It's beginning to feel a bit like summer is working it's way to Oregon. It is still definetly spring here though for sure, every day or in fact every five minutes the weather changes, but you get the feeling the warm days are on the horizon. And the chrome summer-runs are already on the move up their natal waters. I'm still tying a few intruders, kinda just out of habit right now, but the deer hair and foam and some ideas I've held inside throughout the winter are making their way to the top of the heap of the dead animal hair and plumage of my tying bench.
The urge to break out the scandi heads and fish a dry is becoming overwhelming and we are still a few good months away from it really becoming a reality, but it's there. Like when you were 10 in November and you have to get through Thanksgiving before you could realistically start bugging your parents about what you want for Christmas. Christmas came early for me last year, on Memorial Day weekend, don't know if I'll be so lucky this year.
Although the numbers of steelhead that returned to the North Umpqua last summer wasn't all that great, the fishing was to say the least, very consistant. I had only two days where we did not see action. Those two days hurt really bad though, you know as a guide that those days will come, especially on the North, but you just don't like it when it happens to your clients. I want nothing more than to share the North Umpqua steelhead experience with my guests. I have a good feeling about this years run, I don't have any facts, just a feeling.
