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September 28, 2025September 27, 2025

Shifting to Fall

A Blackbird perches effortlessly on bare tree branches

It’s Fall. The equinox was this week and the weather has cooled. Just yesterday we had our first frost.

It’s not snowing, yet . . .

Mornings are still mild and we continue to have warm days ahead, but still, . . . it’s feels like Fall.

The trees around our house fill with a different species of songbird nearly every week. A gang of Jays has been stalking the area and V’s of Canada Geese honk their arrival overhead.

Before duck season fills the parking sites with RV’s, and chains close off loop roads, we like to make a seasonal visit to Summer Lake.

It’s just an hour’s drive, so if there’s no activity, we’re not giving up much of the day. That was not the case this day.

The refuge was filled with activity and a wide variety of birds.

Year around there’s a least one Squadron of Pelicans, a Great Blue Heron, some raptors, and a smattering of the hardier song birds to populate the marshes of Summer Lake.

Then, a couple of times a year, seasonal migrations bump those numbers and bring in a lot of different species. These are ideal times to visit.

Before we even got to the refuge, there were a couple of Sand Hill Cranes resting in a field along the road. We spotted a few more pairs at various points during our regular loop drive.

A pod of pelicans float by a Great Blue Heron

In managing the refuge there is a seasonal shifting to water levels in the various ponds. In the fall it seems the ODFW attempt to give hunters some easy access points, but also offer more protected spaces.

On this trip the pond on the west side of the dike loop road had just a thin layer of water. This seemed to be just what the shore birds wanted. The place was filled with a huge variety.

Refuge managment means shifting water levels

Once again we enjoyed the space without any other people. This makes it easy to stop on some of the narrow roads to get a photo or put the binoculars on an unfamiliar group of visitors.

We’ll be back, of course, but not before winter takes hold and then it will be a very different landscape . . . beautiful in a different way.

September 21, 2025September 20, 2025

A Patio Visit

It really felt like fall this week. We managed to get in a fishing trip, as usual, but the majority of our week was spent getting a start on winterizing.

Red Rudbeckia, aka black-eyed Susan, was a big success in this year’s garden.

Central Oregon winters can be fickle weather-wise, but there is the guarantee of one good snow dump. For that reason, you need to button up the exterior.

Petunias, a favorite of mule deer in our neighborhood

We’ve transformed the patio from a basic BBQ spot to a retreat, complete with a host of herbs and flowers. This has been a great place to share a morning coffee or evening cocktail.

The patio gets crossed by neighborhood cats and there is a resident family of chipmunks that skitter across. The chipmunks seem to be using the bottom of our grow towers as watering spots.

In recent weeks there has been a small clutch of Mule Deer Stags feasting on neighborhood greenery.

Interrupted mid-munch (petunias, strawberries, and cherry tomatoes are top contenders)

We’ve seen a decrease in foliage on flowers and trees. We watch them nonchalantly strolling through the neighborhood streets.

However, we’ve not been successful in catching these tree pruners in action . . . until this week.

Continue reading “A Patio Visit”

September 14, 2025September 12, 2025

Rainy Days

This week was a change. We went from “Red Flag” warnings and heat waves, to weather reminiscent of winter. It’s not unlike any late summer day in Central Oregon.

As this is getting written, the sun is beaming in my window and it’s around 70 degrees outside. But for most of this week we’ve been watching storm clouds roll in from the Southwest bringing down pouring rain.

We didn’t do any long trips, but we did get out a couple of times . . . driving through the storms. In the high desert you can see weather coming and watch thunderheads bring rain to you.

Clouds are broken by blue sky drifting in behind the storm . . . then, it all starts again.

This probably marks the end of summer. The forecast for next week has clear skies and much lower daytime temperatures.

We’ll likely get out on the river and do some road trips. There are plenty planned, and fall is a great time to be out in the woods.

September 7, 2025September 6, 2025

Summer Ends in a Cloud of Smoke

Didn’t really get out much this week. We remain sandwiched between two project fires and spent most of the week engulfed in smoke.

The opening, when it presented itself, was taken with a trip to the Crooked. Yeah . . . we’ve been there a lot lately, but it’s dry fly season and that tailwater has been very active.

Fuller’s Teasel (bull thistle) frames a lush riparian

Last year my brother-in-law passed and among his possessions was an old Sage Graphite II 9-foot 5-weight fly rod.

A very nice rod, but with one problem. It was missing the tip section. Not broken, which is common, but not in the rod case and nowhere to be found.

Sage rods are, in theory, lifetime warrantied. So I figured why not give that a try. I mean with only three fourths of the rod it wasn’t going to fish like that.

Long story short . . . Sage was unable to repair the old rod, but they did replace it with a new one . . . my choice. I opted for a 9-foot 4-weight, an ideal dry fly trout rod. It arrived this week and was immediately put into service.

Post-meal preening by another successful fisher.

Now there are negative points to late summer in Central Oregon; heat and wildfire smoke top that list. But on the positive side, the dry fly fishing is peak.

The Crooked River is a tailwater (flows out from a dam), a type of water that’s fished most of the year sub-surface.

Bull Thistles are regular obstacles along the stream edge.

Anytime of year, some type of aquatic insect is moving around and an imitation of that bug will catch fish.

In early spring and late summer, the aquatic insects hatch (present on top of the water) in greater numbers. You can have success with a dry fly any time, but during a hatch it gets crazy.

A Eurasian-collared Dove floats in for a landing

Dry flys require a more precise presentation than sub-surface fishing. However, the payoff is seeing the strike . . . often missing the strike . . . but it puts you more directly into the process.

It’s a lot of fun. The last few weeks have afforded us some great dry fly days on the water.

The signs of fall are around us. Days will be cooling off and we’ll soon move onto the Deschutes River to cast for Steelhead.

For now, we’re enjoying morning coffees on the Crooked and plying Small Black Sedges to hungry Redband Trout.

August 31, 2025August 30, 2025

Eye of a Storm

The week started with a wildfire burning east of Redmond and headed for Sisters, with another one burning north near Oakridge.

Both of these conflagrations managed to spread plumes of smoke over the area . . . well, actually it was fickle wind patterns.

Dry fly presentation over a morning hatch on the Crooked River

In the middle of these smoke-filled days, there was a trip to the Crooked River. Opportunity pushed Prineville outside an “unhealthy” AQI (Air Quality Index) shading on the weather map.

Apple Weather and Watch Duty get regular scans on our phones . . . tracking wildfire activity and air quality.

The Crooked is a welcome respite from thick smoke-filled air and fishing was good too. It is the height of summer season and the lush vegetation, juniper trees and snags are busy with bird activity.

A young Osprey is getting better at hunting, eating, and keeping the gang of Magpies at bay. The Magpies really are a marauding gang. At any point a dozen of them swarm over the trees.

Off to grab another of his 3 to 5 fish per day diet

With just a skreech from one, a few more come flying. They menace the Osprey but don’t really do much damage . . . if you don’t count making meal time stressful.