ONE DAY: Flyfishing Deschutes Steelhead with Curtis Ciszek and Darcy Bacha

A report of sorts from one day swinging flies on Oregon’s Deschutes River. Curtis Ciszek (jetboatflyguid...) guided for Fish The Swing and has been flyfishing on the Lower Deschutes for more than a decade.
Diminishing steelhead in the Columbia River is old news. They’ve been having a rough go of it for a while now. But, the numbers out of the Big C and its tributaries were especially sad in the summer of 2017. “Unprecedented,” according to some officials. Early summer counts were putting just 4,000 steelhead past Bonneville dam-down from 20,000 the previous year.
There are a lot of factors to blame: dams, mismanagement, an ever-warming globe. Add to that record heat and lack of precipitation, and you’ve got the makings of one of the worst summer steelhead seasons ever.
For Ciszek and Darcy Bacha, it was an early morning game. Curtis had bites all morning and brought a hatchery fish to hand by the end of the day. Darcy Bacha (bacha.photo/bl...) lost a few and landed a wild one. The wading was treacherous, but the fishing was better than expected. As Darcy put it: “I guess it’s better to be making the report than hearing it.”
Connect:
www.theflyfish...
/ theflyfishjournal
/ theflyfishjournal

[@ereygers]

Best place on the planet. Let’s take care of it.