Two-stepping with trout on the Williamson

Oct. 21—CHILOQUIN — The Williamson River water is cold and clear, the sun is bright and the large redband trout more than 10 miles from their home in Klamath Lake are spooky, but very hungry.

I cast a small stillwater nymph across the pool, then immediately start retrieving at a pace to fool a fish with a brain the size of a garbanzo bean.

"I call them 'mice bites,'" veteran Williamson guide Marlon Rampy says. "The water's cold, and the fish are in this I'm-not-going-to-chase-it-down mode. But they will bite."

With that, the fly line goes slightly taught, and a Klamath redband starts rolling and roiling in the water. The fight it is on.

Ten minutes later, the heifer is untethered and swims away, a prime start to the day.

"Now, what you just did," Rampy says. "Do it again."

Repetition reaps rewards during fall days on the Williamson, where a combination of small bugs, clear water and steelhead-sized redbands make it one of Oregon's premier destinations for fly fishers plying Oregon's Inland Empire.

The bites are subtle, but the tugs are winter steelhead-quality, just with size No. 18 flies on 5X leader tippet typically tied on for tiny dry flies for conventional trout.

But there's nothing conventional about this fishery, which is a summer and fall magnet for trout bums addicted to the drug of the tug.

"You put it all together, it's a really special place," says Rampy, of Medford.

Using small flies and tiny tippets to fool these big carpetbagging trout stacked in rocky pools puts the nearby town of Chiloquin a half-hour north of Klamath Falls on fly fishers' world map.

The trout are a strain of wild redband that grow big and surly in Upper Klamath Lake from feeding on chubs and other small fish — a diet that can push Upper Klamath trout to 15 pounds.

But come summer, the shallow, alkaline lake becomes too hostile an environment, so they head to cool-water refuges, such as springs in the lake floor or the cool streams that feed it.

Of those cool tributaries, the Williamson is the biggest, draining the most water of any stream into Upper Klamath Lake, so it usually draws more of these summer refugees than other streams such as the nearby Wood River.

That makes fly angling in the Williamson best from July through Oct. 31 when the season ends.

While most river trout prefer oxygenated riffles as habitat and eschew pools, especially in summer, these visiting rainbows congregate in the deeper pools and along ledges in slow water.

"These are lake fish that just happen to be here in the river because of poor lake conditions," Rampy says. "They want to be in still water, not riffles like normal trout in rivers.

"I see guys come in and pound these riffle, and you can catch them there occasionally because they have to go through them," he says. "Now, I'm not really a numbers guys, but I'd rather fish over more fish than fewer fish."

Rampy knows better than most.

He's made the 90-minute drive from Medford to Chiloquin to interact with these redbands for three decades, guiding fly fishers since 1995.

That knowledge translated into four big redbands in a two-hour span, all of which played out in a similar fashion.

Free-driving two nymphs — No. 16 yellow mayfly nymph and a No. 18 red midge — slowly through a deep pool drew the tiniest of attentions from a fat redband.

The tiny strike indicator dips a few inches under the surface, as if it caught a piece of grass or a tiny stick.

"There. Fish," Rampy barks.

A tiny hook-set with my right hand yields a riposte on the other end, and the duel commences.

The redband rolls uncharacteristic of river trout and then fins toward the boat in a bout half defense and half defiance.

I pull line feverishly, holding it in my mouth between strips to keep the tension on. It takes more than two hands to battle these creatures.

"Do anything you can to get control of it," Rampy urges. "And keep it out of the rocks."

Finally, the line gets caught up to the spool, and the reel's drag helps settle the redband's runs ... for a moment, at least.

A healthy surge downstream puts plenty of tension on the light tippet.

"Now's the time to get in touch with your 5X side," Rampy laughs.

The leader holds; the trout tires. Eventually, its thick head drops forward into Rampy's net for the win.

"What a chunk," Rampy says.

The tiny fly falls harmlessly from the chunk's mouth. It's at least 6 pounds, likely 8 pounds. But our lack of a scale allows it to grow with age.

If fins away from my hands, none the worse.

"The most important thing to do now," Rampy says, "is to do it again."

It's not a conquest over the redband. Just a little lively two-step on this watery dance floor of the Williamson.

Fly fishers plan years for just one of these opportunities. We invested an 84-mile morning drive.

That's why we're here, I tell Rampy. That's why we live here.

Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or mfreeman@rosebudmedia.com.