RHYMES WITH FISHY

Southeast Oregon’s lower Owyhee is famed as a trophy trout destination, thanks to productive tailwaters, abundant bug life.

The waters of the Owyhee River below Owyhee Dam are home to a destination trout fishery powered by a self-sustaining population of large browns and releases of hatchery rainbows. (ALAMY)

By Mike Wright

My introduction to the Owyhee River was a matter of choosing between two of my favorite pastimes: my love of athletic competition and my addiction to fishing. A friend of mine, Bill, was our vice principal before taking a principal’s job in southwest Idaho in order to be closer to his family. We had kept in touch, and he kept telling me about one of his teachers, a guy named Leonard, who was an avid angler. Bill emailed me a couple pictures of some very impressive brown trout Leonard had caught a relatively short distance from the town and school.

Bill had invited me to come down over spring break, stating that Leonard would take me fishing. However, the week I was supposed to go on the trip, the weather did not cooperate, so we postponed and hoped for better conditions during the next spring break, or whenever I had some time off.

A year later, our girls’ basketball team qualified for state, which, as was tradition, was held in the Boise area. I decided that I needed to take a couple of personal days off and attend the tournament. Since Bill lived in the Boise area, I called and informed him of my plans. He checked with Leonard and was told he would love to take a fishing trip with me.

As it worked out, our team ended up playing Saturday morning for a trophy. Leonard and I arranged to go fishing after the game, although I could tell he wasn’t too happy waiting around when we could be fishing. He ended up calling me twice during the game to explain that the river might be very popular on that nice warm Saturday in February. He explained that fishing in February on the Owyhee was like fishing in April around Priest River, in the far north of Idaho where I live. This was spring fishing and the Owyhee might be crowded. Reluctantly, I left the game at halftime with my team behind by 2 points. When we finally made it to the river, I saw that he knew what he was talking about; fortunately, however, no one was fishing the stretch of water he had planned to work. As it turned out, the fish were hungry and we did well. None of the trout were particularly large, but they provided good action.

Unfortunately, I was looking at a 10-hour drive back home, so I had to leave much earlier than I would have preferred, but I was convinced I would try this river again. To add salt to the wound, our team ended up winning the game, and I took a lot of ribbing for leaving early. But we were lucky enough to make it to state the next two years, and with our games being played in late afternoon and evening, it gave me enough time to hit the river each year, and I did well.

With plentiful insect life in these productive tailwaters, Teutonic trout grow fat, with adult fish averaging 18 inches and some considerably bigger. Browns are catch-and-release only, but rainbows can be kept, and they grow to nice sizes too. (MIKE WRIGHT)

THE OWYHEE RIVER works its way

through high desert terrain before meeting up with the Snake River along the Idaho-Oregon state line west of Boise. As it did in the Columbia Basin, the Bureau of Reclamation built a number of dams in Southwest Idaho and Southeast Oregon, with the idea being to make these dry areas far more friendly to agricultural. The Owyhee Dam was one of these construction projects to aid irrigation plans.

The dam creates a highly productive tailwater fishery, powered by vast volumes of insects that serve

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An Owyhee fly box should contain nymphs, terrestrials and dries – its browns are known for their habit of taking patterns off the surface, even during daylight hours. Irrigation season sees higher but fishable flows before water levels drop in October. (LARRY

MOORE, BLM, FLICK CC BY 2.0)

as a very ample food source for the downstream brown and hatchery rainbow trout. The fish grow quickly, with the average adult brown growing to 18 inches and possessing the shape of a plump football. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that sampling in September 2020 turned up “plenty of large brown and rainbow trout available from 16 to 24 inches.”

Browns, which were introduced here in 1990 by ODFW, are generally considered to be the graduate-level fish of the trout family, often having to be fished for at night with larger streamers and nymphs. However, Owyhee browns have developed a fondness for dry flies, thus feeding readily during daylight hours. This generally means longer, lighter leaders and tippet, often as light as 5X or 6X, and matching the hatch.

For a number of years, the area around the Owyhee suffered through drought conditions, which resulted in a buildup of silt in the river. In 2005, there was a major change in weather conditions and the floodgates were opened, washing out the silt that had built up during the dry years and restoring the stream bed to prime habitat for mayflies and stoneflies. In addition, since 2005, dam operators have stabilized the flows, which generally run between 200 and 300 cubic feet per second during irrigation season and maintains excellent conditions for insect development, as well as wade fishing. This is not to say there isn’t a slowdown during the hottest summer months, but the river generally fishes well through June.

Also aiding fishing conditions is the fact that the river snakes a path through a canyon, with multiple twists and turns along the way. That helped in the development of deeper holes and runs, which in turn provide cold-water refuges when the water heats up.

LIKE MOST FISHERIES in the Northwest, midges are inevitably the first hatch to appear on the Owyhee. (The river is named for three Hawaiians – then known as Owyhees – who joined an 1819 fur expedition and went missing in the region.) Before the adults begin to appear in numbers, small Chironomids and Brassies in sizes 16 to 22 are a good choice to mimic the midge larvae. As the fish begin coming up for the adults, Griffith’s Gnats, Renegades and Parachute Adams in sizes 16 to 20 become the dry flies of choice. When using small-diameter tippet and leader and small flies, a delicate touch is needed to avoid a break-off or having the fly pull loose.

By the middle of March, baetis begin to appear, with the Parachute Adams or Olive Sparkle Dun in sizes similar to the midges the dry flies of choice. For the nymph pattern, the venerable Pheasant Tail is probably the best bet. In March the skwalas also start to hatch out, meaning larger flies can be used. A Bullhead Skwala, Olive Stonefly, Parachute Stone or Skawala Stonefly dry, all in sizes 10 to 12, are very effective. For nymph patterns, a dark stonefly, Brooks Stonefly or dark Yak Skwala in sizes 8 to 12 are always good choices. Blue-wing olives

also begin to appear in larger numbers in March, with the sizes generally running between 16 and 20.

Pale morning duns, callibaetis and caddis usually begin to hatch out in May and will last into September. A Parachute Adams in 14 or 16 and Callibaetis Spinner in sizes 14 to 18 are the most popular patterns for the callibaetis, with Sparkle Duns and PMD Cripples being the most effective for the pale morning duns. The Elk Hair and Goddard Caddis, along with the Hemingway Caddis, in sizes 14 to 16 should produce fish.

In late summer and fall, ants, grasshoppers and other terrestrials start to fall into the river and float downstream. This is especially true on windy days. Ant pattern sizes will run from 12 to 18, while ’hopper imitations will usually be 8 to 12.

There is also a short-lived trico hatch that occurs from late August through September. With tricos, it is the smaller the better, and you will need to spend a lot of time trying to tie the fly onto your line.

THE OWYHEE IS nearly universally considered one of the finest trophy brown trout fishing streams in the country. However, it should be pointed out that the river system also contains a sizeable population of native redband rainbows. Most of these Inland Northwest trout are actually above Owyhee Reservoir, but hatchery rainbows are stocked below the dam. For those anglers dedicated to catching redbands, probably the best area to try is either the East Fork or the South Fork of the Owyhee. Unfortunately getting into these tributaries is no easy task. The road into the two forks makes the old Oregon Trail look like an interstate highway by comparison.

The average size of the rainbows will run around 17 inches, which compares favorably to the 18-inch average of the browns. There are far more browns, however, that meet or exceed the 20-inch mark than rainbows. One reason for this may be the catch-and-release regulation that has been placed on all brown trout.

In addition, there are also smallmouth bass in the river that can grow to very respectable size.

Although there are several routes into canyon section of the lower Owyhee, probably the easiest route would be to follow Highway 201 south from Nyssa, Oregon, to Owyhee Avenue/Owyhee Lake Road and follow the road along the river past Snively Hot Springs and beyond. There are numerous good fishing spots just off the road, all the way to the dam. Beware private property further downstream, below the Watchable Wildlife parking lot. Lake Owyhee State Park, just above the dam, has several dozen campsites. NS

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