a great fishing trip in the wilds of eastern oregon

i caught the biggest rainbow trout i've ever caught, 20 inches long. so big, it's classified as a steelhead on the tags, if i'd caught it on an ocean connected river.

here's some of the string of fish my bro and i caught during our trip. we only have the 16 inch or bigger ones in this picture. 4 of these are mine. there are 14 more that aren't in the picture. they are more along the lines of normal size, ranging from around 8 to 12 inches in length.
pretty nice fishing. lots of driving. lots of amazing scenery along the way. i took a bunch of scenery pictures, especially of the volcanic structures. i figure i'm the only one i know that likes that sort of stuff, so they are stored on the hard drive. on those nights that i wish i was somewhere else, i can pull them up and remember the trip all over again.

unsolicited product endorsement

if you are a sportsman, and you don't have a seal-a-meal for your game, you've probably had to throw out way too much of your hard earned spoils due to freezer burn.
seal-a-meal, the way to go

Oregon roadtrip

so my dad called me up one day and said, "hey, thinking of heading into eastern oregon over the 4th of July weekend. want to come along? your brother wants to go too". i bought a ticket to Portland that evening.
We headed out from the Salem area, traveling to Bend for the night. the next day, we wandered souheast, stopping at Chickahominy Reservoir for a little light fishing and reading. hey, this is what you're supposed to do on a roadtrip, right? fish and read, relax and take it easy. no problem here!As with most of the pictures
at the geezer's corner,
clicking will take you to a selection of various sizes,
for your viewing pleasure

then it was off to Burns, where we lived for 4 years during my youth. what a great town to grow up in. we left at just the right time, before i entered high school. there is about a 5 year window where that tiny town in the middle of nowhere would be intolerable. as a kid, and as an adult, that place is truly a paradise for the outdoorsman.

we got a bit of fishing in at Krumbo Reservoir on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where i saw spectacular scenery and i also caught one hell of a nice fish.


a real Saddle Butte
Proof
then we headed further in towards the Steens Mountain through a little hole in the wall called Frenchglen. Nearby, we drove in and then hiked up the Blitzen River, one of the Wild and Scenic Rivers protected by the govt. what needed protecting was US, because the mosquitoes feasted on us. without repellent, your entire exposed skin surface would be one giant bite. they were voracious and relentless. but that was a small price to pay for fishing along that beautiful small river.
fishing during the evening hatch
besides fishing, i was almost run over by a big damned doe that Jake rustled up , met a beaver that was intent on protecting his den and even had to jump about 3 feet when i was warned by a rattlesnake that i was too damned close.
the next day, we headed back to Krumbo, because Darrel wanted to take his little boat out and fly fish for the smallmouth bass that thrive along the reeds along the shoreline. of course, his dog Jakerefused to be left behind.evening came and we packed it up to head back to Burns.
the rest of the trip was revisting old haunts and seeing new things on the way back north west towards Salem.
To see the flickr set of this trip, follow this link