This last Monday I played hooky from work and a buddy of mine and I headed over the mountain to the beautiful Metolius River. I decided to give the my Steffen
8' 5/6 a workout over the boo. Here's the site that greeted us:
The high turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day...(only not necessarily for the fish---they seem to hate sun). I hooked into a nice little whitefish on my second or third cast (didn't land it--more on that later)...
This is a river where if I'm nymphing the majority of the time (which we both did Monday), I'll usually hook 5 whitefish to every 1 redband...not today...I only hooked a total of two whitefish (didn't land either), the second of which fought like a redband and even went airborne once (a rareity for whitefish).
I eventually made my way down to one of my favorite holes on on the river:
I did manage to catch a really nice redband out of that hole a little later...probably the hardest fighter of an fish caught that day but also the smallest (taped out at a hair over 15"--but nice, broad shoulders).
I made my way to another hole that I routinely hit on that stretch of river and was rewarded with three fish in a period of about ten minutes. one redband, a nice brown, and this:
here's a closer shot...most of the redbands here don't have nearly as many spots or the nice red slashes. I'm thinking cutt, but here's the kicker, they haven't stocked the Metolius since the mid-90s and cutts certainly aren't native to begin with (at least that I'm aware of--correct me if I'm wrong on that)...in fact, I've never even heard of anyone catching a cutthroat on the Met...interesting...(if that is indeed what it is).
The slashes don't show up really well in that pic, but they were really prominant...
I have seen a few Deschutes redbands with slashes but it seems to be in the larger, older males...(personal observation)
Now, here's the odd part, I didn't land a single whitefish...towards the end of my day, I was really trying to hook and land one just to expand on the diversity of fish caught. While my hookup to land ratio was pretty poor, I did manage four to hand (well, I did SDR one right at my feet, but I tend to count those)...
all in all, a fantastic day to be on the river and certainly worth playing hooky from work...
life is good,
Randy
The high turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day...(only not necessarily for the fish---they seem to hate sun). I hooked into a nice little whitefish on my second or third cast (didn't land it--more on that later)...
This is a river where if I'm nymphing the majority of the time (which we both did Monday), I'll usually hook 5 whitefish to every 1 redband...not today...I only hooked a total of two whitefish (didn't land either), the second of which fought like a redband and even went airborne once (a rareity for whitefish).
I eventually made my way down to one of my favorite holes on on the river:
I did manage to catch a really nice redband out of that hole a little later...probably the hardest fighter of an fish caught that day but also the smallest (taped out at a hair over 15"--but nice, broad shoulders).
I made my way to another hole that I routinely hit on that stretch of river and was rewarded with three fish in a period of about ten minutes. one redband, a nice brown, and this:
here's a closer shot...most of the redbands here don't have nearly as many spots or the nice red slashes. I'm thinking cutt, but here's the kicker, they haven't stocked the Metolius since the mid-90s and cutts certainly aren't native to begin with (at least that I'm aware of--correct me if I'm wrong on that)...in fact, I've never even heard of anyone catching a cutthroat on the Met...interesting...(if that is indeed what it is).
The slashes don't show up really well in that pic, but they were really prominant...
I have seen a few Deschutes redbands with slashes but it seems to be in the larger, older males...(personal observation)
Now, here's the odd part, I didn't land a single whitefish...towards the end of my day, I was really trying to hook and land one just to expand on the diversity of fish caught. While my hookup to land ratio was pretty poor, I did manage four to hand (well, I did SDR one right at my feet, but I tend to count those)...
all in all, a fantastic day to be on the river and certainly worth playing hooky from work...
life is good,
Randy
. Whats a whitefish anyway?
Fish could hold on to these traits for some
time and pass them on to their offspring. It is also possible that years and years ago the westside and eastside shared the same drainages and there was
interbredding between Cutts and Redsides. Again it is possible that some of these traits could appear in a few fish even after all these years. A subspecies if
you want to call it that. I don't know for certain though but that is a possibility I guess.
