Our guide service sets itself apart from others in many ways. Our staff is made up of truly mature fly fishing professionals who have dedicated themselves to being the best instructors, casters, fly tyers, entomologists, boat handlers, and naturalists on the river. We seek out the best dry fly opportunities for our clients, scouting for big bank-feeding trout and sight casting to them with exact aquatic insect imitations. Your guide is at your side helping you spot fish, select the right fly, and make the cast that will fool the pickiest trout. If you want to work on bettering your casting skills, our guides are all excellent casting instructors who are clear communicators and very patient with budding enthusiasts.

Your guide will tailor the fishing program to match your skill level both in casting, wading, and physical exursion. If you are a hard-core angler, your guide will be your bird dog, sniffing out and pointing the trout for you - and this may entail leading you through the brush, up and down steep walls, wading deep, creeping up on the wary fish...whatever it takes to give you the best opportunity to hook the big boys. On the other hand, if you are new to fly fishing and you want a less extreme angling experience, your guide will tailor the day to teach you as much as possible about fly fishing. You will start with casting instruction and a basic 101 on knots, water types, fly types, insects, and trout habitat. As the day progresses, so will your skill level - and your guide will choose the water types that are appropriate for your wading and casting skills. You will come away from your trip with new knowledge of the sport and of the beautiful Deschutes River.

A typical guide trip for trout starts at 8:00 AM when we meet at the shop to get geared up for the day. You will then head out to the river to float an 8-10 mile section of the Deschutes, stopping along the way to fish prime spots. Since it is against the rules to fish from a boat on our river, we use drift boats for transportation because they allow us to access both sides of our large river in addition to islands. We provide beverages throughout the day and a large deli-style lunch that can be eaten in leisurely style in lounge chairs on the bank in the mid-day, or (for the hard core anglers) scarfed down as the guide rows the boat to the next great spot. This type of lunch is designed to satisfy your river-sized hunger while maximizing your fishing time! The most intense dry fly hatches occur in hours of the mid-day and during the last five minutes of daylight, so we will fish all of the prime hours until around 5:00 PM and will get you back to Maupin in time to grab a little dinner. If you then want to go out on your own to catch the hatch during the last five minutes of light, you will have all of your water reading skills from your day with a great guide to help you find your own trout Shangri-La. If you would like to fish on multiple days, we can design a fishing program that will allow you to experience several 8-10 mile floats on the 40 miles of river that we fish.

We would love to share our beautiful river with you, so give us a call as far in advance as possible so we can fit you into our busy guide calendar.

Packing List