Congratulations to Mike McLucas

Mike McLucas taking a break from a lifetime of oar strokes. Photo Courtesy of Michael Peterson.

Fishing the Deschutes when Elvis was King

It takes a long time to get to know a river well. The accumulated years can be traded in conversation as an unofficial sort of credential. Some Deschutes fishers knew the river before PGE’s Selective Water Withdrawal Tower became operational. Some others will regale you with memories of it in the 1980’s or 90’s, the era of overheated fishers in thick brown neoprene waders. The rare breed of erstwhile fiberglass rod-wielding elder remembers a river with more cattle than people on the banks in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Then there’s Mike McLucas. 

Mike has been living in Maupin and fishing the Deschutes River since 1955, the year his parents bought the Oasis, the cafe and motel where generations of Deschutes fishers and hunters have enjoyed a burger and a beer, or spent the night after a day on the water. 

He started guiding at the behest of his father, who would send Mike out with Oasis guests who looked like they could use some help finding, hooking and landing a fish. One time, one of these informal clients asked Mike if he was a licensed guide. “I didn’t know that you were supposed to have one,” he recalls. “So I went and got one.”

A Conservation Pioneer

Mike also acquired a pioneering sense of what it would take to preserve the Deschutes for future generations. He encouraged catch-and-release fishing for trout before it was a formal ethos. Later, he lobbied lawmakers in Salem to encourage ODFW to adopt rules that would protect wild trout. He was a founding member of Oregon Trout–in fact the idea for that organization was hatched on the lawn of the Oasis. From the early 1980’s to the mid-1990’s, Mike was deeply engaged with the Oregon Guides and Packers Association, serving two terms as its President. He lobbied ODFW during this time to institute a barbless hook rule, as well as outlaw bait-fishing on the Deschutes, management tools that helped him make the case that there was enough viability in natural production of wild trout that hatcheries for trout weren’t necessary.  

He has seen the degradation of the Deschutes post PGE’s Selective Water Withdrawal Tower as not living up to the lesson his father taught him: “I always accepted from my Dad that you had responsibility to take care of what you enjoy,” he says. “You can use it, but you have to accept that your use comes with a price, [that is] taking care of it, being kind to it, understanding it well enough that you don’t do harm to that resource.” 

Love a River? Work to Protect It

For nearly 70 years, Mike has balanced his enjoyment of the river with the onus to protect it for future generations.  

“Any day out there is a good day, but the Deschutes can reduce you to a humble, begging fisherman any day it chooses,” he says.  “You can do everything right and get nothing; you can do everything wrong and they’re falling into your boots. It just goes that way. Accept it. Love it. Enjoy it. Have fun with it. I don’t know how many more years I have left, but I want to fish some more before I give it up.”