34 Years in Place: The Fly Fisher’s Place
Fur, fin, and fly: Jeff Perin masters his domain.
Teen Prodigy on the Fly
Jeff Perin has owned his fly shop, The Fly Fisher’s Place in Sisters, Oregon, for 34 years. That’s enough decades to earn him the unofficial title of elder statesman of fly shop owners in Oregon. “Travis Duddles (Gorge Fly Shop) and Chris Daughters ( Eugene’s Caddis Fly Shop) aren’t far behind,” says Perin. “And of course there’s others in the industry in the state who’ve been around longer than me.” But 34 years is long enough to have witnessed many changes.
Perin was something of a prodigy. He started his guiding career before he could legally drive clients to fishing destinations around central Oregon. “On my very first trip, I had three clients, who had me and all their gear, including float tubes, in the back of a Volvo station wagon. Not long after the first couple casts, one of the guys put a number six bucktail royal coachman deep into the top of his ear. And when I came over and just touched it, he passed out cold, and split his head open on a rock where he fell.” That inaugural day trip ended early, with a trip to the emergency room at the hospital in Bend. But Perin had the same three gentlemen out on the Fall River the next day, and one of them became a “lifer” client.
Perin, by his own admission, was much more focused on fishing than he was on school in those years. “After graduating from Bend High, I took some classes at Central Oregon Community College, but nothing with any particular focus. After a year or two of that, and some opportunities with fly-fishing, I had to have that talk with my parents. ‘Mom, Dad, I don’t think I’m going to finish school.’”
A First Encounter with the Deschutes
Perhaps the finest perk of the path Perin chose is a long-standing, legitimate excuse to fish in as many places as possible, including the lower Deschutes River, opportunities of which he’s taken full advantage. On his first trip from Warm Springs to Mecca Flats, he recalls anchoring up with his mentor and first fishing boss, Craig Lacy. “I was not enamored at first,” recalls Perin. “I was used to smaller rivers around here. We anchored up in a riffle above Mecca, and my first thought was that I was going to get swept off my feet. I was blown away by the strength of the current.” But the fish that thrive in that strong current eventually won him over. “PMD’s, spent spinners, caddisflies, we became match-the-hatch geeks,” says Perin, adding that this is still his preferred way to trout fish the lower Deschutes. It’s a time-worn and well proven way of trout-fishing, but one that Perin, peering ahead into the future, has some concerns about.
“The fishing [on the lower Deschutes] is still really quite good,” he says. “But I do see fewer mayflies and Craneflies. And I follow the science work that the DRA is doing, so I see some potential problems.”
Don’t Wait Until Its Broke to Fix It
Perin has watched the effects of climate change take hold of his favorite fishing haunts in central Oregon. “I’ve never seen the kind of algae blooms we’re having in Lake Billy Chinook like we’ve had over the past four to six years,” he says. Perin wants regulatory agencies, including DEQ, to take a proactive approach. “Personally and for my business, I can’t emphasize enough how vital it is to have healthy water in central Oregon,” says Perin. “Let’s not see it get completely broken before it gets fixed. It would be a horrible economic mistake to go in that direction.”
Among the many changes Perin has witnessed has been the exponential growth of fly-fishing in the region. “We already have suffered full closures of the steelhead season a few years ago,” says Perin. “ No one wants to endure that again. And there’s a ripple effect. Hotels, restaurants, gas stations. The economic impact is very real, and it would be a tragedy to lose decent-paying jobs supporting locally owned small businesses.” Perin sees the management of the lower Deschutes River as an urgent issue. “We need more cold water more months out of the year,” says Perin, “and I just don’t buy PGE’s argument that we’re going to run out of cold water. I never heard that was a problem before the Tower [PGE’s Selective Water Withdrawal Tower] was put in, and that was one hundred percent bottom draw, every day of the year.”
It was something of a gamble 34 years ago to quit school to pursue a life in fishing. But for Jeff Perin it’s a bet that paid off. “It’s turned into a good career, a prosperous guide service and fly shop, and a good life,” he says. For the future, he wishes every wide-eyed lower Deschutes River fisherman the chance to win the same bet.
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