Fishing in Skinner Butte Park -- Eugene, Oregon

Today I drove down to the local fly shop, the Caddis Fly, and picked up materials to tie my new oregon go-to rig. I learned how to palmer a partridge hackle and bought a loose bag of feathers. I also bought yellow floss for the soft hackle flies and some bead heads for the possy-buggers -- the heavy end of my one-two punch, nymph with wet fly trailer.

From MattStansberry

I told the lady running the shop that I was going to try to fish the Willamette in town. There are two parks, one on either side of the river going through Eugene, Skinner Butte and Alton Baker. I asked which park she preferred, but she didn't have an opinion either way, never fished either. I didn't take that as a good sign.

I opted for Skinner Butte, the closer of the two parks. The park was right on the river, clean and full of people. A trail ran along the bank with access points to the water, but there was a lot of trees hanging over shore -- nowhere to cast. There was no bug activity, topwater or nymphs. And there was a nasty silt on the rocks. Plus, no structure. It was big, slow and flat.

From MattStansberry

My girlfriend KP was with me and she made the best of it, picking enough blackberries to make a pie and posing in a tie-dyed, ceramic hippy whale. Other than that though, the place was a bust.

From MattStansberry

I also found out that the Caddis Fly offers beginning fly fishing classes. I think I'm going to sign up for the September round. It's $55 for three nights: Sept 13, 14, 15 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 6pm-8pm. Classes are supposed to take place over on the other side of the river, at Alton Baker. Maybe it's better over there, but I probably won't be back to fish Skinner Butte.