 

Trip Detail:

Rick Hedding...Grande Ronde Guide

Fishing the Grande Ronde has not always worked out well for me. This will be my third trip and so far no fish. To increase my success rate I decided to find a guide that was very well versed in catching Grande Ronde steelhead. I got Rick Hedding’s name from a TV show called  “Fish on the Fly”.  Rick hosted a very successful adventure guiding the Gonzaga head basketball coach ( Mark Few) down the river.  It was a great show and everyone was very complimentary of Rick.  After some additional  due diligence I figured that he was my guy so I called. Long story short choosing Rick was a great idea.  He fishes the Washington section of the Ronde, which frankly looks like it has better water than the Oregon section.  He is very knowledgeable and a great teacher. I learned a ton and can honestly say he is one if not the best guides I have had the pleasure of fishing with.

 

 Travel Logistics:

Bogan's...Food and Supplies

I left Boise very early (5:14) on Wednesday the 27th and was at Bogan’s Oasis by 9:30 Pacific Time.  There is a 1 hour time change. It is roughly a 5 hour trip and there is a good opportunity to tie into a real  good breakfast in Enterprise at a very local café  “Friends Restaurant” .  It is right on the corner of River and North 1 block past the left hand turn that you make to head towards the Grande Ronde (Bogan’s and  ultimately Troy).  It is about an hours drive from Enterprise to the Ronde, you can take the Flora cutoff(~37 miles from Enterprise) this will put you on the Ronde just below Troy on Oregon water.  Or, you can continue down the main highway and you will cross the Ronde at Bogan’s in Washington.  There is a 4 season road that goes along the Ronde and connects Bogan's to Troy running along the Grande Ronde the entire time.   Troy is ~16 miles upstream from Bogan's and you hit the Oregon Border about 10 miles upstream from Bogan’s.  The Oregon/Washington border is not well marked so you need to pay attention to which state you are in.  As you travel upstream from Bogan’s there is a boat launch ~ 10 miles upstream from Bogan’s.  There are some large cliffs across the river from the launch.  At that point I am sure you are in Oregon.

 

The Fishing: 

On my guided/learning day I met Rick at Bogan’s at 6:30, had a good breakfast (I think they open at 6) grabbed a Washington  day license and off we went.  We started the guided day ~3 miles upstream from Bogan’s.  Rick put his boat in  at a small roadside pull-out upstream from the yellow house. We headed downstream but there was another guided party that was spending a lot of time at the start of the run directly upstream from where we put in.   Run 1: There are cliffs on the down river right side and a nice run about a ¼ of mile below the put in. This is a good run with some nice deep holding water at the beginning (downriver right side) and a bench about mid-way through it.  Good place to spend time especially if you have a boat.  Run 2:  From there we moved down to the next obvious run which was directly across the road from the yellow house. There was a guy fishing the bank but plenty of room for both of us.  This run fished great from the boat but, unfortunately, no action. 

Run 3:  We continued, fairly quickly, downstream to Rick’s honey stretch.  This section of water is upstream from the hatchery ~ ¼  to ½ mile or so. It is basically a nice sweeping turn that starts out as deep water then tails out over 100 yards or so. It is directly upstream from one of the largest rapids on this section of the river.  This is a long run that is a great place for the fish to recover from the stress of swimming the rapids. This section is best fished from the bank with lots of places to pull your boat out (river left).  It is also a place that you can get to from your car.  Park at the top of the hill (nice pull-out) and go down to the river … it will fish very well with 1-3 people.  I picked up 2 nice fish in this section.  Run 4: From the honey stretch we moved down to the hatchery area and fished directly upstream from the hatchery stream.  This is also a nice stretch that has less pressure than the area immediately surrounding the hatchery.  We moved down river from here and fished hard in the stretch that was directly upriver from the red roofed cabin.  I picked up the nicest fish of the trip river left about 75 yards upstream from the cabin.  Big strong fish that finally bent my hook and escaped.   I had him on for quite awhile and he moved me across the river several times…this fish reminded me of why I fish with a 8wt…Needless to say I was a bit disappointed…Oh well, that’s why they call it fishing and also why I will be back.  Rest of the Float:  From the red roofed cabin we floated gradually downstream to Bogan’s paying particular attention to the seams on river left. I hooked another 3 or 4 fish but did not get anything to the boat. We had very good action that I think was driven primarily by the time of day. The rain had stopped and the afternoon had warmed up nicely.  We fished hard and had action all the way down to the take out across the street from Bogan’s.  We wandered off the water at a few minutes before 6..what a day!!

 

Key Learning’s:

1)The decision to use a guide was the right one and Rick was one of the best guides I have had the pleasure of fishing with…highly recommended.

2)Rick, liked the combination of the black bead purple body and tail red collared rabbit leach (size 4 hook) trailing his daughter's designed fly….the "Madison Special" (nice egg pattern with a white wing).  This combo worked well and I picked up fish on both flies.  The Madison Special trailed 12 to 16 inches behind the leach.

3)We placed split shot (bb) directly above the leach…we ran between 4 and 7 bb sized shot to get the leach down to the bottom…the idea is to bounce along the bottom but not get snagged on every cast. 4)The indicator was placed ~8 feet up the leader a foot or so before the leader and line connection.

5)Rick also had, but we didn’t use it the same leach pattern with a orange bead.  I have seen this combo used quite a bit but for some reason he was getting more action on the black bead combo

The Washington section looked better to me than the Oregon section…certainly much more water. You can get your Washington license at Bogan’s  That’s about it at least for this trip.

6)

Good Luck and Good Hunting!