Category: Nature

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A Bug Hunt

With any hobby there are varying levels of involvement. We tend to be involved. So when it comes to fly fishing, aquatic entomology is part of the process.

Streams are much more alive with insect activity subsurface than you might expect. The best way to know what fish are eating is to sieve up some information … literally.

Three types of insects make up a majority of food sources, caddis, mayfly and stoneflys. The best imitation for an aquatic invertebrate is part latin name and part fisher folklore. Mostly you’re looking at size and color. Information obtained from the sample tray is taken to the tying bench and applied to a standard pattern.

It’s not clear if all this leads to more fish. The immersive nature is part of the fun. Plus you get to see lots of interesting creatures. Lately we’ve been pointing the macro lens at the collection tray and the videos are otherworldly, but a bug hunt is also part of the fun.

 

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Cascade Loop

Blazed by early explorers like John Fremont, a mostly two-lane road winds south out of Bend onto the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains. This nearly 100 mile stretch started out as a dirt trail linking the city to a southern route over those rugged peaks. It’s those peaks that draw most of the traffic these days.

We regularly access the upper Deschutes River and Davis Lake along a stretch of FS 47, Cascade Lakes Scenic Highway. Though at least once a year we make the loop from the southern edge of Bend to it’s junction at Highway 58 because it’s a really beautiful drive.

South from Bend you climb to the base of Mt Bachelor. A major section of the highway is closed until late May but by mid-June it’s lined with wildflowers and snow capped peaks. There are many places to pull off and explore but we never just pass the meadow on the western edge of Sparks Lake.

Soda Creek Campground caught our attention this trip. Only ten sites but all with views across the meadow.

We will very likely be back for an overnight, to hopefully catch some wild life that venture onto the grassy flats that the creek meanders through.

From June to September the lakes and their resort beaches are filled with swimmers, kayaks, even powerboats … places we mostly avoid in the summer. We do however frequent a couple of turnoffs between Lava Lake and Crane Prairie Reservoir. A crystal clear stream, headwaters of the Deschutes River cuts a channel through the pines and offers great picnic sites.

 

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Tiny Macro World

You take a picture to capture the moment and share it. The images hold a story, or at least you hope they do. We’ve recently begun attaching lenses to our smart phones and have discovered a passion for the macro lens and the tiny world it reveals.

You start with broad strokes or in film parlance, establishing shots. These set the stage to which you add detail with close up shots.

Macro photos give the viewer a very different prospective on the subject matter and require a different approach to taking pictures.

This tiny macro world shifts attention to parts of a scene that were always there,  just tucked in small nooks and crannies. 

It starts with a shift in approach to a subject. When you twist on that macro lens you are now going to spend some time crawling around on your hands and knees.  We always shoot a variety of different images and then edit for the blog page.  The addition of these extreme close shots offer punctuation to the story our establishing shots are trying to tell.

A whole new world lies below our feet. There have been some surprises along the way, i.e. the ferocious, gruesome world of insects AND a desperate need to beef up our flexibility exercises.  But that said. we love the dynamic perspective this lens gives our photos.

Coming up in July a collection of macro photos will be featured in the photo essay.

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Caddis hatch on the Crooked

First summerlike day and we headed to the Crooked River. It started as a Euro Nymphing practice session. The river was kind of high and turbid so we didn’t really expect much action. But the cooler was full, the kindles loaded up … so we were ready for anything.

As I was rigging up the nymph leaders, I noticed that JQ was taking a great deal of interest in a juniper near the stream’s edge. There was a Black Caddis Hatch and the tree’s branches were alive with the tent winged bugs.

Didn’t see much surface feeding, so I continued with the wet fly rig. This was moderately successful. But what got my attention was all the rises just downstream.

I headed back to the car and got out a dry fly rig. The rest of the afternoon was spent catching six to ten inch Red Band Trout.

 

 

 

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A closer view, literally

I think the saying goes, “the best camera is the one you have in your hand.” For must of us, it’s now our phone. Paired up with the Internet, smart phones have forever changed picture sharing.

Over the 30 years we’ve been in the media, field production tools have evolved … a lot. Nothing compares to the shift that took place in just the last five years.

For blog images and YouTube videos we use a combination of DSLR and iPhone. This month the phones got updated and that gave us a much better camera. To this we’ve also added lenses specifically designed for smart phones.

Moment is a Seattle based company that started as app developers and their focus on mobile production tools brought about the development of a set of lenses. Three different focal lengths, wide angle, telephoto and macro.

It’s the macro lens that has really captured our attention. The shift in subject scale is a dramatic change to prospective. We are starting to look for photo ops a bit differently.

JQ started with plants and flower images and I put it to use on some aquatic insects. You’ll never look at a river quite the same after watching a caddis nymph harass a mayfly.