On one hand we had the best return over Bonneville since 2015, on the other hand, until well into September we had the worst return over The Dalles Dam in many years, far below the ten year average. The biggest change was the return of humans to the Deschutes. The human return was the best in at lease a decade. In a nutshell it was really busy and there weren’t many fish around until the middle of September.

Probably the most commonly asked question I get asked is “what’s the best time to come fish the Deschutes for Steelhead”? My answer is always the same, “July through November”. I’m well into my second decade of guiding the Deschutes and I can unequivocally claim the best month to fish the Deschutes depends on many factors and therefore does not exist. My favorite times to fish are when there are the fewest fish around, early July and Late October. When there are just a few or even no people around you can have one hell of a day.

This year, 2024, easily the best fishing was in October. The Deschutes was packed full of large two and three salt Steelhead that will eventually end up in Idaho. I bounce around a bit between rivers the last week of October (Deschutes, Klickitat, John Day). This year October 31, Halloween, it hung around as an open date way into the late summer, it was like a blackout day no one would take. Long story short Halloween got booked, I took some folks who were not new to the Deschutes but they hadn’t really been back since the big crash in 2016…and what a day we had.