The John Day River starts in eastern Oregon and runs northwest through the east side of central Oregon then turns north and flows all the way to the Columbia River. Steelhead fisherman know the John Day for it's steelhead runs, the river has one of the last remaining wild runs of steelhead not supplemented by hatchery fish in the lower 48. But once the temps rise in summer, the John Day is all about smallmouth bass. I grew up fishing the river for both steelhead and bass, but after a career in the military it had been quite a while since I prowled its waters. Good news is, the fishing seems as strong if not better than ever for bass. In most fly fishing circles, the John Day is a pretty well know bass fishery, especially to west coast guys. Its celebrity even reaches back east to the more famous smallmouth locations such as Virginia and New York. But you would be surprised how many people have no idea how good the fishing really is.
Another thing not well known is that its more than just a fly fishing river. Sure in the summer its low and warm with large clear flat river rock banks so it sets up perfect for fly fishing, which is what we were doing on this day. But its a great fishery for gear guys as well. Hair jigs and small plastic grubs will net you a ton of fish in a day.
Most people like to float the river. The standard float trip used to be around five days. But the BLM has recently purchased some new land thanks to a private fishing/conservation club so shorter trips are available now. Be aware though, a float permit is required through the BLM. But if a float trip in not in the cards, there are plenty of places to access the river by foot. The John Day is considered navigable as well, so can walk up and down the river to your hearts content and be legal. There are some deeper spots you would have to swim to cross, but its usually not to hard to find a riffle shallow enough to keep you dry above the knees.
The fly fishing was excellent the day we were there. Mostly shallow water 5ft or less, so depending on what type of pattern you are using you can easily get away with a floating line, or intermediate. Although a sink tip of 10ft or less is very handy. I prefer to use a sink tip with either unweighted flies or ones that are slightly weighted. But I did fish alot this past trip with a floating line and a clouser minnow with medium size dumbbell eyes and could get down in pretty much all of the holes we fished.
For patterns, we caught fish on just about everything. There was some cloud cover, so poppers worked most of the day. Various styles of woolly buggers and clouser minnows were our other go to patterns. I prefer to tie my patterns with a twist of some kind. So whether its a bugger or a clouser I always put my own twist on it.
As far as colors, the old standard chartreuse is hard to beat. Or any other color mixed with chartreuse for that matter. We also had success with pink and white and chartreuse and pink, or as its better known to salt water fisherman as "electric chicken". I experimented with olives, blacks and crawdad colors and caught fish on them all. But the brighter colors were by far more productive.
Nymphing under an indicator and swinging flies will both catch you fish. But we found that stripping flies was far more productive. And the faster we stripped, the better it was. Most of the fish we caught were between 8-12 inches. But we did get into a few bigger guys in the deeper holes and there are plenty of trophy 20+ inch fish to be had. It just takes covering a lot of water to find the bigger guys. As far as number go, the John Day is know for 100 fish days! No really, its true. Now it wont be 100 fish 16 inches or bigger. Most are around 10 inches. But its hard to beat a fish almost every cast. I think my wife and I caught around 60 between the two of us on our last trip.
The John Day is a great bass river and it fly fishes very well. So if you are ever in central or eastern Oregon and have a hankering for a bent rod and a 60 fish day, give it a try. Its not a technical river as far as the bass fishing goes. You wont need a "top secret" pattern in the exact size to get into fish. Its a great river for kids or the beginning fly fisherman or woman, plenty of fish eager to bite and plenty of room for a back cast. One thing to note about the river, its a pretty remote area and gets really hot in the summer. So make sure you have plenty of water and supplies as to stay safe. Good luck and tight lines!
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