John Day River, OR ... June 2007

Howdy,

I've floated the lower John Day (the section you guys are talking about) four times now in my 13' whitewater raft.  Some suggestions:

For a three day trip with fishing time built in, you want to float Service Creek to Clarno Bridge (or the slightly shorter Twickenham to Clarno Bridge).  This is a pretty scenic float with a mixture of private lands (cattle ranches -- this is high desert) and a couple of absolutely gorgeous canyons that are Bureau of Land Management Wilderness Study Areas. 

The fishing in this section is good,, but not as good as the Clarno to Cottonwood float (but that is a 5-day float).  Best spots are down in the canyons away from the cows.  When the fishing is on, expect to catch A LOT of bass, but small guys.  If you are using spinning gear, think ultra-light with 4-6 lbs test, using 1" or 2" curly tail grubs with a lead head.  Small (4") rubber worms work well to.  Surface plugs are super fun, but subsurface you may lose em' to rocks.  Larger fish tend to come from steep cliff faces/deep rocky areas, fished down deep.  When running riffly water with lots of cobble rocks, you can also pickup some fish mid-river (they hide behind the rocks to avoid the current, and ambush stuff as it floats overhead).

My prefered method of fishing it is fly gear.  Four or five weight rod, large wooly buggers in black, olive, or purple.  Better is a rubber legs fly (bass go nuts for anything with rubber legs).  Absolutely most fun way to fish is with surface poppers or gurglers though.  Cast along the edge of weed beds or against rocks/cliff faces when the sun is off the water, and strip them back with sharp, erratic tugs.  The takes can be explosive.

I would advise meeting at the take out the day before you plan on putting in, then shifting gear around and car pooling to Service Creek.  That way you have fewer cars to shuttle (you are in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Oregon, and the shuttle is about a 2 hour drive one-way.)  Service Creek Stage Stop just up the road will run shuttle for you at a reasonable rate.  You can camp out at the Service Creek put-in (semi-developed camp ground there).  Then you can put in first thing in the morning.

I like to blow through the upper section fairly quickly and hit the canyons (which we call the Big Bend reach) ASAP.  This is a relatively short section of river (maybe 6-8 miles long), but is the most scenic and best fishing.  I'd set camp at the upper end, fish, head down a few miles the next day, fish some more, then on the take out day fish all morning, before heading for the takeout after lunch.  In kayaks you have the advantage of speed on this river.

Be warned, afternoon up canyon winds can be ferocious, as can the thunderstorms.  Most camp sites have some nice juniper trees for shade, but it doesn't hurt to bring a tarp or two for your own shade.  NO FIRES!  This is high desert country in the summer, and with even a small spark you can start a grassfire that gets out of hand in short order.  Be kind to the big old-growth junipers and avoid breaking branches or hammer nails into them (you wouldn't believe what some folks have done there in the past, chopping limbs off the only shade tree for hundreds of yards.)

Other hazards to watch for are rattle snakes (most active in the morning and evening), and spiders/scorpians (keep your shoes/sandals in your tent at night).  Bring lots of sunscreen and lots of water.

The John Day is my favorite river in Oregon.  I'll be taking the raft down the Clarno to Cottonwood section in late May (weather permitting).  Wish I could join you guys for this.

One last note... beer.  The John Day does not get a ton of use, but the use it does get is concentrated in a narrow window in time (mid-May to late June).  The BLM has put some regulations in place to try and minimize the impact--one is no glass bottles.  However, on my river trips, beer is a very important source of nutrition and carbohydrates.  Luckily, I have discovered that Trader Joes carries some semi-decent european beers in cans.  I would highly recommend them for river beer (and also highly recommend finding someone with a raft to carry your beer and food).

Welcome ThreeWeight!!!!

Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  That's some great info you've posted.  I'm sure we'll hit you up for even some more.  Hopefully we can repay the info in kind!!!

-Allen

Couple other random thoughts that I should have mentioned...

River toilets.  Because the John Day is a high desert area, that gets some pretty heavy use during certain months, the BLM has taken some steps to deal with the... um... poopage issue.  As in hundreds of people crapping all around the designated camp sites, leaving TP wads and "surprises" for the next guys.  And crap that takes years to decay in the desert.

The BLM now requires all parties that float the John Day to have a sealed "river toilet" of some kind.  These can range from a fairly inexpensive bucket with a sealable lid, to very expensive systems with fancy containers that fit inside old army surplus rocket boxes and can be emptied "hands free" at RV dump stations.  Your local whitewater rafting supply story should be able to hook you up (in Portland, Andy and Bax has a full line of river toiletry supplies).

Final advice... the BLM has an excellent river map with the John Day on one side and the Deschutes on the other.  You can pick them up in the Portland BLM office (not sure how to order them).  Even better is the new waterproof, spiral bound "float guide" the BLM has produced, with maps showing rapids and camp sites by river mile.  I bought one from a BLM staffer at the Twickenham put-in last year.... not sure how to get one otherwise.

I am Tom’s coworker, Aaron, I have been relying on Tom for information on this trip, but now that is getting a little closer figured I should start pulling my own weight.

I am very excited about the trip, and have a pretty flexible schedule as far as a date. I know there have been a few dates proposed, but I have a contingency offer for one.

My Dad and younger brother would like to join us on the trip all the way from Texas. However, a firm commitment on a date is needed soon to organize flights, gear rental, etc.

My Dad’s work schedule allows him to join us on one of the dates that has been proposed, June 13-17.

Any takers? As a little incentive I offer my little brother as a pack horse 

Hey, ThreeWeight… that’s some great info you’ve supplied.  I had read about the campfire restriction starting June 1 every year, but I had no idea about the porta-potty.  Good thing you mentioned that one or we’d have been up the John Day without a crapper.  I also looked up about the river info that you’re supposed to be able to get from the BLM for a small fee, but the phone number on the web site isn’t working and so I’ll have to e-mail them to give me a better number.  I’ll be acquiring exactly those maps and info as soon as I can.


To ALL interested parties:
You can see LostTexan’s post above, stating that his brother and dad are buying airline tickets to make this one.  Well, that clinches it… the date will now need to stay locked in and we’re going with the “Launch on the morning of June 14th” plan, meaning we’ll take out in Clarno early on Sunday the 17th.  At this time, I’d sure like to tell everybody that anyone and everyone is welcome to join in with us, but if you plan to do that you should tell us so we can expect you at the campsite and make all of our different plans big enough to include everybody.  I still don’t have all the information, but I’m going to throw down a plan here that I think will work and then  I’ll post any changes to that plan that come up between here and launch time.

The PLAN:
I’m going to assume that we can camp at Service Creek and also leave our cars there until Sunday afternoon, so we’ll all try to show up at Service Creek some time before the dawn (I’m probably kidding about the early hour) launch, get a little sleep, and then go!  I’m hoping that each day when we launch that everyone in our party knows where we’d like to meet for lunch time and certainly where plan to camp that night.  I’d like to make our last camp pretty close to Clarno, like maybe only 2 miles out, so we can get to our pull out fairly early as some of us (probably ALL of us) will have a pretty long trip home that day.  Another assumption for now is that I can get a driver from Clarno to give a lift back to Service Creek for whoever needs to retrieve a car and we’ll leave at least one somebody to hang with the boats until we can bring the cars back.  I’m told that this drive takes about 2 hours each direction, so you’ll need to take that into account when you tell you’re loved ones when to expect you home.

Just like ThreeWeight said, there are NO campfires allowed (that means charcoal too) and so any cooking will have to be by a campstove or backpack stove.  I haven’t made any arrangements for a support raft and I’m not planning on it, but you can certainly make those arrangements yourself (probably you can contact someone in Clarno).  Instead, the plan for now is “every man for himself”, unless you manage to throw in with a partner or two of course.  So no plans for a support raft, but we DO however all have the use of LostTexan’s little brother as a pack horse (read the previous post) and there’s no doubt that this will prove really handy throughout the entire trip.

Fishin-T

Couple more suggestions.

For getting a nice camp site, consider sending 1 boat ahead to "claim" a spot after lunch each day.  That person can then fish around the camp site from the bank (or wading), take a siesta, go for a swim, read a book, etc..., and the rest of the group will know where to stop for the night based on seeing that yak.  We did this last year on a longer float on the John Day over 4th of July weekend (as crowded as I have ever seen the river) and it worked great for securing a good site with shade.  Just make sure you don't leave all your beer with the person in question.

You can easily do without a support raft if you are going with light gear (backpack style).  If you want a raft, you can rent one (expensive) from Service Creek Stage Stop.  Without a raft, though, you might want to arrange in advance for who will be carrying what gear (so you know at least 1 boat will have room for a crapper).

Final suggestion... when you exit the canyons of the Big Bend reach of the John Day, you have about 8-10 miles of "frog water" flowing through some less scenic cow ranches before you get to the Clarno Bridge and the take out.  There is a cluster of camp sites at river mile 119 sometimes referred to as "Last Chance" because you float through mostly private land after this (until you encounter a road on the east bank.)  Clarno Bridge is river mile 109.

Be sure and pack plenty of water. 

One last note... beer.

You're a wealth of knowledge 3W. Glad you keep all the info comin'! 
Z

I just added a post to the rigging section on how to make your own river toilet.  101 uses for PVC.  And coffee filters.

Not sure if folks are still doing this trip, but I figured I'd post a report from my John Day float last week.

We did Clarno to Cottonwood Bridge (69 miles, 5 days) with a canoe and and a raft.  Flows were +/- 2000 CFS when we put in (flows are currently around 1250 CFS and dropping fast). 

Weather on arrival was terrible... we left Portland day dreaming of 80 degree, sunny desert days.  When we got to Clarno we were greeted by 49 degrees, rain, and a stiff wind.  We decided to soldier on, and things cleared up slightly (got up to maybe 55, and rain turned to periodic drizzle.)  We portaged the canoe around Clarno rapid (class III), then I ran my raft through it trying a new line (bad idea, made it through but got shook up a bit when the boat turned sideways in shallow water then hit a class III drop).

Day 2 - 5 the weather was great.  70+ degree days and lots of sun (on day 5 it actually hit 89, according to the thermometer in my rig).  On day 2 we encountered three guys waving their arms on the river bank 20 some odd miles into the wilderness study areas... turned out they managed to flip and sink a drift boat in class I water (not sure how one does that, but they did.  Seeing as they were screwed, we pulled over and lent a hand.  Luckily, two drift boats of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife folks came by and pulled off to help.  With  6 guys and a series of ropes, we got the drift boat off the bottom and floating again, and sent it on and its owners on down the river.

The ODFW folks were floating the river to count bighorn sheep ewes and lambs to see how the re-introduced herds are doing.  We traded oatmeal raisin cookies for an hour or so of chatting and use of their high-powered spotting scopes to look at dozens of sheep perched 1000 feet above the river on canyon walls.  It was pretty amazing.  We never would have seen them without the advice from these folks (hats off to the ODFW guys for assisting with the rescue and educating a few river rats about big horn sheep.)

Other wildlife sitings included red tailed hawks, golden eagles, lots of red-winged blackbirds, cliff swallows building their nests, bank swallows swarming around cutbanks, chukar, mule deer, rock doves, a river otter, and more.  Lots of dragonflies hatching out, and lots of butterflies where springs entered the river.

Fishing was so-so the first few days, but then really turned on when the flows dropped and the river cleared.  I mostly rowed novice anglers around in my raft, but even they were catching a lot of fish (mostly small though, 6-10", with a handful of 10-14").  We were using fly gear.  Best flies were a black bead head wooly bugger and an olive bugger with no bead.  Poppers worked ok, but I think the water temps were a little low for them.  On the last day I fished an hour or so, and caught maybe 30 fish (my co-pilot said I was averaging around 50%, a fish every other cast.)

If folks are still doing the Service Creek to Clarno trip, a few words of advice.  Flows are dropping fast this year, so be prepared to deal with shallow gravel bars.  Air temperatures are climbing... one thing I had to remind our newbies about was drinking enough water to avoid dehydration in the desert.  Seems silly, but 90 degree days in the desert will wipe you out.  We had a major up canyon wind in the afternoons, which was a big hassle in the raft (no big deal for kayaks).  We saw no snakes, but I'm sure the rattlers are active now (some kid got bit in one of the farm towns near the John Day a couple weeks ago, attempting to catch a rattlesnake).  Saw a lot of prickly pear cactus on this trip... if you go for a hike, watch where you put your feet.

All in all it was a spectacular trip.  Gorgeous canyons, beautiful river, lots of wildlife, and ok fishing.  Reminded me of why I love that river
 

3-Weight,

Yeah, we’ve probably been a little negligent in keeping this thread active.  Oh, heck yeah, we’re still going alright!  We hope to launch from Service Creek on the morning of June 14.  The reason why it’s been so quiet on this thread is probably because right now it’s down to just Lost Texan, his dad and little bro. (the pack horse), and myself.  Since Texan works in a cubicle 6 ft from mine, we’ve been doing most of the planning face to face.

By ALL means, if anyone else wants to hop on board this one, please tell us ASAP so we can plan you in.  I realize that you had plans to make that trip that you just told us about and so you won’t join us on the river, 3-wait, but it’s been great to get your input since none of the 4 of us has ever once set eyes on the river yet.  I’ve got the guide book from the BLM now and that seems to me to be the biggest thing, so you can tell just where you can expect another campsite ahead.

I’ve been watching the flow chart and it seems to be dropping much slower now.  It’s right at 1250 now and the guide book indicates that even rafts would be okay down to 600 or 800.  We float in just 2 more weeks and so I think we’ll be okay, and besides it’s supposed to make the fishing better once the flow slows down a bit.  I’m not very concerned about the fishing though, and the rest of the group seems the same.  Mostly we’re looking forward to camping in the desert, but with a good water source right at hand.

I have to admit, if we have to drag our kayaks across very many gravel bars, and the heat gets up over 80, it’s going to be one LONGGGG 48 mile trip!  Oh well, that’s the kind of risk that makes it an adventure.

Fishin-T

Go gettem guys! I was actually thinking I was going to be able to make this trip.  But my business trip to India just got rescheduled right smack on top of these dates.  Looking forward to hearing stories of your adventure, maybe not quite as adventurous as ThreeWeight's though.  Good going on assisting those guys!  Yup, how do you sink a driftboat in Class I waters?  Be careful guys.  It sounds like "it" can happen when you least expect it.

-Allen

ALL,

Okay, last call for the bus to John Day River!  We've got a flow as I write of exactly 1000 cfs.  Even though the chart looks way bumpy (water levels WAY up and back down again... twice!) when tracked over the last 2 weeks, it seems like it's smoothing out really nice for the next week.

Looks like we will not have any representation from the many new Oregonian forum croud on this particular trip.  Hats off to 3-weight though for lots of good input. We're mostly only hoping for a nice safe trip from this point and the rest will be gravy.  I'll try to get some pics and make a decent post when we get back.  See you all then.

Fishin-T

A little reading to get you stoked:

http://www.westfly.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=4&Number=341247&Searchpage=3&Main=36315&Words=John+Day&topic=0&Search=true#Post341247

http://www.westfly.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=4&Number=333173&Searchpage=8&Main=35344&Words=John+Day&topic=0&Search=true#Post333173

Okay, at long last, here’s that report on the John Day…

Four of us went down that river, Lost Texan, his little bro. and his dad.  The water was dropping fast daily, but then it came up to more than 1400 cfs right before we left town.  Beats me what happened except it must have thunder stormed over there.  It had settled to 1000 cfs by the time we left Seattle to go down there, so I’d guess it was right about 800 cfs when we floated, and I gotta tell you I don’t think I’d want to float it with much less when you’ve got a kayak FULL of gear for several days.

Left here on Wed, floated EIGHTEEN big miles on Thursday starting at Service Creek.  Plenty of room for camping right at the boat launch area and a pretty great little café / bait shop / small grocery store just a few hundred yards from the campsite.  Made 13 miles to Twickenham bridge, had lunch and then covered another 5 miles to the camp site just right adjacent to Homestead Rapids.  That was a really good campsite, I sure recommend it to anybody.  We fished just a little that evening, caught a few 10 and 12 inchers, all small mouths, but we didn’t cook any of them cause we were all just too tired.  That night we talked it over and decided that this trip was going to be more about scooting on down the river than it was a major fish hunt cause our two long distance visitors needed to get back to Seattle to fly out on Sun night and we really didn’t want the stress on that last day trying to race back to town if things went too slow in the morning.

So the next day we did just that.  It wasn’t hard to cover 13 more miles the next day and we camped at mile 125.7R.  That will make a lot more sense if you buy the BLM’s John Day River guide.  That camp was even better than the first.  It felt even more remote somehow.  Caught the same 10 and 12 inchers, but this time we cooked up about 5 of them with our dinner and they turned out GREAT.  What a great time we were having by then!  That whole river and most of the country around it just seems SOooo far removed from the rest of the world.  I mean, it’s WAY out there!  When your on the river, the big basalt formations just seem to croud right down to the river and loom over you.  So by this time we’ve reached what had been my personal objective, which was to get to the point where nobody is sure just what day it is until they concentrate… which nobody did any way.

Okay, the next day we did manage to remember that we’d agreed that we’d finish up on that day, so that meant that it must be Saturday.  17 long hard ones that day.  The first 7 were REALLY nice, the best on that piece of the river to me.  Saw a couple of more campsites that I felt like were better still than the one we had just stayed in.  No fooling, they just kept getting better and better for scenery IMHO.  But the last ten miles were just like Threeweight described; frog water.  I’ll warn you now that EVERY day the wind comes UP canyon and up river and then back down when it’s close to dark.  It doesn’t matter if you’re going east or west or whatever, the wind ALWAYS went UP river starting about 10 or 11 am.  Well that day, when we didn’t have much current with us, that day it was HOWLING up river.  What a work out!  We did do it though, and we were able to get back to Seattle by about 10 pm, leaving the travelers a full 24 hours to visit the city and then get on the plane.

Sorry guys (and some gals, eh armywife?), you know I’m no good about posting pics.  We worked so hard to rush down that river that I literally didn’t get any pictures.  I saw Lost Texan snap some, so maybe he’ll do the honors.

If you’ve never been over there, you’re missing a near life altering experience.  It’s pretty much a true wilderness adventure cause you’re so cut off from your every day world.  Shoot, you’ll feel totally cut off before you can even get the boats off the car, it’s that remote out there.  The scenery was “Blow you away” gorgeous.  Trust me, the kind of pics that I usually get would never do it justice, and truthfully I didn’t feel like the really good ones I’d seen on the web did either.  You’ve just got to see it yourself.  I’ll pretty much guarantee this far ahead that I’ll go back (to at least SOME part of the river) next year.  What I think I’d like to do different is to wait until the flow and weather look just right and then run straight on down there while all the conditions are optimum.

There you go Polepole.  You can un-pin this thread now.  Thanks for keeping it up at the top all this time, I think that helped some.

Fishin-T

NICE!!!

It would be even nicer with pics.     Sorry T, you know I have to give you a bad time.  I'm just jealous I wasn't able to join you guys.  Next year for sure.

-Allen