Time For Fisher City On Grande Ronde

Every fall about this time, steelhead fishers from throughout the Northwest move their motor homes, trailers, fifth wheelers and pickup campers to the mouth of the Grande Ronde River and create a small city for a month to six weeks.

They’ll cast lures and flies along a 300-yard-long section of the Snake just below the Ronde’s mouth. Many, primarily fly fishers, will work long-known steelhead hot spots along the first mile or so of the legendary Ronde.

Except for the construction of a few homes and businesses, the area looks much as it did a hundred years ago. The Snake and Ronde flow through sparsely timbered mountains and steep hillsides partly covered with dry, brownish cheatgrass.

However, not all is the same as it was when only Indians camped there. Anglers frequently hear chukar partridges and quail and occasionally see bighorn sheep and deer.

Fishers began parking their homes away from home on the public land below the Ronde’s mouth about two weeks ago. By last weekend, most of the preferred camping spots were occupied, and there more than 30 rigs on hand.

Some steelheaders don’t live in luxury. Most fly fishers, including fishing guides who have guided novice fly fishers on such rivers as the Henry’s Fork, Madison and Missouri until recently, set up tents along the lower Ronde. They’ll fish for steelhead until the Ronde’s temperature drops below 40 degrees and the fish no longer move up the river in good numbers until the following spring.

A few anglers, such as Thomas Frost, formerly of Spokane but now living in Pendleton, Ore., sleep under the stars. Frost fly-fished the Ronde and the drift below its mouth for three days last week.

In a way, moving to the Ronde’s mouth for a few weeks each fall is like homecoming for many anglers who have fished near the Ronde’s mouth for years. The fishers and their spouses know one another so well they can borrow fishing tackle and food.

Most of the regulars have favorite spots along the boulder-strewn drift, and a few even leave patio chairs on the beach overnight in an attempt to discourage other anglers from fishing what they consider their spots. It doesn’t always work. The beach is open to all fishers and some ignore the chairs.

All shore fishers, however, are united against the few thoughtless anglers who maneuver their boats to within 50 feet of the shore and back-troll plugs. The boat anglers, they argue, have the whole Snake River to fish, so why should they make shore fishing difficult, even impossible?

When large numbers of steelhead are moving near the shore below the Ronde’s mouth, fishing can be sensational. Spin fishers sometimes catch more than 20 during a morning’s fishing.

Many of the steelhead that ignore lures and bait the spin fishers cast along the drift move up the Ronde, creating soul-satisfying fishing for the fly fishers who, unlike the lure-casting anglers, often wade up to their armpits.

Until late November, fly fishers from throughout the West will fish the lower Ronde. Some will camp along its banks for weeks; most will fish for a few days and go home.

The word has long been out that the Ronde is one of the most productive fly fishing streams in North America. Fly fishers even catch many steelhead on dry flies, making it one of the few rivers where steelhead often come readily to floating patterns.

Generally, lure-casting anglers kill hatchery steelhead. Those who camp along the river for long periods release most of the fish they hook. Most fly fishers, on the other hand, release the steelhead. That’s why they focus along the lower Ronde, where all steelhead, not only the wild fish, must be released. They don’t have much competition from spin fishers.

The catch-and-release section of the lower Ronde is just over one mile long and the spots where fly fishers can catch fish are limited. Because so many fly fishers have to concentrate their efforts along such a short stretch of the river, nearly all fly fishers adhere to long-standing, unwritten rules that make it possible for all fly fishers to fish the most productive drifts.

The rules are that no one should stay in a “hot spot” unless there are no other fly fishers in the area and no fly fisher should enter a river just ahead of another fly fisher.

Fly fishers take turns wading and casting as they move along a drift. They line up to go down a drift.

Once in a while a fly fisher will ignore the protocol and stay in a hot spot or will enter the river just ahead of another fly fisher. It happened one day last week.

Fortunately, nearly all fly fishers are considerate of one another. And with rare exceptions, the spin and bait fishers below the Ronde’s mouth respect other anglers.