The first time I set out on the lower Deschutes, I couldn’t get over how big everything was. The flows don’t carve the same kind of confined canyon you’d see over other sections of Central Oregon stream. Here the water is flanked by immense rolling hills, escarpments of sandstone and sage that clear the skies overhead and show the true scope of the world you’ve entered.
Then there’s the river itself: a churning, violent, one way express ticket to the Columbia. It’s fraught with world-class rapids and foaming plunges that inspired the name “Riviere des Chutes” (River of the Falls) from French fur traders. Despite its savage nature, the raging water also brings life to its desert setting. For its wildlife, Indigenous nations, and recreational industry, the Deschutes is an irreplaceable artery in this corner of the Northwest.
As a new arrival to Oregon, I treaded lightly around the Deschutes’s awesome power. Now with several seasons on the river under my belt, the trips have become more relaxed. That’s when I started bringing Doritos.
It’s safe to assume one wouldn’t singlehandedly polish off an entire sharing size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos in front of a bunch of strangers. Maybe you would, and I certainly won’t judge you for that, but in my case I tend to save such egregious displays of snacking for situations I’m pretty comfortable in. I’d make a loose connection between this mantra and a new favorite fishing spot. Your first long day trip to a river might include carefully packed sandwiches, granola bars, several beverages in a variety of ABVs, a few extra layers just to be safe… you get the idea. But degenerate anglers and trout are both masters of efficiency, and have an uncanny skill to survive and thrive on as little as possible. When you’ve made a few seasons’ worth of trips to a place and know that less is more, there are certain decisions that you can make to really streamline your day. I’d put it in the same mental boat as senioritis and burping in front of your significant other: You’re high-functioning but giving up just a little bit. And trust me, this East Coast native never gets tired of Oregon’s stunning views and high density trout streams. But when you’ve been at it all season and need that X factor to really emphasize an outing, sometimes it’s the little things.
On this particular day, Josh and I crested over the last rise overlooking Maupin and dropped down towards the river. It was a cloudless, fifty-degree morning: gorgeous for February, but not ideal for us. Fishing conditions this winter had ping-ponged between brutally cold snow dumps and bright unseasonably warm spells, and we were experiencing the latter now. The short days and low motivation limited us to being strictly weekend warriors at this point in the year. We couldn’t exactly pick and choose when we fished, just how we adjusted to the conditions at hand. After coming up blank in the first good riffles, it was clear we’d have to put in some time until we made a connection. I cracked open my jumbo bag of Doritos and had a couple of chips, just to be safe.
Luckily, the winter Sun has one advantage for anglers: It can’t cover an entire canyon at once. Even the mid-afternoon light hit the towering ledges and overhanging trees at enough of an angle to shade sections of water. This had the same effect as an overcast day for the trout in these pockets. As far as they were concerned, these were places they could feed in peace.
The fish started coming quickly when we actually targeted the shady edges, and so did our fishing spots. Most of these sections were relatively short and with further distances between them than it was worth to walk, so we would fish through and continue on in the car. We covered a lot of water quickly, and as a result ended up going way further down the access road than we anticipated. Besides the fact that this allowed me to plow through my Cool Ranch Doritos alarmingly fast and Josh’s car’s tendency to not start on the first attempt every time, the day was panning out to be pretty good.
Before I knew it, we had reached Macks Canyon: the campground marking the end of the access road and the beginning of the hike-in only section. What lay downstream was some of the most remote water on the lower Deschutes, but we wouldn’t be going far today. What immediately caught our attention were the juicy riffles along some of the islands immediately adjacent to the campground. There were a few islands on the way down we’d been hoping to hit, but the high winter flows made the crossings a little too sketchy for us to attempt today. The spot at Macks looked doable however, and at this point the sun was almost completely off the river.
The fishing on the islands’ riffles did prove worth crossing to, but some of the most exciting action came from the braids of water that had filled in between them with the higher flows. These small creeks were around ten feet across and offered great holding water off of the main current. Their bends and logjams produced several decent redbands, including a fat 18 incher that Josh definitely didn’t catch out of a hole I had just fished. It was an unexpected change of pace after a day of uniform, wide open riffles, and a great way to wrap up the trip.
We fished until dark. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the car campers setting up for the night along the riverbanks. The warm weather had given me an unfair, fleeting taste of a summer I wouldn’t be here for. My days in the West are numbered now, and I wanted to take in every vista and river mile while I had the access so close. I badly wanted to settle in and watch the last ribbons of daylight run behind the desert cliffs. The sky was clear and calm that night, and I bet the stars would have been incredible down there. But it would be cold again soon, and we had a two and a half hour drive back to Bend. I wasn’t even that hungry for campfire food anyway since I had polished off my Doritos by 1:00PM and hadn’t had the stomach for anything since. That did mean I had most of my actual lunch to snack on during the car ride back. AND Josh’s car started up on the first try, meaning we wouldn’t be involuntarily camping on the Deschutes tonight. Sometimes it’s the little things.
