Time: 12:00PM – 5:30PM

Location: One mile from the trailhead

I drove from the Jubilee Lake campground to the Wenaha River in Troy, OR. As it turned out, this was a 120 mile trip including six miles on gravel road from the campground to Elgin, OR. But it was a beautiful drive, and I scouted additional streams, that I would like to sample in the future. The last thirteen miles also followed a dirt road that switch-backed down from OR 3 to the Grande Ronde Valley. As it turned out, this is a beautiful wide valley and the Grande Ronde is a wide fairly shallow river at this eastern point. Quite a few people were camping in a grassy area by the bridge in Troy.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out, that I needed to drive up a dirt road to get to the trailhead to the Wenaha. I found the targeted access point and pulled out my lunch and ate before hiking. I carried my waders, Loomis rod, and gear in my backpack and decided to hike for twenty minutes. I estimated that this would translate to a mile, before I commenced fishing. It was a hot day with temperatures in the low 90’s, and I was quite hot and sweating, when I finally stopped at the river to begin fishing.

The river was beautiful. It was running low, but clear and cold. It was around 25 feet wide at most places. If you waded into the middle, both banks could be reached with easy casts. I began fishing a hopper/dropper combination. It is hard to recall now, but I began catching a lot of tiny rainbows. I decided to only count trout that were over six inches in length. Over the course of the afternoon, I landed eleven rainbows that met this criteria. Most were on the low end with perhaps two or three in the 10-12 inch range. Most of the trout were taken on the dropper, which was probably a copper john or beadhead pheasant tail nymph. One or two outliers preferred the hopper.

As I hiked back out to the trailhead, I was startled by a snake slinking off the path and down the hill. I caught a glimpse and thought it was a diamondback, and that was confirmed by the rattling sound that it generated, as it slithered off. On the drive back up the switchbacks I saw what appeared to be some sort of grouse in the brown prairie grass. The fishing was fair, although I may not have been using the right flies, but the scenery was outstanding. I would certainly return to the Wenaha and find one of the more remote trailheads and give it another try.

11 trout