Roaring Fork Guide Service

Dear Friends, guests and readers:
It has been many moons since I last posted a fishing report or any Facebook entry. Apologies for the silence, but fishing and guiding has been minimal over the past couple years. In 2024 I had two major back surgeries, the second of which I am still in recovery. Unfortunately, neither surgery produced the anticipated results, and in fact the last procedure resulted in a condition called "drop foot" which has made standing and walking extremely difficult, not to mention the chronic daily lower back pain.
Since fishing is my passion, I am doing my best to live with the associated disabilities, and get on with a semi-normal life. To date, I have only dabbled in about 10 recent fishing trips, all in the drift boat. The rowing has gone great and we have generally done well on late season Spring Chinook, Rainbow Trout, and have even connected with a few Summer Steelhead. It is my hope to continue guiding, at least on a part time basis. Launching and accessing the boat proves far more challenging than rowing and fishing. I guess time will tell and we'll see how things progress in the coming months.
I thank you for your patience and now look forward to the salmon season on the coast including fishing for King Salmon on the Elk & Sixes Rivers in November and December.

Dear Facebook Friends-

A Thousand apologies for my lack of presence on social media this year, but truth be told, it has been a weird year both personally and professionally. Personally, I had 2 unplanned visits to the hospital, both resulting in surgeries. I underwent a torn rotator cuff repair in January and then another knee surgery in June. Good news is, both appear to be successful though I am still recovering from the knee operation. As you might expect, the surgeries and recovery periods have impacted my guiding operation, but so has Covid-19. The State shut us down to guiding in mid March. Guiding rules were then modified in early June but with lots of caveats, conditions and limitations. In the last three weeks I have been on the water very selectively fishing trout and salmon. Fly fishing for trout has been pretty good and our McKenzie salmon returned a tad late this season in numbers better than last year so there has been some reasonable fishing opportunities here in the past few weeks. Just like last year, the 2020 McKenzie steelhead run has been horrible, so really not even on the docket as it were. Attached are some photos from my last trip or two on the water. Wishing you all good health and safety through the Pandemic.

We spent more time waiting for rains, fish and the lifting of lower river closures than we did actually fishing for our late-run Fall/Winter Chinook on the Elk and Sixes Rivers. A sq**rt of rain arrived and ODFW finally lifted the lower river closures on Saturday, December 7. This would at least allow for a 3 week long Chinook fishery on the Sixes River which always closes to Chinook fishing on December 31. The rivers have unfortunately remained far lower than ideal since the lower river opening on December 7. Diligent anglers are picking up a few late arrivals regardless.

Great Recent Trout Action on both Upper & Lower McKenzie River

Though a great temperature for our comfort, other than midges, there were very few bugs out. Right after launch, I handed young Ayden a spinning rod to keep him occupied while I set up some fly rods. Within minutes, he was fast into a feisty Rainbow, a scenario that would repeat itself continually throughout the day. Though fishing wasn’t “Red Hot,” in every hole or riffle, it was relatively consistent, as we seemed to hook fish in about every second or third spot we tried. I would safely rate the fishing as very good indeed. Ayden and his pop Ron, were out here from Virginia visiting friends and they love to incorporate a McKenzie River drift or two on such occasions. They have great stories from previous trips including the loss of a steelhead to an Osprey. Yesterday we spent a good 45 minutes working a very productive stretch where a Bald Eagle was perched directly across from the boat. We hit numerous fish there and were closely monitored by the vigilant Eagle. We were sure that at any moment he would swoop down and nail our quarry. This was apparently a very polite Eagle as no such event materialized.

Over the course of the trip, Ron & Ayden enjoyed 2 doubles and conservatively hooked about 30 fish, approximately 20 of which made it to the net. The numbers allowed them to be somewhat selective as to which of these hatchery trout would eventually make it to their dinner table. Though we were never able to stir up much in the way fly action, Ayden was quite pleased with the effectiveness of a variety of lures. Indeed his casting progressed nicely through the day reflecting his attention to detail. Most of the fish were high quality hatchery Bows in the 9-12 inch range. Much to young Ayden’s delight however, several of these planter fish were fat chunkers pushing the 17 inch mark. Ayden especially enjoyed the rapids of the upper river. Certainly a day to remember.

Close Encounter with a Marauding Bald Eagle

Lots of good Trout action on our Upper McKenzie River Trout Trips this past week. While we've come to enjoy the spectacular scenery and fun trout action on our up-river trips, we got a special bonus on one drift this past week. As my guest was stripping in a trout which had taken his fly, a hungry eagle appeared out of nowhere and smashed the water in front of us in an effort to capture the hooked trout. I think we were more shocked and startled than the trout as the fish was only a boat-length away from us The eagle missed his target however, but remained persistent, making not one, but 2 more water splashing attempts to capture what must have seemed an easy dinner. The frantic trout clearly had multiple issues to deal with. In the end, we invoked the three strikes rule and so the trout was landed and released as it had truly earned its freedom. Too bad we didn’t get a video of this National Geographic moment!

Our Upper McKenzie River Trout trips went very well this past week. The fish were actively taking both wet and dry flies making the float very productive.

Although both the salmon and steelhead numbers are way down this season, diligent anglers have been able to score a fish here and a fish there as evidenced by the photos in this post

On Thursday, my friend Garry & I volunteered to run the planter raft to place hatchery-reared Rainbow Trout in the McKenzie River. We released over 5000 fish from the big, gray monster, a pontoon raft with a large stainless steel basin for fish sandwiched between the large floats. We picked up our loads of trout at 3 different locations and scatter planted fish as we worked our way down river. I ran the oars while Garry released fish with a dip net. With the heavy current and high water level now in the McKenzie, running the raft was more than a chore. The fish came by truck from Desert Springs Hatchery located in Eastern Oregon. The trout seemed very feisty and in really nice condition. The feedback I got from local trout fishermen was that fishing was excellent yesterday, so you may want to grab a rod and try your luck.

In the past, ODFW has raised the hatchery trout at the Leaburg Hatchery located below Leaburg Dam. For decades now, the hatchery program has provided wonderful fishing opportunities on the McKenzie for folks looking for some tasty pan-fries. The trout fishery is indeed an important and integral part of our local economy here in the McKenzie Valley. Unfortunately, the future of the Leaburg Hatchery is in jeopardy. The Army Corp of Engineers owns the hatchery and the future of the hatchery suddenly remains in question. The ACE is now out-sourcing fish production to private bidders for the short term and reviewing its long-term obligation of providing "mitigation fish" for decades dating back to the construction of their dams. And so, economics, politics, biology and resource management have come together into a somewhat messy and unpredictable potpourri. One thing is for certain, it would be a travesty to see the Leaburg Hatchery closed forever. What a sad waste......

Roaring Fork Guide Service Summer Newsletter 2019

Greetings Friends & Fishermen-

With record snowfall in Oregon, and then dozens, if not hundreds of sites in the Midwest ravaged by devastating tornadoes, all one can say is “indeed what a weird year it's been.” Hopefully many western states got sufficient snow-pack to fill reservoirs and meet our ever-expanding water needs.

Heath issues here on the home front in 2018 proved equally challenging with 2 failed surgeries to re-connect a torn quadriceps tendon off the right knee. The second hospital visit involved several days of clean-up to remove a contaminated and necrotic cadaver tendon originally installed to repair the tear. The resulting infection landed me on a month-long regimen of I.V. antibiotics. 2019 has followed suite with a complete left knee replacement. Suffice to say that hospital visits, surgeries and consequent rounds of physical therapy, have gotten pretty old at this point. Surgery shouldn't become routine! The good news is that the knee replacement seems to have gone quite well and, if things continue on current track, I am just back in the drift boat gradually guiding fishing trips here in early June.....fingers crossed. Oh yeah, and to add a little salt to the wound, while my girlfriend Suki was up nursing me back from the 2nd surgery, she was hit by a pick-up truck that totaled her rig and resulted in multiple fractures to her elbow. Our roles were suddenly reversed as I became her primary caregiver. We were quite the pair of gimpy gimps now sporting nylon and titanium implants. While all the medical issues took their toll on my total days on the water last year, I was at least able to sneak in some guided fishing trips in the 2nd half of the year and intend to do so again this year.....knockin' on wood.

On to fish related matters. The Army Corp of Engineers owns the Leaburg Trout Hatchery here in the mid-McKenzie River Valley. They have decided to close the hatchery to the dismay and bitter disappointment of thousands of trout fishing enthusiasts. The latest plan to save the Leaburg Hatchery involves transferring the hatchery ownership away from the Army Corp feds to Oregon State Parks and Recreation who could then use State Lottery funds to run the hatchery. Word is that it could take up to 2 years to transition ownership to the state. To lose our local trout hatchery would otherwise be a travesty as so many local lakes, ponds, and streams are stocked with Leaburg Hatchery trout, as is the McKenzie River. Valley residents understand how vitally important the hatchery is to the local economy. Lets hope the powers that be are successful in finding an enduring resolution to keep our hatchery in operation.

To keep you in the know on our local salmon fishing, currently 15,000+ fish are over Willamette Falls headed to our upriver fisheries. That's about equal to last year at this same time. Really nothing to write home about but fish are being caught daily in the McKenzie and the Willamette. The McKenzie is getting most of the pressure as it has more water than usual since EWEB (our local utility company) is presently not diverting any McKenzie water into the Leaburg power project so that they can investigate a major leak in the power canal. Consequently, a core of power boats, are slowly back-trolling many of the runs as you really can't hold a drift boat by back-rowing in the faster current. You need at least a kicker to do so. The Middle ForkWillamette is a tad more drift boat friendly at this point in time. I had a single fisherman on Monday. His efforts were rewarded with 2 nice Spring Chinook Salmon and I even got to tag my 1st Springer of 2019 as evidenced in the photo below.....so BBQ tonight!

Hope you are blessed with good health and good fishing this year.

Cheers, John Gross

As we bid farewell to 2018, we'd like to wish everyone a Healthy and Peaceful New Year. May your fishing exploits involve some great new adventures this year. Below are a few photos from our late season salmon trips on the Elk and Sixes Rivers down on Oregon's south coast. Both rivers continued to produce some very bright specimens that tested both skill & tackle. Some of our salmon catch even started behaving like their steelhead brethren sporting acrobatic jumps and somersaults. A super fun way to finish off the salmon season. Winter Steelhead will now get top billing on our coastal streams and rivers through the end of March. In addition to the Elk & Sixes, other favorite winter steelhead haunts include the SF Coquille, the Umpqua and the Siletz.

Merry Christmas to All
As the Fall/Winter Chinook Season down on the Elk & Sixes Rivers near Port Orford winds down, Winter Steelhead begin to become part of the catch. Suki proudly displays her mixed bag from a couple weeks back.