Fall classic happens on trout streams, not TV

By Chester Allen | The Olympian • Published October 23, 2008

• Comments (0)

For five months — from early May through September — trout in the Northwest's best streams get pounded.

Expert anglers from all over the world cast — again and again and again — into Oregon's Deschutes, Crooked and Metolius rivers. Trout in Washington's Yakima River and Rocky Ford spring creek see fake flies every day.

Wild trout get very wary under the salvos of flies, and they'll spook at a shadow on the water as the parade of anglers goes on and on.

Then October comes.

Deer hunting and bird hunting starts. College and NFL football keep televisions warm all weekend — and into the week. School is in full swing. Most of the anglers still haunting rivers are busily casting for salmon and steelhead.

And then comes the World Series.

All of these distractions are just fabulous for the frazzled trout — and slacker trout anglers.

The trout go for entire days — even weeks — without gazing at a fraudulent bug.

The shorter days and longer, colder nights also have trout pigging out to survive the hardscrabble winter.

A winter trout stream is a tough, cold, icy place to make a living.

The trout fishing gets good enough to ease the pain of the 401(k) balance that is falling like a safe dropped from the sky.

It gets good enough that you just don't care. You just grab your gear and go.

Crazed trout anglers creep along the streambanks and peer through polarized glasses at the soft, cushiony water near the banks and in the slowly swirling bank eddies.

The trout tip and sip as fleets of blue wing olive mayflies, midges and caddis flies struggle to get airborne.

Wild trout that spent much of August huddled against rocks and under dark cutbanks are now out in the open.

On many rivers, such as Oregon's Deschutes, steelhead anglers flog the bouncing runs while — right behind their backs — 18-inch wild rainbows scarf down bugs.

Now, steelhead are much bigger than their rainbow trout cousins, and even a small steelhead is a lot larger and stronger than a trout.

But steelhead anglers can — and do — cast all day for one grab.

Fall trout anglers cast all day to grabby, snappy fish.

Pods of several dozen trout shark around big back eddies with their dorsal fins out of the water. You can hear them feed from the bank.

Hook one of these fish, and they bounce into the air and run downstream like, well, miniature steelhead.

It's the best time of year to walk along the banks and see the world slide toward winter.

Bankside alder trees and shrubs are alight with orange, yellow and red.

Deer hiding from hunters slink through the tall grass and sagebrush.

Green-winged teal blow out of the water and rocket downstream like small fighter jets.

And trout heads keep poking out of the water and slurping down bugs.

It's hard to imagine that watching football on television, hunting pheasant or endlessly casting for steelhead is more fun.

But we trout slackers are grateful for those distractions.

It's the most beautiful time of the year, and we've got the best trout fishing of the year — with elbow room and reckless fish.

We owe a lot to football, hunting, steelhead, salmon and baseball.