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Central Oregon’s Best “A Guide Named Steve” By Outlaw Baits Staff Writer Steve Fleming is a special kind of guy. I claim no special credit for making that determination because it’s a judgement shared hundreds of others. Fleming, one of Oregon’s veteran fishing guides, has been helping his customers put fish in the boat now for many years. In the process he’s established a deserved reputation as one of the best in the business. Fleming runs an operation called Mah-Hah Outfitters out of Fossil in the Central part of the Beaver State. I’ve had the good fortune to fish with him several times. I’ve never been with a guide who works harder, or more efficiently, to see that his clients get fish. Steve Fleming runs Mah-Hah Outfitters out of the community of Fossil in Central Oregon. Fleming specializes in guiding anglers for both largemouth and smallmouth bass. Eighty per cent of his customers this year are repeat clients from previous trips. Just how well he does this is reflected in the number of returning clients he gets each season. I checked with Steve just before doing this column. He told me that about 80 per cent of the hundreds who’ve booked trips with him in 2005 have been out with him before. You simply can’t get better references than that. Steve guides his clients for a variety of species on Oregon’s beautiful John Day River. I’ve made several smallmouth bass trips with him. On one of those trips I kept a detailed record of what too place. I mention keeping the record because what happened that trip is typical of what you can expect if you book a summertime adventure with Fleming. My record for the day shows Steve slid our drift boat into the John Day about 8 o’clock in the morning. Eight hours later my partner and I had caught more than 150 smallmouth and we hadn’t seen another boat all the time we were on the water. And that’s just part of the story. The day before we made that float trip for smallmouth, the two of us had boated more than 50 largemouth bass. They came out of a small lake hidden away in the hills not far from the river where we caught all those smallmouth. Steve is the only guide who has access to that lake. It’s really something! Sound like a fairy tale? No way, partner! You can do the same thing if you have the good fortune to drift the John Day River in the Fossil area with Fleming as your guide. The largest of the smallmouth we caught that trip I’ve been talking about was a tad more than 18-inches. That 18-inch size might not sound like much to a salmon or steelhead angler unfamiliar with smallmouth bass. Guess again! For my bucks no freshwater game fish fight harder than river smallmouth. Use light tackle, and that’s what’s required if you expect to put many in the boat, and they’ll flat wear out your wrist. I’ve kicked around the world a good bit on fishing adventures of one kind or another over the past half century. It isn’t often these days you’ll find a river in the United States where the smallmouth bass fishing is as good as it is on the John Day without having lots of competition. Perhaps other areas of the John Day are subject to the pounding so typical of most present day productive rivers, but that certainly isn’t true of the sparsely populated remote region of the river Fleming fishes. One of the reasons it continues to be so productive undoubtedly is due to the conservation procedures Fleming and his clients follow. Anglers who fish with Steve know going in they are expected to practice catch and release. Every one of those 150 plus bass my companion and I put in the boat that day last June was there but briefly. Once we got them unhooked they went back into the river. They’ll be there to thrill the next anglers Steve guides down the river. So what kind of gear will you need for a float trip on the John Day? Not to worry. Steve will provide everything if you like. I prefer to carry my own. It’s nice to work with a familiar outfit. If I had to restrict myself to just one rod and reel for John Day smallmouth I’d opt for a lightweight spinning rod equipped with an open faced spinning reel. I’d load that reel with six-pound test line. The John Day is also a super spot for the angler who chooses to use fly fishing gear. You needn’t fear having to make 60-foot casts to get out where the fish are. Most of your targets are going to be 30-feet or less away. Polish up your accuracy and forget about distance. That’s all you’ll need to take your share of smallmouth with the long rod on this peaceful Oregon stream. There’s another way to cut down on the amount of gear you need to pack for a John Day smallmouth trip. Fleming is on the river almost every day. You’ll need to book your trip well out in front to be assured of pinning down a trip with him. But don’t forget to call him again a week or so before you’re scheduled to fish. That way he can tell you exactly what those hard hitting little devils are taking. Steve has his clients throw a variety of baits for John Day smallmouth. One of his favorites, and it taken some beautiful fish, is an Outlaw Baits Rippleworm. Steve’s favorite color in this little 5-inch killer is black. “I also often use this worm in a bluegill color,” Steve says, “for some of our summertime fishing.” Tube baits are another of Fleming’s John Day River favorites. He enjoys telling how Heidi Blaser, of Portland, boated a 21.6 inch smallmouth bass last summer. She got that beauty while throwing an Outlaw Baits 4-inch Slam-it tube in a green pumpkin finish. In my next column I’ll provide more details on that little bass lake Steve fishes. Take my word for it, that lake often provides about as good action for largemouth as you’ll find anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. If you want to find out more about Fleming Mah-Hah Outfitters in the meantime, by all means visit his web site. You’ll find it at http://www.johndayriverfishing.com. You can also reach Steve toll free at 1 800 624-9424. |
