The two and a half hour drive from Bend to the mouth of the Deschutes was tattered with spot fires and red glowing wind turbines, our energy fueled by ice chest twilight ales. It was a covert operation, taking off after sunset and carving our way through the high desert before reaching the confluence with the Columbia just before midnight.
We slept for three hours and headed out towards Wagonblast sometime around 4am. The cool breeze sent head wind diving down the bike trail en route for our travels making the four mile trip a bit of a doozy with three hours sleep. Stepping into the water with the dark blue hues still lingering far above the canyon's reach, our persistence paid off with available wading water in God's most precious hole.
Casting skating flies for nearly four hours during morning gave my friends serenity and satisfaction, but no fish. The steelhead were occupying this run in large quantities which would become evident once the first chromer broke the surface and began his fight for survival against the great odds of the luring Blue Fox. And then the second, third, fourth, and fifth in the hole directly below us.
Skating flies in military unison down a mile long run proved to be scenic, energizing, wholesome, everything but fully satisfying. The one element that proved to be lacking was that tug of power that rips line out of your hand with amazing speed.
Our efforts turned to egg sucking leeches, nymphs of different sorts, and long nasty furs to entice the mid day steelie from its post in the hot summer sun. All to no avail save for a strike on a large trout early in the morning that slithered its way back into the majestic Deschutes before he became captured.
Considering we arrived at 5 in the morning and left around 5 in the evening, the trip still produced some fond memories as the lower Deschutes always does. The fish that were landed were bright chrome and plain as day before us, we just couldn't muster the fly to turn any heads and rip any lips today...
