John Day River, OR ... June 2007

There has been talk about doing a 2-3 day float of this river in June, so I started this thread specifically for that.

-Allen

Here's a trip report that was sent to me last year from a guy that did this trip.

-Allen

I  spent nine days paddling and camping the John Day River in Oregon.  From Jun 16th to June 24th.

What an awesome trip.  I highly recommend it if your into remote wilderness adventure, fishing, wildlife...

We saw a lot of wildlife ( deer, dig horn sheep, porcupine, blue herons, magpies, owl, night hawks, bats, chuckers, swallows, quail, awes prey, gofer snakes, lizards, small mouth bass, catfish, dogfish...) just to name a few.

There were three segments to our trip. 

Kimberly to Service Creek.   27 river miles  Class I, II
Service Creek to Clarno.       47 river miles  Class I, II
Clarno to Cottonwood.         69 river miles  Class II, III     

Our vehicle was shuttled for us by Service Creek Stage Stop 541-468-3331 They did an excellent job so I recommend using them. They were also very informative.

I paddled my Old Town double kayak and my two friends paddled their canoe.

The rivers flow rates were : (taken from the Service Creek gage station)

Date                         Days Average flow Rate

Fri Jun 16 2006        3092.708
Sat Jun 17  2006      2726.042
Sun Jun 18  2006     2502292
Mon Jun 19  2006    2189.167               6000 is High
Tue Jun 20  2006     1980.417                2000 is Medium
Wed Jun 21  2006   1812.292                1200 is Low
Thu Jun 22  2006     1659.583
Fri Jun 23  2006      1514.583
Sat Jun 24  2006     1414.839
 
Here are some websites for those who might like to do some research:
http://www.allaboutrivers.com/rivers_in_Oregon/John_Day_River_Oregon-RIV75.html
http://www.servicecreekstagestop.com/
http://kayak.physics.orst.edu/~tpw/kayaking/display.cgi/Oregon.html
http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/river/station/flowplot/flowplot.cgi?SERO3
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/or/nwis/uv?14046500
http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/stp/station/stpplot/stpplot.cgi?SERO3

   Wow!   

Okay, so now I've got two trips that I WILL NOT miss next season.  One is that I plan to return to Moucha Bay for Labor Day weekend again... no if's or but's about it.  And now of course a float trip on the John Day in June.  This one has REALLY caught my eye.  If just one other person will commit to going over there, then I'm absolutely in for as much as even a 7 day trip, barring only my own personal demise beforehand.  This far out, I'm still totally flexible on the days but spread across weekends is obviously best.

Here would be my own personal favorite plan of attack:  Gather the troops together at some agreed upon location the night before launch so we can all push off at the same fairly early time the next morning.  Launch from Service Creek and float for 4 days until we're just 2 to 3 miles from reaching Clarno, which is a total of 47 miles.  Spend one more (the fourth one on the water) glorious night out in the desert air, next to a RIVER of all things, and then sprint the last little bit to our take-out at Clarno on that fifth morning.  This would leave us nearly all day to get back home on that last day.  That would also let anybody finish on the fourth day that needed to rush back to town.

It would probably break my heart to leave that river after just a couple of camp stops but I'm also open to a shorter 2 to 3 day float.  I figure we'll probably take some kind of vote and majority will call it or something.  Since Polepole launched this thread almost a week ago now and nobody has responded yet, I decided to go ahead and plug my favorite scenario.

So I've started asking around to see if I can't find someone to row a support raft on this trip.  Let's see what happens with this.  Or if you're comfortable rowing a raft yourselves, maybe you can trade off on raft duties.  I sent an email to Service Creek asking about raft rental.  I also asked them about possible drifts that people can bail after 2 days (for you weekend warriors) and the rest can go on for how ever many more days you want.

I'm about 20% that I'll be able to go on this one.  As much as I'd hate to miss it, but I'm currently juggling 2 other trips in that time frame.  You never know though.

Yo Mooch!  You still interested in this trip?

-Allen

If I went I would be paddling a P13, How would this boat do in the river conditions we may run into? 

If I went I would be paddling a P13, How would this boat do in the river conditions we may run into? 

Ditto... P-15, same question.

Fishin-T

The guy who sent me the report above ran this river in an Old Town Loon double SIK.  That's a 15', 74# boat, plus gear.  I think the Prowlers (13 and 15) should be just fine.

Class II water can involve rapids 3-4 feet in height and will require simple maneuvering.  It's not a piece of cake, but it's not overly difficult either.

-Allen

Moved this thread to the "Hookups and Reports" section and made it sticky so it stays at the top.

-Allen

I am interested in this trip as well, and can do either the weekend or extended weekend version.  Sounds like a lot of fun!

Pete

Pete,

From some of what I'm reading about the John Day, I don't think that there could BE a better trip for a Fly Guy that's interested to catch a pile of smallmouths.  The reports are saying 50 to 75 a day.  I'm sure hoping you can make it.  I'd sure like to meet with Mr. Boxofrain over there too.

There's one of the guys here at work that's also very interested to go and seems as flexible as yourself and myself as to the schedule.  I gotta say that I'm not that interested to hire a support boat.  I'm looking at this trip like a backpack situation... except I can probably afford about twice backpack amounts of weight.  And as for a guide, I'm not seeing that as necessary at all for this kind of water and these species.

Fishin-T

T-

I have always wanted to get my yak out on the river, so this trip is fast becoming the must do trip for me this year!  I will be going to Baja the last two weeks in June, so I am hoping that the date for this trip gets firmed up sooner than later.

Meanwhile, I will be getting out to chase resident silvers and sea-run cuts in the south sound towards the end of the month....

How about picking a date?  Looks like early part of June so Pete can make it.  However, that probably precludes me from making it.  It's looking more and more like I'll be in South Africa and Botswana in late May to early June.  Pete, what's the last weekend in June you can make it before you head to Baja?  That small window might be the only chance of us overlapping.

-Allen

Allen,

Picking a date then?  I agree.  If we don't nail it down pretty soon I think everybody is going to wind up over booked around it.  Everybody has talked so far about June for whatever reason.  At this time, July is also nearly completely open for me.  What is the flow like in late May or early June?  Too much?  How about mid to late July?  Too little?

So far the responders to this trip have been Pete, Boxofrain, and myself.  There's a guy here at work who really wants to go too (that'd be Aaron), but I imagine his schedule is still pretty flexible too... for now.

I'd suggest that you (Polepole) and Pete (pjrflyguy) grab a date somewhere in those three months that you can both go for and then see if Boxofrain can go for it or not.  Whatever the three of you can agree to is good with me, at least if I don't commit to something else before we can agree to a date.

Fishin-T

I've been told that June and July are the best times as the river levels are more predictable.  By August the river levels are too low.  April and May can be good IF the river levels don't get too high.

Don't plan around me being available.  I don't want to hold you back.

-Allen

pjflyguy and boxofrain,

Okay Pete, sounds like it's down to you and boxofrain.  If you and he can agree on a date we're home free.

I'm thinking like this:  It's about a 400 mile drive from here (maybe more, I don't know yet) and I think we can expect to cover up to 15 miles in each full day, but more than that is going to really cut into fishing time.  What I'd like to do is to leave from work at about noon or maybe 2:00 on the day before we float (let's say a Wed. afternoon for example) and meet up at an agreed upon campsite or something.  Then we'd drop boats at our launch site (like maybe Service Creek) early that next morning and leave at least one person with those boats while the rest of us take cars to the other end (like maybe Clarno) and either get shuttled back by someone we've paid or shuttle ourselves back in just one car.  Okay, so then we float one, two, three full days, leaving just a little to finish up for that fourth and last day (which is now Sunday in my example), and that's the day we pull out of the river and head back home.  If we've screwed up and not covered enough river fast enough, well then we pull out a lot later on the last day and we get back home later and go in to work all sleep deprived, which is about normal any way.

If you two guys can narrow down the plan by picking the begin and end dates, then we're well on our way.  If you want to make it a day shorter or longer, well that works for me too.  I don't know of a good place to camp the night before launch so we might have to work on that one.  Maybe we can get some help from someone in the area over there.  And I'm not stuck on Sevice Creek to Clarno either.  Just make sure that we know that we can get to our put-in and take-out and that we can cover all the miles between in the time that we've got.

If the only thing that you can get totally agreed upon at this time is just the start and end date, go ahead and throw something down.  I guarantee that I can get a river travel plan pulled together on my own if I need to once I have some dates to work around.  Once we have something a little more firm spelled out we'll probably pick up a few more tupperware floatin' types to go with us.  So let's hear it you guys... what have you got?

Fishin-T