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June 15, 2025June 14, 2025

Summer Ritual

Grasses against a backdrop of riparian green.

For many years (due to my teaching schedule), summer didn’t begin until the second week in June. While that constraint came off when we retired, this week’s heatwave really felt like the start of summer.

There were a string of eighty degree days this week, matched with a dozen small wildfires. It feels like summer (our new norm).

A kestrel preens during a brief stop on a busy feeding schedule

A few things shift for us when the weather warms up.

Primarily our schedule . . . early starts to the day and early ends. This practice has two advantages; first it gets the active part of our day away from the heat, but it also tends to keep us away from the hordes.

Keeping an eye on things

About the time people start showing up on the river, we’ve had a choice of parking spots, a couple of hours of fishing, and lots of peace and quiet.

That is how we managed this week’s trip to the Crooked River.

Lupine seems to like the gravel edges of forest roads

Most of the spring wildflowers have been reduced to leafy stems, replaced with hardier summer varieties.

Lupine for example, is in full bloom on nearly every gravelly borrow pit. It lines our route with a carpet of purple and blue hues.

Fishing was better this week. The river has settled into its summer flow and fish are taking up their usual holds.

Witnessed the kestrel pair fight off a bald eagle with incredible acrobatics. The falcons harried the eagle, and at one point, one plunged from above onto the back of the eagle hitting with ferocious impact.

The kestrels were in full hunt mode, stopping only long enough to drop off some tasty bits for the fledglings, before swooping back up the canyon walls.

By the time the breeze was starting to loosen it’s cooling power, a small group of picnickers set up a few hundred feet from us. That was our cue to load up and head for home.

Daytime temp, even on the river, was just over eighty and climbing. We’ll be back again during the cool of another morning.

June 8, 2025June 6, 2025

June’s first river trip

Summer is in full blaze. The week is getting progressively warmer and we’ve already had a couple of small wildfires.

There are more places to go than days in the week. Plus, we kind of like to have a rest day between excursions.

That means we can do home-based errands when not on the road and in theory, stuff gets done.

Deschutes Canyon upstream from Blue Hole

One of the drives this week was up to Maupin to check out the Lower Deschutes before the rafters take over.

We kind of missed the Salmon Fly hatch this year . . . not sure what else we were up to.

The tail end of the hatch was last week, so we thought I might get some ‘big bug’ action.

There were no large stone flies on the river’s banks, so we resorted to other patterns. Caught a few little guys and had a great hike along the river.

The day was clear with a cooling breeze. We sat out the chairs along the road’s edge and enjoyed the morning.

By noon I’d gotten in plenty of casts and the place was filling up.

This was likely our last trip to the Lower Deschutes until fall . . . when the crowds thin and the rafts are put up for the season.

There are plenty of other spots to wet a line and with far fewer bodies.

June 1, 2025June 6, 2025

Summer Time

Small pools of water, overflow from creeks, fill the meadows along the roadway.

We spent a good deal of the week getting the yard back in shape. Planted some stuff, or should I say replanted, trees, shrubs, and flowers to fill in empty spaces.

We also hung a sunscreen on the pergola just in time for 80 degree days.

One of the 14 lakes accessible by the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway

It wasn’t all soil and shovels, we did manage to make a trip to the Upper Deschutes River.

During Memorial Day weekend, campgrounds along the Crooked River get full. Folks tend to stick around into the week, so to avoid crowds we head for a different stretch of water.

Winter’s runoff has filled the lakes and reservoirs, but there is no snow left on the ground.

Headwaters to the Deschutes River, from Little Lava Lake to Crane Prairie, is a favorite little stream.

Upper Deschutes River winds leisurely through grassy edges

There are a few miles where the Upper Deschutes meanders through pine forests, meadows and marsh lands dumping into Crane Prairie.

Cascade Lakes Highway parallels the stream offering numerous pull-outs and great picnic sites. Bonus, it’s only half an hour’s drive.

The downside this time of year is mosquito clouds.

These pests get thick in early summer and this year it’s been particularly bad. Likely due to additional water standing in all the low land between the chain of lakes.

Western Skunk Cabbage is found along streams and wet woods

What little skin is exposed gets doused in a generous layer of bug spray. This practice makes it tolerable to hike along the river bank. It will be a week or two before the bug population makes picnicking even a possibility.

The weatherman forecasts more summer-like weather for the high desert in the coming weeks. Yeah, summer is in full swing and we’ve got a long list of places to check out.

I think rockhounding is on the top of the list, before we lose the chill of a June morning.

The Salmon Flies are on the Lower Deschutes. The Crooked and John Day rivers are very fishable as well. No shortage of places to go or things to do.

May 25, 2025May 24, 2025

May Musings

May, in Central Oregon, is an anomaly to seasonal shifts. April brings hope for spring. May comes, and winter still hangs around . . . think hail storm just two weeks ago.

Then you hit Memorial weekend, the official start to summer activities (camping, rafting). It’s not summer, yet it doesn’t feel like spring.

This week was a busy finish to the month. While we didn’t do any major excursions, we did manage a couple of trips up to the Crooked River.

There is the promise of a caddis or mayfly hatch . . . which didn’t materialize . . . on top of shirt-sleeve warm afternoons.

We’re still shaking off layers of winter, but are well into wildflowers, lower river levels, and increased wildlife activity.

Some of the week was spent raking up those layers of winter in the form of yard debris (disposal offered for free).

We also pulled out old trees to replace with new bare root stock. Not real exciting stuff, but nice additions to the yard.

With the promise of summer we’ve renewed plans for adventures now that our home improvement projects, AKA spring cleaning, has been completed.

May 18, 2025May 17, 2025

Bugs

Just a beetle, not a Caddis fly . . . but still a great pic.

River levels have dropped in the last few days, so we headed up to the Crooked in hopes of catching a Caddis fly hatch.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that these early spring hatches are referred to as the Mother’s Day Caddis.

He does this a lot . . . untying and retying different patterns. Sometimes it even works.

At its peak the water, rocks, bushes, and trees are engulfed in a cloud of small gray-winged bugs.

Little Black Caddis or (for the more entomological) Gannom, are often the name fly fishers associate with the insect.

There are more than a few Caddis flies varieties that have a spotted gray wing. Many of which hatch in early summer.

Without a lot more kick-net work, it’s hard to put a name to any aquatic insect.

In my case there was plenty of time to observe on water activity as there were no fish feeding over this hatch.

So, while nothing was hooked, a lot of ‘fishing’ was done. In the end, that is the general purpose of these trips anyway.

It’s already end of season for some plants. These Dandelions are setting seed in May.

Once home I pulled out my copy of Gary LaFontine’s book “Caddisflies” and it seems, to me, these are Psilotreta / Smoky Wing Sedge or Chimarra / Little Black Sedge.