Trout Bums: Doing the Deschutes again and again

I've found that in life there are lessons that need to be learned over and over again. You know what I'm talking about. The kind of thing you do and say, "I'll never do that again," then the next time you run into that situation, you make the same mistake again, as though you'd never done it before.

For me, the Deschutes River is one of those. I'm never going back there again — until next time.

The salmonfly hatch on the Deschutes is legendary. This is a prolific hatch of giant bugs that are said to make the fish feed like Anna Nicole Smith coming off of a diet — stupidly gorging. Stories abound of fisherman who try to be there for this hatch (in late May or early June), and never make it at exactly the right time. I have never hit it exactly right.

Last year, Randal Sumner, his cousin Chris Bolm, Jim Hill, the fly tycoon, and I decided to once more try to be there at the right time.

I've been to the Deschutes quite a bit and have a somewhat jaded view of it. I have never had what I would consider to be great fishing there. Until recently I told myself that I wasn't there at the right time or that I just hadn't figured it out yet.

My theory is that the Deschutes is just plain overrated. These days I go to the Deschutes once or twice a year. I don't go more often because it takes me at least three months to forget what an awful place it is. But no matter how miserable the trip is, I always come back for more — eventually. The lessons that never make it from short-term to long-term memory are:

• This is a windy, hot, desolate, snaky, hot, God-forsaken, windy, nasty, snaky, hot, rotten, windy, miserable, hot place. Beautiful, but did I say hot, windy and snaky?

• The fishing is as good or better near the road as anywhere that you have to hike to. This is one I keep learning the hard way. Even though I knew this last year, Randal, Chris and I took a hike this year to the undisturbed water far from any vehicle access (Jim wisely stayed and fished near camp). Our little outing started out pleasantly enough, a late-morning hike along the railroad tracks.

Then we started to find ways down to the water, usually through ideal rattlesnake habitat. We were fighting about who had to lead the way since the guy in front is the most likely to step on a rattler and get bitten. Randal, who hates rattlesnakes, tried the old "you know it's always the second guy who gets bit" trick. Chris and I didn't fall for that one and kept maneuvering to be last in line.

After a fairly unproductive late morning/early afternoon we headed back to the truck in the midday heat. This turned into a grim, waterless death march. Back at camp, the smarter and better-hydrated Jim seemed content with his day, triggering the urge to kill.

• What do you do all afternoon? The best fishing is usually in the late evening. The days are hot and miserable, and the campgrounds offer little shade. This leaves a big chunk of your day with nothing to do but swelter and whine. One day we tried drinking to see if it would make the day pass more pleasantly. It didn't.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This pretty much sums up my relationship with the Deschutes River.

Trout Bums, a column authored alternately by Randal Sumner and Mark Littleton, appears on the first Tuesday of each month. Sumner owns Blue Skies Guide Service on the Yakima River. Littleton, who also lives in Yakima, has been an avid fly-fisherman for more than 25 years. They can be reached at guides@blueskiesfishing.com.