River

It had been way too many years since I was on the Grande Ronde (2013 was the last trip), so I was pretty excited to make the trek across the state to get on the river.  The Grande Ronde may just be the prettiest float trip in the state, but that probably depends on what you are looking for.  The long drive and short flow window have limited trips to an every few years kinda affair.  But here we were, after a half day trek to Minam the day before, ready to launch.  As is my usual experience at the launch, it’s the big scene playing out.  People who must, from all appearances, only rarely do this kinda thing.  You’ve seen them, they have gear spread hither and yon, taking up every available slot in the launch, no apparent direction, you could watch them and wonder if they are taking out or putting in they are making so little forward progress.  And here I was thinking it was called a boat launch because, what, you launch your boat there….oh, no, that is the place to make meal decisions, load the cooler and decide what goes in which dry bag, and yes, take a break at the nearest table and eat your full breakfast!  Yes, you wouldn’t expect us to eat breakfast before splaying our stuff out all over the ramp would you?  How would we ever find something to eat until we unloaded everything?  So we pushed the trailer and boat through the willows and…yep, launched and loaded the boat.  OK, enough of the crowd, deep breath….

And we’re off, away from it all, just like that. (more…)

So much for plans.  The plan was to take advantage of spring flows and spend Memorial Day weekend on the North Fork John Day.  Well, spring must have ended a few days early, the snowpack was gone and the flow dropped like a rock during the week leading up to the launch.  The night before departure the flow dropped below 800 cfs and we pulled the plug and looked downstream for an alternative.  Friday we found ourselves at Service Creek and off we went.

Service Creek to Clarno is a popular float for Memorial Day, the flows are usually good and the weather hasn’t turned out quite too hot yet.  This is the perfect recipe for crowds.  Fishing wasn’t red hot the first day but there were definitely bass to be found.   (more…)