Fishing Excursions
Before going out on your fishing trip, make sure you check the weather forecast and get the full fishing reports at http://rogueweather.com/.
5/16/15 Rogue River Power Plant and North Fork Park: I remember going into the power plant years ago with my dad, and he caught a 21 inch rainbow there. The driveway down to the power plant is now gated, so the only way in is hiking the Peyton Bridge trail up from Lost Creek Lake. It was an 8 mile hike each way and the upstream section was very overgrown with the trail being choked by poison oak, and ticks everywhere. I only fished one hole at the power plant. Much of the area is fenced off for safety purposes, but I was able to fish the upstream section of the main hole. I caught a couple decent trout (14-14.5 inches), and had one about 19 inches that broke off. Definitely a fun hole to fish, but the 16 mile round trip hike doesn't make it worth it. After hiking out, I drove up to North Fork Park and fished just below the dam. I hooked one that felt pretty big on the first cast, but came off. A short time later I hooked into one that was about 22 inches that broke my line. I ended up bringing one in that was about 12 inches before moving a little further down stream and catching another that was about 10.5 inches.
6/18/14 Applegate River Gorge: I had never fished this part of the Applegate, but I knew there was some nice holes, so I decided to head out there in the morning and beat the swimmers. I started having bites right off the bat, but none of the fish would actually take the bait. They were just nibbling at it. I still ended up catching quite a few fish, but nothing with any size. I probably caught about 10 fish in about 4 hours of fishing, but the biggest one was only about 10 inches. None of the fish I caught had a clipped adipose fin either. Even though the fish were all small, they were biting about every other cast which definitely kept me on my toes and made things more exciting.
6/13/14 North Fork Park: If you haven't noticed yet, this is becoming one of my favorite spots to fish. I decided to bring along one of the first people who ever taught me how to fish, my mom. I had recently gone to the Applegate River to pick up some periwinkles, and that is primarily what we used on this day. We started in the reservoir but didn't have any luck, so we moved below the dam. We started catching some fish down there, but most of them were small. We covered about a half mile stretch of the river stopping at every hole. We fished for about five hours. During that time I caught 7 or 8 fish and my mom probably caught 8 or 9. The biggest fish for the day was two 12 inchers, one Brown Trout, and one Rainbow Trout. I later found out that my grandpa was there the day before which is probably why we couldn't catch any big ones. He ended up catching a 20 incher up there.
6/7-8/2014 Hyatt Lake: My friends and I had a weekend camping trip up at Hyatt Lake, so while I was waiting for everyone else to arrive I decided to wet a line. I just fished from the bank near our camp. I started fishing with periwinkles, but I decided to switch to something that floats since the water is pretty muddy this year. I went with the Powerbait and had a bite on the first cast. The next cast I was able to catch one (about 11 inches). I had a couple bites after that, but not much going on. The wind was making it very tough to get out to anything remotely deep. The next day, 4 of my friends and I went down to the dam to fish. I had a bit on the very first cast, but nothing the rest of the time. We were there for about 3 hours and only caught 3 fish between the five of us. With the water levels this year, it is not a good year for fishing at Hyatt Lake. It's still good for camping with friends though, and a lot less crowded this year.
5/30/14 and 6/1/14 North Fork Park and Avenue of the Boulders: After a day of hiking on the 30th I still had some daylight left so I made a run down to North Fork Park to do some fishing. Using the occasional Salmon Fly that I would find, and Powerbait, I ended up keeping 3 decent sized rainbow trout (12.75", 13", and 13.25"). After camping out that night, I woke up early the next morning to fish Avenue of the Boulders. I started off using Powerbait and caught a 10 incher on the first cast. After that, I didn't have any bites for a while. As I moved down stream the Salmon Flies started to become a lot more abundant. I started using the Salmon Flies and had a bite almost every cast. However, all of the fish were only about 7-8 inches. I decided to gather up some of the Salmon Flies in an empty Powerbait jar and head back upstream to North Fork Park. Once there, the fish continued to hammer the Salmon Flies, but most of them were still small. I did keep one 11 incher (the only fish I kept that day), and I hooked one that broke my line. I lost track of how many fish I actually caught this day, but it was at least 15.
5/3/14 North Fork Park: The fishing were biting pretty good once again. I caught a few fish in the reservoir and then headed down below the damn when the bite stopped up above. In all, I caught 11 rainbow trout on for the day, all between 10.5 and 14 inches. I kept four of them (two 12.5 inchers, a 13 incher and a 14 incher) and threw the rest back. All of the fish had been eating well. The 14 incher that I kept had the belly of 20 incher. Most of the fish were caught on Powerbait, but the Salmon Fly hatch is starting and I did catch one with a Salmon Fly I found.
4/27/14 Fish Lake: Some of my my friends and I decided to go up to Fish Lake to do some fishing because we had heard that they had been catching quite a few up there. We got there and we were getting snowed on. The good news, we had the lake all to ourselves. There was one guy from ODFW out on the lake doing some studies when we got there, but other than that there wasn't a soul around. Unfortunately, the fish didn't seem to be around either. It started off like it was going to be a good day. My buddy threw out his first cast and within 10 seconds had one on. After that, there wasn't a whole lot happening. We fished for about 2.5 hours in the snow(from my friend's boat) and only caught 3 fish between the three of us. Most of the time was spent trolling, using a variety of different lures with limited success. We set anchor at the end and still fished for about 20 minutes. The fish didn't seem to like the Powerbait either. Since the fish weren't biting we finally decided to head in a get warm. Still a great time, but would have been much better with better weather. By far, the coldest fishing excursion I've been on.
4/13/14 North Fork Park: I had another great day fishing at North Fork Park just below the dam once again. I left my house early in the morning and had my line in the water by 7:00 am. Immediately, the fish started biting. I had a bite on my first 7 or 8 casts. On my second cast I landed a nice 14.5 inch Rainbow Trout. The very next cast I caught about a 12 inch Rainbow that a threw back because I was already worried about limiting out too soon. I caught 3 fish on my first five casts. After a little while things started to slow down a bit. I was still getting some bites, but the fish were getting smarter, and was having trouble hooking them. Finally, with 3 fish on the stringer, I moved down to the second hole. In 3 casts at the 2nd hole, I caught 2 more fish; a 13.5 incher and a 11.5 incher. In all, I caught seven fish on the day, throwing back the 12 incher previously mentioned and another about 10 inches. I used 4 varieties of PowerBait and had success with all of them. Out of the five I kept, 11.5 inches was the smallest.
4/2/14 Mouth of the South Fork and North Fork Park: I wanted to break in my new backpacking fishing rod so I hiked 5 miles upstream along the Mouth of the South Fork Trail to do some fishing. This actually put me on the main stem of the river about a mile upstream from where the South Fork comes in. The spot I wanted to fish was still too swift this time of year. I tried a couple of casts but the current was ripping my Powerbait off of the hook. I moved down stream and caught a 15.5 inch rainbow on Rainbow Powerbait. I only had one other bite while I was there. Heading back down to the trailhead I stopped about another 2 miles downstream where a creek comes in. I tried fishing here with the Powerbait and also with a Panther Martin with no success. I then hiked back to the trailhead and drove up to North Fork Park (Probably only about 7 miles away). I started fishing just below the dam. Again the current was a lot more swift than I would like due to them letting so much water out of the dam this time of year, but I didn't let it stop me. I caught 2 more Rainbows (10.25" and 11.25") and 13" Brook Trout in the main stream. I then went to the little pool area just off the mainstream and caught another 11" Rainbow.
3/27/14 Applegate Lake and River: I went fishing with my buddy Jared and we started off on the far side of Applegate Lake off of the dirt road across from Seattle Bar. We fished here for a while and neither of us were having any luck with Powerbait. It was also a bit windy, so we decided to move around to squaw arm where we might be a little shielded from the wind. At Squaw arm we still had no luck, starting with Powerbait and moving to lures after that. We finally decided to try the river. We stopped at one hole just above Jackson Park along a 90 degree bend in the river. I had one quick bite, but not enough for me to set the hook. It was dead again after that. We moved downstream a little bit further and stopped at McKee Bridge to try our luck. We weren't here real long, but I did hook a nice brightly colored 16-17 inch Rainbow. I got it in to about 10 feet from me when it came off. I hooked it using the Rainbow Powerbait. Unfortunately, that was the only bite either of us got there too.