Change in the Weather on the Grande Ronde River
I was able to get away last Thursday and go fishing with our friend Craig and our lead fly fishing guide Tom. We had a beautiful sunny day on the Grande Ronde but found the “catching” to be a little slow. We did a mix of swinging Purple Perils and nymphing. I hooked what looked like a nice Steelhead on the Prince Nymph but did not get him in. We saw a few fish rolling but were unable to coax any to react to the swinging fly.
The water was still clear and flowing about 700cfs with a temperature of 45 F. Still warm enough to swing.
This may have been the last sunny warm day on the Grande Ronde. The weather forecast was correct and we saw a huge storm roll in on Saturday night. It rained most of the day Sunday and is currently snowing in Joseph. The river has bumped up to about 950cfs but has leveled off. I am hopeful that this did not blow out the river too much. We just launched our first group of Steelhead fisherman on a 5 day Supported Steelhead trip Sunday morning. This might be just what the Steelhead ordered to get them moving upstream into the Wild and Scenic section of river that our 5 day trip floats through. Our Guides, Morgan and Jon are well equipped with the heated Wall tent, lots of Propane and great food, so they should be comfortable down there. I will let you know how they are doing down there after they check in on the SAT phone.
You can also take a look at the current Steelhead Run Estimate report for the Grande Ronde by following this Link. Northeast Oregon 32H Estimates
See you on “The River”