Crazy Days on Paulina Lake

Paulina Lake - La Pine, OR (Deschutes County)


by The Fly Fishers Place
10-5-2024
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Paulina Lake was a day that began crazy on Tuesday. Time in all factors of life comes at us for reasons we may not understand, but when I picked up John and Kris at the shop that morning I said to them would it be okay if we ran over to my house and dropped off Oat Milk for Tina (for her morning coffee, because I noticed when I made my morning coffee that I had my 2% but she was out). They said absolutely and that was a small slow down to venture to the lake. On the way to town to pick them up I narrowly missed a deer by the airport and slammed on my brakes. What I didn’t realize until we went to do the Oat Milk deliver was my tie down straps came loose and one of the fender lights was hanging by the wires which took a short moment to fix all of that. And we were off. Well that must have been good timing for going down the highway and being able to save a Chocolate Lab who was running through (mostly) slowing traffic on the highway about 5 miles east of Sisters. We got him loaded up safely in my truck and back to his owner with not too much more delay. Dog people understand the importance of looking out for each others pets in times of distress. We love dogs and do anything to make sure they are safe. 
Despite the delay’s in game, we were still the 1st boat to the Paulina Lake CG launch and we were soon greeted by some young cyclists who lost all their food to raccoons over night. My guide Steve (who was 3rd to the lake) and I each shared half of our sandwiches with them. And I think Micheal (2nd boat to the ramp) and his nice fishing buddy had some granola bars to share making the cyclist morning trip down the mountain to Bend a lot more enjoyable not having a rumbling tummy and the strength to get to the destination. Well, one would think those Karma points would have resulted in a 10 pound brown 1st thing in the morning, but apparently the universe is holding on to the points for another day. Either way we will take it and it is nice to help people and dogs one way or another. As for the fishing, it wasn’t until after lunch did we find much of a bite. Still some callibaetis hatching there, and fish were eating them. We did best on a purple chubby, a jiggy twist beetle, a red aero legs and a parachute adams. 
Mike and his friend about the same but did get some on Black Balanced Leeches, and I heard from Pat O that a Quigley Flag Ant was hot for him, and our guide Steve said Beetles all the way for his client was the ticket. 
The Big Boy Browns are just starting to congregate together and I think the next few weeks ought to see some really fine opportunities to get to fish for some of the biggest brown trout we see on a fly rod over the course of the season.





More Reports

The Fly Fishers Place Reports
for Saturday, October 5th

Metolius River: Trends and Conditions on the Metolius
Deschutes River- Lower: The Lower Deschutes is good!
Deschutes River: Rising Water Levels on the Middle Deschutes
Deschutes River- Upper: Closures on the Upper Deschutes
Crooked River: The Crooked River is fabulous!
Fall River: Fall River has been darn good this week!
McKenzie River: The McKenzie is fishing really well
Little Lava Lake: Little Lava was our best lake destination this week!


10-1-2024
I can’t believe that we arrived to Paulina today and docks have been removed. There is an entire damn month...... Read More