Trout Camp

Timothy Burke • 6/11/172/16/19

Trout camp is a special place for storytelling, ribbing comments, and enjoying good company. Every May a few of my closest friends and I migrate south for a long weekend of fly fishing for very large and very hungry rainbow trout on the Deschutes River. After seven months of wet soggy Western Washington weather, the dry hot arid temperatures of Central Oregon are a breath of fresh air. We make it a point to fish the Salmon Fly hatch and tan our pale skin. Selfishly I get to hang out with people I love, do something I love (fly fishing) and be in a place that I love. For me, this scratches all the necessary itches all at once. Maybe you’ve witnessed a Labrador Retriever receiving a good scratch from a loving owner with their tail wagging and one back hind leg thumping on the ground with that look in their eye like, “I hope this never ends.” Well, that’s what I feel like come late May on the Deschutes.

Although my buddy JR would never admit it the trout I am holding is bigger then any trout he has ever caught. Notice his jealous grin…

My brother Seth and I share a special bond through fly fishing.

FullSizeRender — Fly fishing for rainbow trout

A Tail of Three Brothers

Timothy Burke • 6/6/1711/4/23

The hunt begins with the first swing, hands nestling around the custom handle to release pent-up anticipation with every cast. Somewhere beneath the surface, the giant waits and lingers unexpectedly, minding its own business on the journey to its gravel spawning grounds.

Methodically and strategically, each step through the run is a precise calculation. The game is a matter of consistency, cast after cast, combing the bottom of the river looking for a willing participant. Different parts of the run demand new and innovative ways to present the fly and fool the fish.

A few bad casts rattle your nerves…stepping back up the run provides a second chance, but then a few more snags on a big underwater bolder force you to wade out into the heart of the run or break off the fly.

The line slips down through the glacial-fed 43-degree water. Blind from fish or fly, it’s simply a feel and an impulse. The moment, the reaction, the grab is not wishful thinking but preparation, muscle memory, and many failed attempts. The success rate is never 100% and the one that gets away demands a year of self-reflection.

Friendship with perseverance and a little bit of insanity is the cocktail for success. Every run holds a new opportunity lurking, waiting. Somewhere below the surface lies a chance to capitalize or be left wanting.

The catch is sweet and best shared with the ones you love! Like Brothers!

Steelhead Mentors

Timothy Burke • 4/3/172/16/19

Five years ago my buddy JR Hall took me on my first fly fishing trip on the Olympic Peninsula. I had dreamed of fishing for big wild fish but didn’t know where to start. We left Hall’s house at 330am and made our way west to the land of bigfoot and big fish. It was there on a coastal river in early April that the way I looked at chasing wild steelhead changed.

I drove my 1997 Toyota 4-Runner through the early morning hours talking fishing the whole way with my buddy JR. Once we reached the river we winded along the old gravel road until we reached a rough boat launch and slipped the 17-foot fish craft into the glacial fed stream.

The weather was blustery with wind, snow, hail, rain, and breaks of the sun that peaking through the cloudy sky’s. In the mid-afternoon, a cascading bend JR launched his fly into the head of a beautiful run. As his fly swung down through the choppy drift it paused for a moment and then all hell broke loose. A ferocious wild fish devoured his fly leaping strait up towards the heavens. The fish was so big it couldn’t propel it’s self from the water so it tail walked halfway down the run at lightening speed. The battle was on as I watched JR fight the fish through two sections of the river till we finally landed it, admired it, and released it back into the wild.

Since then I have been fishing the winter wild steelhead run on the Washington Coast. The next season my brother Seth and I caught and landed two steelhead at the boat launch on a different coastal river where I met my friend Todd Sloan who has become a life time friend and steelhead mentor.

JR Hall and Todd Sloan have taught me over the years how to swing flies for big wild fish and there have been so many wonderful trips, conversations, and life experiences shared together. Just yesterday I had the privilege of taking both of these guys down the river in my boat and we had an awesome day. I felt so blessed to be in the presence of two amazing guys and outstanding steelhead fly fishermen. We caught two beautiful wild hens on flies we tied. It was a great day, one I will never forget.

Be Honest

Timothy Burke • 3/31/172/16/19

My brother David and I were fishing our favorite coastal river just after river levels had peaked and started to drop. Honestly, I had a lot on my mind on this trip and spent most of the moments while swinging my fly worrying about some foolish decisions I had made. When we pulled up onto the gravel bar, David, took the head of the run and I fished the gut. It was a long and challenging section of the river to fish (much like my life at that time) with each cast and step only inching me closer to the end of the run.

As I neared the end of the tail out, it deepened causing slowness in the current before the cold winter flows spilled through the rapids. In almost a daze I kept fishing until my fly was swinging through the very bottom of the run up into the grass clumps exposed in high waters. It was then when my fly swung toward the grass clump at the lip of the tail out that my reel let out an ear piercing howl and the battle was on. David, heard me yelling and grabbed the boat floating down to see all the excitement, but the swift current wouldn’t allow him to set the anchor so he drug the anchor over my fly line. I was not happy, but the fish stayed on my line. Trying to next a 20lb wild steelhead from the bank in fast current is not an easy task. After several failed attempts my brother miraculously pounced on the fish with the net gentling sliding it to safety. We couldn’t believe the size and beauty of this big wild male steelhead. And even more transparently speaking my conscience was a message form some bad decisions, but the river was faithful, healing, and the reward forced me to pause with gratefulness. For every angler that reads this story remember that if you’re honest with yourself and the river she will often give you something, you don’t deserve.

Hand Tied

Timothy Burke • 2/21/172/16/19

I am very proud of my brother, Seth. He is genuinely one of the most talented steelhead fishermen that I know. He ties perfect flies, builds flawless rods, and grids out steelhead runs like an excel sheet. However, Seth, who we call Stealth, has been on a four-year journey trying to catch a 20-pound steelhead. It started back in 2013 when we did a float together down our favorite river. Honestly, I still feel kind of guilty because I was taking my time floating down to a really nice piece of water when an older fisherman steps out on the gravel bar in front of us and caught a 20-pound steelhead. I was so frustrated with myself if I would have just pushed down river 10 minutes earlier that would have been our fish. Anyways, this whole experience led to Stealth’s radical pursuit of some very big and very elusive wild fish. Later in that same day, I broke off an upper teens steelhead, “man was I frustrated.” So, fast forward to the next year and Seth comes out from Oregon to hunt his trophy steelhead and gets blanked after three days of fishing, not even a tug. Skip to the following year on the very last day in the cold morning he has a monster wild buck swing up the river with his fly in the same run he watched the old guy land a 20 pounder two years earlier. He explained “the eat” to me as “I heard two clicks come off of my Hardy, felt the line tighten and go up steam, then it just went limp”. How bazaar is that, well, not as unusual as we thought for big wild fish to swim upstream in the soft inside bucket of a run when the river is just above freezing levels. To make matters worse I saw the giant roll.

Now, the Stealth is furious and determined as ever to catch his fish. So in the offseason, he builds a beautiful Meizer 8WT 12’6 Spey Rod, ties up two dozen custom winter steelhead tube flies, and buys a reel called, “The Tank.” Stealth wasn’t messing around. To make the scenario even more dramatic he decides to drive 6 hours in a rainstorm to the OP and wait two days for the river to drop into shape before he could fish.

With only a day and a half to fish and the river just starting to drop we decided to take the boat down one of our favorite sections of the river. Halfway way through the day we pulled over to a nice gravel bar to swing flies and have lunch. It was Seth’s turn to make lunch, but he couldn’t get the BBQ started, so I told him to swing flies and I would cook the hot dogs. Ten minutes later I had some very hot dogs ready to eat and yelled to Stealth, “The Dogs Are Ready”, two seconds later his line when tight, the earth shook beneath his feet and the water exploded 20 yards in front of him as a huge wild fish grabbed his fly. The obese giant skimmed across the surface of the water on his massive belling proposing like a dolphin. The fish was so chunky that it couldn’t jump out of the water it just kind of flopped and burned off large sections of line from Seth’s reel. After a tremendous fight, we landed the beautiful wild buck and Stealth had done it, he had persevered and was given the just reward.

Kids and Salmon

Timothy Burke • 9/16/162/16/19

The greatest catch for me is the joy captured on the face of a kid with a salmon.

Father & Son

Timothy Burke • 9/9/162/16/19

Great day on the river with Cody, his dad, and their friend Mike. Cody out fished us all once again.

Stringer Full of Salmon

Timothy Burke • 9/5/162/16/19

Some mornings are very fruitful when your fishing with JR, using his secret techniques for August Chinook.

Why Fish Riffles at Last Light

Timothy Burke • 6/21/162/16/19

File May 29, 6 25 16 AM

Last light provides just the advantage that big redside Deschutes River trout thrive on. This minimal light environment creates a safe choppy top nutrient enrich feeding ground next to the grassy river banks. Large salmon flies who spend most of their day hanging out on trees, river grass, and sage take flight when the late evening temperatures soar. Their newly fertile eggs are released into the filmy rivers surface often causing the big bug to crash into the water turning into the perfect pray for a hungry trout.

File May 29, 6 27 34 AM

File May 29, 6 25 58 AM

The Last Day

Seth Burke • 6/21/162/16/19

It was the end, or so people were saying. I decided to find out for myself. I parked my truck and started walking along the highway.

I walked 3 miles, doing my own shuttle and floating the Deschutes river, but it was worth it. I fished by myself, no other anglers in sight and realized that there was so much good water that it was hard to fish it all during prime time. I tied on my special “Clark’s Stone” a homebrew “late hatch” version for picky trout. I started fishing at 6:40 pm and by 8 pm I had landed 9 beautiful Deschutes River redsides. I Caught fish in the flat, caught fish in the riffle, caught fish in the other riffle, they were everywhere I floated down to my secret spot thinking I didn’t really need to fish it, but I tied on a big purple chubby churnobyl and started fishing. Hmmm, how to describe that spot…Amazing! Big bugs hatched for about 10-15 minutes around 9 pm and the fish were going nuts. You won’t believe me if I told you how many more fish I caught, so I won’t tell you. What stood out the most were the three 20″ fish I landed and the 20″+ fish that came off at my feet. One of those fish was so hot he took me into my backing twice. Summer Steelhead hot!
The fishing was excellent and it was nice to be on the river by myself for a little quiet and reflection time, but every time I hooked a screamer I looked around for someone to share it with. There is nothing like fishing with my brothers.

I floated down the river as the weight of the night sky squeezed out the last bit of light and found my take out. I tied up my pontoon boat and started the 1/2 mile hike to my truck. As I walked I thought, yep, hatch is over. A sly grin cracked across my face and I silently thanked all the fishermen who stopped fishing the salmon fly hatch or who trust internet reports. The end is only for those who dare to not go.