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Fishing the Middle Willamette with Brain Marz

By Scott Richmond

Catching trout aplenty while dodging lightning. But first: tales of the deadman.

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Why do they call this 'Deadman's'?" I asked Brian Marz. He had just launched his driftboat at a rough dirt slide into the Middle Fork of the Willamette River below the town of Oakridge.

"Actually, the official name for this ramp is 'Horseshoe.'"

"So why . . . " I persisted.

"Last year they found a body just upstream from here."

"An unfortunate angler?"

"No. A guy with a bullet in his head. Police figured it was drug-related. A friend of mine saw the body when he was launching his boat, and he called the cops. Then they started questioning him like he'd killed the guy."

"Bad start for a day of fishing."

"Eventually they decided my friend was okay. Then they started throwing dummies into the water and seeing where they'd drift to. They were trying to find out where the body had been dumped, given where it ended up."

"Which was . . "

"Just up there," Brian said, pointing upstream a hundred feet. By this time, he'd rowed across the river and parked the boat near some trees. Fast water met slow, and it looked like a good spot to fish for trout, once I'd erased the image of bobbing corpses from my mind.

The Wonderful Green Caddis

The river was high, with a silty green color and two or three feet of visibility. The temperature was cool, and mist still rose from the river, even though the day was nearing noon. Yesterday there had been an afternoon thunderstorm and downpour, and today's overcast, threatening sky suggested an encore was in the offing.

It was the second week of June, and the McKenzie green caddis were still coming off. The McKenzie green caddis--the genus Arctopsyche, a free-living (caseless) caddis--are a major hatch in the lower Willamette Valley. The McKenzie River, one drainage to the north, has a famous spring hatch of green caddis. Anglers call it the "Mother's Day Caddis" because hatches usually begin near that holiday. "Mother's Day Caddis" is a common designation in the West, but this hatch is not to be confused with the Mother's Day Caddis of the Rocky Mountain region, which is a grannom species.

McKenzie green caddis are prolific in the lower Willamette Valley, and while the McKenzie gets most of the attention, the Middle Fork's hatch is just as intense. And, as we soon proved, the trout are just as plentiful while the angling pressure is lighter.

I rigged up with a dry fly with a nymph on a dropper. The dry was one of Brian's flies, basically an Elk Hair Caddis but with a sparse elk hair wing and a CDC underwing. The nymph was a generic beadhead hare's ear Soft Hackle. The body of the dry was green with tinges of blue. The Valley's green caddis had a definite tinge of teal, and imitations do best when they match that color.

Where Were the Other Anglers?

There were no fish at our first stop, but we were still a little early. "The hatch gets rolling around 1:00," said Brian. "That's when the trout start looking up." And indeed, when we anchored below a riffle farther down river, I soon picked up a nice 17-inch rainbow on the dry fly. A bright red stripe colored its side.

"Same strain as the Deschutes," I noted to Brian.

"Yup," he said. "The Deschutes, McKenzie, and Willamette fish are all redsides, somewhere between the desert redbands and the true coastal rainbows.

"How's the fishing pressure on the Middle Fork?" We had yet to see another angler.

"Oh, it's seeing more people than it used to, but most folks haven't caught on to how good it is here. Since they put in catch-and-release regulations, the fishing has gotten really good."

"A couple of years ago," he went on, "they were doing dam work on the McKenzie and the river flowed chocolate brown all summer. Fly fishers came over to the Middle Fork and found out how good it was. But it still doesn't see many anglers compared to other rivers."

We each caught several more fish, all on dries, and I clipped off the nymph. When they want a dry fly, just give them a dry fly, I figure.

The Middle Fork is about a hundred feet wide. The bank is tight with alders and moss-covered rocks. Much of the river can be fished from the bank, and Highway 58 parallels the Middle Fork so access is easy. Boaters need at least intermediate whitewater skills, however, and later today we would pass through the Hells Gate, a definite class IV rapids.

Rolling Thunder

More and more caddis appeared on the water, and trout were eager for them. We began catching nice fish nearly every time we put a fly in good-looking water. Overhead, an osprey chirped, the last note of his call superceded by a roll of thunder.

"Oh, oh." I said. I think we're in for it." More thunder followed and got closer. Brian rowed the boat near some trees that were not as tall as the others, and we put our highly-conductive graphite rods in the boat. I pulled a nylon shell over my wool sweater.

Thunder clap followed thunder clap, and it soon rained. Then it poured. The shell I'd put on was proofing less than waterproof. I pulled out my clipboard and made a note: "Buy new rain jacket." Lightning flashed and I counted ten seconds before thunder rolled and echoed through the canyon. It was on top of us, and the rain intensified.

Eventually the time between lightning flashes and thunder lengthened, the rain lessened, and trout were eagerly taking dry flies again.

Where to Fish

Our best fishing was downstream from riffles. This is not surprising since green caddis pupate in riffly water, and adult females often lay their eggs in the riffles.

"It's pretty easy to figure out where to fish on the Middle Fork," Brian said. "Any place that looks like it should hold fish usually does. The McKenzie's not like that. There are a lot of places on the McKenzie that look fishy, but you'll have trouble getting a strike there. It takes longer to learn the McKenzie."

Brian is the owner of The McKenzie Angler (541-736-5045) in Walterville, just across the street from the McKenzie. He guides on both rivers and knows the McKenzie and Middle Fork like the back, front, bottom, top, and both sides of his right hand.

It started to rain again, and my jacket's shortcomings were once more apparent. I pulled out the clipboard and found my previous jotting of "Buy new rain jacket." I underlined it.

Trout continued to rise to our flies despite the occasional rain. Brian expertly rowed his McKenzie boat through the tricky boulder field of Hells Gate Rapids. Just below Hells Gate, he parked the boat opposite Casey's RV Park, where my 5th wheel was parked. Casey's is a classy spot to park your RV. It's right on the Middle Fork and has a boat ramp that's below the Hells Gate, making it a good spot for anglers who want to avoid that rapids. I got another nice rainbow in full view of my trailer.

One More Thunderstorm

And so it went as we drifted toward the takeout above Lookout Point Reservoir. Fish after beautiful fish rose to our dries. I'm not a big fish counter: once I get past "one" I pretty much stop keeping track. But we had to have had dozens of trout each, most between 11 and 14 inches, with a few bigger and a few smaller.

As we neared the takeout, more thunder rattled through the canyon. And another downpour started--welcome to western Oregon in early June!

Before we left the river, I hauled out my clipboard one more time, scanned down to the "Buy New Rain Jacket!" note. Next to it, I wrote "TOMORROW" in big letters.

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 07/18/2006.

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The Middle Fork's trout are wild, redside-strain rainbows. Thanks to catch-and-release regs, they are plentiful and of good size.

Brian Marz hooks up--after the lightning got a little farther away

Brian with another rainbow under sunnier skies before the next thunderstorm