For those who know this fishing, one can tell within thirty seconds of starting in on a known stretch of water whether it's been fished recently or not. Inevitably there are two or three prime lies, then secondary lie, tertiary lies, etc. If, in the first two or three casts you get a big fish, or even two, out of a secondary or tertiary lie, you can kneel down and say a prayer of thanks to whomever, take a deep breath, calm yourself, check your leader, hook point, and nitroglycerin pill supply knowing you are going to get blown away by the next thirty minutes of fishing a hundred yard stretch in general, and by what is going to be lifting up to your fly from those primary lies in specific. There have been times when I have been frankly terrified to make a cast to a particular spot, precisely because of what had happened wading up to that point. This is what Deschutes fishing was consistently in the past, and still can be at times. It has nothing to do with regulations, or much to do with population density of fish. It has everything to do with PRESSURE. A two foot wide stream cannot be divided between that many people.
Therefore the potential importance of the reality, which becomes acutely evident to anyone who fishes this particular fishery, that there is not ONE two foot wide mountain stream to the Deschutes, but TWO two feet wide streams, i.e., the west bank.
"Why," someone might ask our above imaginary fisherman, "aren't you satisfied with fifty miles of one side of a spectacularly well fish populated river. You even got the right (correction, easier) bank, casting-wise for a right hander!" And our fisherman looks across the river with the glazed look of a heroin addict, a choc-a-holic, a deposed harem-master (I can only imagine), an adrenalin-freak.
