Weneha River in NE Oregon

Chris Jones...Explorer

General Trip Summary

Date:  9/8 /2010 thru 9/12/2010

Location:  Wenaha River…trail head at Troy..~6.5 miles into Crooked Creek

Trip Objective :  Investigate Wenaha, find the elusive Oregon Bull Trout

Lodging and Buddies:  I went on this trip with Chris Jones the famous backpacker and Sawtooth explorer.  We camped along the river in various spots. There are several nice spots ~ 5 miles in.  The first spot is a black walnut tree across the river.  Approx. ½ mile further you will see a trail that leads to a nice camp on the beach next to a very cool basalt wall nick named the weeping wall (Chris Jones 9/9/2010)

Weather

Air Temperature:  First couple of days were cool (60’s) with plenty of rain it began to clear at the end of day 3 and we got good fall type weather

Moon Phase: full moon

Wind Speed:  Winds were light

Stream Information

Water Temperature:  Stream temperature was good…cool to wade but not too cold to wade wet. The lower section of the river was cold enough to hold some nice trout.

Flow & Clarity:  Very clear

Oregon Bull Trout

Hatches:  Observed some hatches coming off in the morning (pale yellow crane fly #16, some brown caddis #16 or possibly #18, also observed lots of stone fly shucks on rocks and caddis larva. Some very large encased larva…huge #10?  Not sure what the larva is (large October Caddis?)

Crowds:  We saw quite a few people…several groups of fishermen plus backpackers every day

Results

Fish Caught:  We caught fish every day…lots of small rainbows in the fast water, plus some very nice bull trout and mountain white fish.
Best Flies:  The larger fish seemed to like large black streamers…I used heavily weighted ones to get down in the holes.  Even the smaller trout smacked them hard.  The white fish seemed to like the combination of a Yellow Sallie trailing a # 16 Peasant Tail nymph.  

 

Detailed Trip Notes:

Chris Jones and I departed early on 9/8 for a four night back packing adventure along the Wenaha river in NE Oregon. The Wenaha flows through the Wenaha Tucannon Wilderness area cutting a deep canyon and finally joining the Grand Ronde at the town of Troy.  The bottom of the canyon is well treed with cottonwoods, ponderosa pine and fir trees. The river is ~ 30 miles long with good trail access along most of it.  The main Trail head is just outside the town of Troy and is the primary access point into the Canyon.  There are numerous other trails coming in from the top of the ridges on both sides of the canyon.  Hoodoo trail and Crooked Creek are two of the more popular rim to river trails.

Day 1 = The drive:  From Boise the trip took longer than we anticipated…with a lunch stop in Enterprise it took us 7 hours from my door to trail head.   Although we were not in a hurry this put us on the trailer later than we wanted and just at the time the rain started.  Our goal for day was  Crooked Creek which we correctly anticipated having some good camp spots.  It was a long wet walk in, with the packs feeling substantially heavier than I remember. We covered the 6.5 miles to Crooked Creek in ~ 4.5 hours…and were soaked to the bone. Luckily the rain subsided for a short period of time allowing us to pitch our tents without getting them too soaked.  One thing that we did learn is that it takes roughly two full days for wet leather hiking boots to completely dry (while being worn).

 

Day 2 = fishing:  We started working down stream from the Crooked Creek confluence.  We saw lots of small rainbows in the rapids (6-8”).  The holes were the only place that we found larger fish. . I was able to hit the Northwest trifecta by hooking a nice bull trout, mountain white fish and rainbow all out of the hole directly upstream from the confluence.  The white fish was about 3 lbs, bull trout ~16” and rainbow about 13-14”.   In general the fishing was good in the holes and not worth the effort in the rapid sections.  I was able to hook a couple more nice size bull trout with my black weighted streamer.  Large rainbows were scarce.

The Weeping Wall

Day 3 =hike downstream and fishing:  We decided to move camp lower on the stream both to improve (we were hoping) our chance at finding some larger fish and nailing a good camping spot next to the river that we spotted on the hike in.  We ended up moving down about 1.5 miles and securing a great camping spot next to the river and directly across the stream from a very interesting basalt wall.  Chris was pretty sure that the face of Jesus kept appearing on the wall…I am pretty sure that this was not actually occurring but never the less the wall was pretty cool with lot of colorful lichen and plants.  I also observed that Chris’s sightings of Jesus often occurred after he tapped into the Jack D  after a long day on the stream.  The camp spot is pretty easy to find as an obvious side trail leads you right to it ~ 5 miles in.  Another key benefit to this location was its proximity to 4 of the best fishing holes  on the stream.  The rainbow fishing significantly improved, there seemed to be more bugs lower as well as the great holding water provided by the deep holes.  I continued to ply the depths for bull trout with my heavy black streamers…pretty good luck in the afternoon.  Nice bulls but nothing over 18”.

 

Day 4 = more of the same “tough life”:  Day 4 brought us good weather and some other fisherman to share our little slice of heaven.    Unfortunately, 3 or 4  guys made camp about a ½ mile below us (after I saw 2 I just quit counting ) and decided to ply the depths of our holes with every form of flashy hardware known to mankind. Luckily we saw no worms but I don’t know that for sure.  While the fishing was good and I took the largest rainbow of my trip ~18”, it did seem like the bright sun made the fish more wary .  All and all day 4 was not quite as productive as day 3 but all and all a good day with lots of nice fish being caught.  We did hike downstream and did not find any real good water until we were across from the other fisherman’s camp.  They camped across the river under a beautiful old black walnut tree.  There were several good holes/runs immediately downstream from their camp.

Key Learnings & Other Thoughts:

1.Fishing: This is a great river to explore further especially the upper river above Crooked Creek.

•Be well prepared for larger bull trout…bigger rods (6-7wt), large weighted streamers (black, green ), bring either shot or a sink tip line to help get your fly further down in the holes.

•Bring some streamers or other pattern that can imitate a smaller fish. These fish are true cannibals and seem to grab anything that swims within range

Beautiful Wenaha

•Explore the river in the summer, it will be hot but it seems to be doable.  I believe there will be less people on the river.  We seemed to have hit the window when the backpacker/ fishermen get active, basically after the heat and before the hunters. Next year I will try and hit it earlier and to miss the people windo. 

2.Travel: Allow more time for the travel especially the day before the trip.  Either get going earlier or camp at the trail head.

1.Enterprise Food:  The “Friends” restaurant  in downtown Enterprise is a nice café where you can get breakfast all day long. It is on the same block as the book store  and just down the street from the court house. There is also a good brew pub in Enterprise, I believe that it is called terminal gravity.

More Photo's:

Good Luck and Good Hunting!