Spring 2025

In Central Oregon, early season lake fishing usually begins in Mid-March. If the weather has been particularly bitter, maybe April in some locations. The lakes and still waters that pop up first on our fishing radar each year are the high desert reservoirs and ponds. 
Some are public and some are private. 

Places like Chickahominy Reservoir at Mile Post 99 east of Bend, OR on Hwy 20 on the way towards Idaho is a great one during good snowpack seasons. 
Closer to Sisters is Haystack Reservoir near Terrebonne is gaining a ground as a favorite early season option for bank or tube anglers and is good fishing for some very large rainbows on balanced leeches. In the last 3 or 4 years I’ve noticed a lot more local fly anglers have been excited to start their season at Haystack before anything else is accessible. 
Lake Billy Chinook is an option too, but it requires a good motorboat to be effective. I tend to think the Crooked River and Deschutes River Arms are far more productive than the Metolius Arm is for fly fishing, at least for the month of March and the first week or two in April. The Metolius Arm just seems to take a while to warm up to get the Bulls to eat our streamers and leeches, where the other arms are more productive early on to get fish to chase the fly down and eat it. But this is a way different fishery than the aquatic insect driven lakes that I love. 

I prefer to focus on lakes that offer that match the hatch type of fishing and not ripping streamers for the chance at one trophy fish. 

That brings me to Justesen Ranch. Justesen is a private ranch near Grass Valley, OR about an hour and half north of Madras. 
The main ranch has 8 different lakes, and the family also has several other lakes from Shaniko, OR towards Kent off Highway 97. 
These are varied in terms of access by wading, tubing or even launching a drift boat or pram on some of the bigger lakes. All the ranch lakes are gorgeous bodies of water and hold quality fish. 

Justesen Ranch offers serious fly anglers the best early season action from March on, at least through the time we can get out to the Cascade Lakes in late April or May.

By mid-April, North and South Twin Lakes offer our first opportunity to be back fishing on a Cascade Lake. 
Shortly after, opening day at Crane Prairie is April 22^nd, and in most years access to the ramp at the Crane Prairie Boating Site, adjacent to the Crane Prairie Resort is open. If not on that exact day, we don’t have to wait long for access to clear, and for the ice to have broken up offering fishable water all over the lake. 
Usually, early season access to park and launch boats does not include the west end ramps, and is exclusive to the Crane Prairie Boating Site on the east side due to snow blockages. 

As we progress further into spring, early season on the higher elevation lakes that lay from 5000 feet to 6400 feet can be pushed out until after Memorial Day, or even well into June on a big snow year. 
As you can see early season means different things at different elevations. 

But for our purposes here, it means shortly after ice out, and for several weeks encountering cold water temps, and knowing what early season food sources will offer the trout for us to match our flies to.  

Besides all the above, knowing what happens when the lake is still frozen over, and what happens immediately upon the ice going away is important in finding feeding trout. 

It is meaningful to know about this, so briefly let me say that when a lake is covered in ice the cooler, more oxygenated water is near the surface, and the warmer, less oxygenated water is near the bottom. 
So where will the fish be? Mostly in the more oxygenated water for sure. They need that oxygen going through their gills to survive. As soon as the ice melts they are going to want to have more oxygen, not less, so they stay in the shallows. 
The 2 distinctly different temperatures under the ice is known as stratification, and it becomes an important element several days or more after the ice melts off the surface when the lake goes through the “spring turnover”. Turnover is when the cold water sinks to the bottom and the warmer water layer that was underneath is forced to the top, along with a pea soup of decaying plants and algae.  

Well before the turnover, at the very moment the ice melts off the surface, and open water is available after a long winter, the fish get frisky! In our region we rarely have the chance to be on the lake the day the ice goes away, but in some regions of Canada and throughout the Rockies here in the US, it is something many anglers seek out, and they go check on a lake day after day to be able to hit ice off just as it happens. I’ve never been able to time it, but from what I read and hear, it is a magical time to fish. 
I’m not sure why here in Central Oregon that is different, but my guess is our seasonal access to the lakes is blocked by snow covered roads well into the spring, possibly by several days, or even weeks after open water has occurred. 
When the open water is available for us to fish, for many reasons you can be sure the majority of the trout will still be near the shorelines in less than 10 feet of water. 

Oxygen levels will be highest in the shallower zones until spring turnover occurs as mentioned above. 
Oxygen levels not only attract the trout we are there to catch, they are a magnet to the aquatic insects and smaller fish that larger trout feed on!
The zone we are looking for in the early season is water less than 10 feet deep. Often a lot less than 10 feet deep. That’s where the food is going to be early on, and so will the trout. 
I am always a fan of shallow water zones all season long, but early season is essential to be there. 
The edges of the lakes also warm faster in the early season than the deep water. Shallow water warms quickly, and solar penetration plays a role here, as does radiant warming of the rocks and dirt on the nearby banks that help the water gain ground above the freezing mark as well. 

Early food sources in our lakes are similar to the rest of the season, with all the usual suspects getting a turn on the ends of our lines. But how we fish them might be a little slower due to colder water temperatures. Hanging a leech or a chironomid under a strike indicator will often pay off best for higher catch rates at the end of the day. 
I have seen times in the early season though when a leech stripped on a Hover Line (or other slower density sinking lines) has been the absolute best way to get the trout to eat. 
And don’t freak out over really cold water after the lakes open up. 
I remember learning this one morning that I had launched the boat at East Lake with 2 good clients, and when I turned on my fish finder and saw the water temp was 37 degrees I almost said to the guys “let’s pull the boat out and go to Crane”. It was early in my guiding career at this level, and I didn’t know yet that by fishing the edges of the shallow zones, even in water temperatures that cold that we would have that good of fishing. 

Trout eat well in cold water. Of course, they eat better when it warms up for them as their metabolism is able to process the food more easily. 

On Central Oregon Lakes with the food sources we are talking about during the early season, I would prioritize the following flies pretty much in this order as I approached a lake on any given day:

Leeches

Chironomids. It is possible to hit all the stages including some dry fly emergers. 

Water Boatman

Scuds

Callibaetis Nymphs. The hatch is weeks away.

Damsel Nymphs

Minnow and Baitfish patterns. 

Be prepared to fish any of these flies with a strike indicator, or on various sinking  lines from a Midge Tip, or Hover, a Clear Camo Intermediate and a Ghost Tip. 

If you encounter calm conditions using a Fulling Mill Drop Back Bung over a rounded strike indicator will detect more strikes but you have to balance the “bung” with specific bead sizes for it to work correctly. They are a game changer, especially for soft takes and soft takes are prevalent in the early days of the season when the water is so cold. 
I always first recommend a static presentation with the indicator, moving to a slow hand twist retrieve with an indicator, finally move to one of the sinking line options mentioned above and give your flies more movement as the day progresses, and perhaps as water temperatures increased throughout the day. 

Keep learning and have fun out there. 

Jeff