Hi gang, if you follow my reports you know I get frustrated with the USFS and their handling of our public docks and other facilities. As you know, this issue dropped to a low point this last week when the crew responsible for docks took them out of every lake in our region at the end of September. A full 32 days before the end of general trout season.
Their reason you may ask….
This is the email I received from the District Ranger:
As to the dock removals, as you know we try to remove the docks before snow or heavy freeze to keep them from getting damaged, this is a conditions-based decision not a date-based decision.  We rely on our road crew to pull the docks, they are incredibly busy with just their normal work on the Deschutes and Ochoco Forests, so are not available at a moments notice to do this work.  We try to schedule this out ahead of time making a best guess on when the weather will change.  This year the intent was for them to begin pulling docks during the first two weeks of October and the plan was in place to get the word out that this was going to happen.  What happened instead was the road crew saw a window to get the docks done in one day, allowing them to free up more time to meet the demands of fire suppression and repair on multiple fires on our two Forests.

I asked how this is a benefit to anyone but them, and have not heard a response. But we all need to think about how impactful this is and why it matters to fight it.
Before 2021, I recall docks were installed before opening day of fishing season, and taken out after October 31st. 2021, 22, 23 were bad, but 2024 is the worst yet. This, despite numerous emails, face to face meetings, calls and action by people like YOU. I appreciate all that take part in the process to change minds and steer policies that matter to anglers.
Why are things like docks important you may ask? I will set a few examples in front of you to ponder:
1) Docks make access to the water safer. 2) Docks speed up launching and re-trailing boats making the experience better for multiple people to enjoy the lake and the process better 3) docks provide access to people with mobility or disability issues 4) in a the wind, it can be very difficult and even unsafe to get a boat on to a trailer without a dock 5) docks help prevent damage to boats by providing a stable area to moor for the time it takes to get the trailer back in the water or out of the water for the day.
Here are some sad stories to back these things up. On opening day of fishing season 2 years ago an angler broke their leg because of issue #4.
My last trip for the 2024 season this year, I will have a good friend and customer with parkinson’s who certainly is safer to be in my big boat rather than my drift boat for the day. But without the dock, I need to take my smaller boat.
Congressman Cliff Bentz’s office has shown real concern about the issue at Paulina Lake as that is in his District. We will continue to encourage his participation to the solution to this and appreciate his offices participation in the process.
I hope to also contact other political leaders on Monday when I have a shop day, as well as tourism leadership for Central Oregon to get them involved. I greatly appreciate Max Armstrong asking leadership at the Tourism organizations for their input and help.
In my view, the only solution to this is a mandate that docks are installed at Opening Day (or within the 1st seven days of snow and ice cleared for access to a body of water) and remain operational until November 1st. If the FS wants to serve the public and stop having a battle with those of us passionate about this issue than this is the solution.
The excuse that they are worried about the lakes freezing holds no factual truth whatsoever. Ice does not form on our big lakes until late November or December. If anything, we see winter coming later and later with climate change. The week from 11-1 to 11-7 is not a time that larger lakes will freeze. Historical records and weather data will show this to be fact.
We at FFP are certainly in appreciation of all our fire crews, and hard working USFS employees which we know there are plenty of, and I never take lightly the privilege it is for us to have a USFS Deschutes National Forest Special Use Permit to guide these special waters. I have been fishing in Newberry Crater since 1974 and only want the best and safest opportunities to be there for me, and for the people I care for who that are up there fishing. A guy should not have to swim for his boat that got away from him on a cold October morning (this really happened at Paulina 2 days ago) and that is why I continue to be so vocal on this issue. I am an advocate for the anglers who want access and demand safety and accessibility for all.

Change of subject, Who wants to talk about fishing?
As usual let’s start the report on the Metolius River and let me share with you the trends and conditions we’ve seen over the past several days and look into the crystal ball a little on what the hatches should look like this week.
The Green Drake hatch is waning now but still should be hatching enough this coming week to remain important from Canyon Creek to Candle Creek. The hatch times seem to be shifting to closer to 3 PM, where a week and half ago you might remember that I was talking about seeing them as early as noon. Drakes in #14 and #10 are both abundant and carry and fish both sizes this week.
PMD’s (#16) are still very important! Look for them to be mixed in with Mahogany Duns (#16) and BWO’s (#18-20) all afternoon. It won’t be non stop, but from noon to 5 or so there will be hatches to find, also adding tan caddis (#16), gray caddis (#14) and still some little olive stones #18. Tina and Dove were on the river yesterday and the little olive stone (#18) was prevalent and fish were keyed on them yesterday afternoon. Don’t forget how important the October Caddis are this time of year and that the Pupa is awfully important each afternoon and evening.
We’ve been having excellent nymph fishing with caddis pupa, perdigons, frenchie’s, walts worms golden stones, soft hackle PT, 2 bit hookers, and zebra midges. AND with the massive kokanee spawning run there are a ton of little orange eggs in the drift and some rainbows will actively sit below the salmon redd’s eating opportunistically on eggs.
Bull Trout fishing is good to very good. With these warm sunny days you might consider getting on the water really early to beat the sun. Not always, but usually Bull’s like darker times to hunt and feed. We have been getting most of the fish on bigger articulated streamers and Dolly Llama’s.

The Lower Deschutes is good, and yesterday we had another wonderful guide trip from Warm Springs to Trout Creek. Mattias said there was a very impressive October Caddis hatch at 2 PM, and that Green Perdigons, Hares Ear’s, Stonefly Nymphs and Jig Streamers were awesome yesterday.
Plenty of Steelhead around and it looks great for our fall Steelhead trips from now until at least Thanksgiving.
As of this writing here are days we have at least one guide open to do a steelhead trip on the WS to TC section of the river: October 16, 17, 18. 19, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30 and 31. These will fill so if you have an interest in getting on the schedule, pick a date and call us to book it.
Steelhead are still coming to swung flies on floating lines just fine, This is a good transition time to start getting the sink tips and intruders and leeches out. A whole lot of the fish we’ve seen have come on a nymph this fall. Often on trout gear. I remember guiding an old customer who was a Navy Captain and Rob ended up getting a hell of a steelhead on the Big Indian Riffle while trout fishing a Flashback PT #14. It’s been a long time since I last guided the Lower D, but memories like that never are forgotten!
That said, give me an Anderson’s Euphoria or a Freight Train and my T&T 11 1/2′ 7 weight and let me swing it 1st. As I wrote that, a great memory of my best friend Matt swinging a Black Wooly Bugger in a section just below Big Indian and at what some might call the top end of Sixes. Bam.

The Middle Deschutes is going to see rising water levels this week with the end of water being diverted to irrigation canals. It will be fishable, but the days it happens will be a bummer with dirtier waters and debris floating down from what were previously dry river banks. Stonefly nymphs often get moved around in these bumps of higher water events, so tuck some in the box. Soccer Mom’s and Mini Gulps are great little streamers to drift any time. Purple Haze and Renegades are 2 bigger dries I would fish in the evening, but the main hatch is BWO #18-20 and some PMD’s and Tan Caddis in #16’s.

The Upper Deschutes from the Headwaters to Benham Falls is all closed now. See you May 22nd 2025 for our next reporting of that long stretch of river.

The Crooked River is fabulous and ought to be well into the the Fall. We do expect to see a drop in water levels from 203 cfs today to about 150 and eventually 100 cfs in the next 7 to 10 days as irrigation season ends. Captain Drew from the shop was there yesterday and had great success on a #16 Tan X Caddis and a PT Nymph with a CDC soft hackle collar.
PMD’s are hanging in there strong and BWO’s are getting stronger. Look for Mahogany Duns to mix in as well for the trifecta of mayflies each afternoon. Furminky’s BDE Dun and a Purple Comparadun are 2 you gotta have. Knock Down Duns, Film Critics, Grey Comparaduns, Extended Body Parachutes are great dries for the moment. Super good nymphing action on purple or brown perdigons, stealth PT, jig Napoleon, 2 bit hookers and one of my fave’s is the skinny nelson. I wonder if I like that because I wish I was skinny? Nah, it is a great little fly the fish eat for mayfly or midge nymphs. It is basically a straight hook Zebra Midge with a Tail and Peacock Thorax and you can’t go wrong with Peacock on a fly.

Fall River has been darn good this week for our guide team. They have reported a lot of fish on small streamers, and on eggs, mops, perdigons, 2 bits and zebra midges and also on dries like PMD’s (Sequoia caught a beauty on a PMD yesterday after her guide trip was over and went back to fish on her own for a while), blue wing olives and amber caddis #14.

The McKenzie River is fishing really well for the FFP guides too. Caddis Pupa and Posse Buggers have been 2 of the flies I keep seeing them take, along with King Prince, TJ Hooker and Perdigons and Soccer Moms. Some fish are up on dries and Stimulators, Elk Hair Caddis, larger Parachute Adams and big Chubbies are good for that.

Lakes Report:

Little Lava was our best lake destination this week. Callibaetis are slowing down but we had a good after lunch hatch on Wednesday that brought several fish to net on a #16 dun pattern.
The really good fishing came under an indicator using 2 flies that are not thought of as stillwater flies. One is a fly I have used for 2 seasons and have suggested on a lot of previous reports called the Red Holographic Jig. The other is called a Spicy Squirrel with a Matte Pink bead and I grabbed some of them from the bins the other morning on a hunch based on a some similarities of the last Tasmanian fly with the Hot Orange bead. We were hanging the Spicy Squirrel at the bottom about 4 to 7 feet under the indicator, and the Red Holo Jig as the dropper 24″ above the point fly. Fish ate both well.
My Beetle was also really good in the afternoon and I’d guess we ended with nearly 50 fish to the net at the end of the day.
Lava Lake Resort said the FS is closing the gate to access the Lava Lake Ramp this week. Grrrrrrr. I don’t understand why!?!

Paulina Lake was a day that began crazy on Tuesday. Time in all factors of life comes at us for reasons we may not understand, but when I picked up John and Kris at the shop that morning I said to them would it be okay if we ran over to my house and dropped off Oat Milk for Tina (for her morning coffee, because I noticed when I made my morning coffee that I had my 2% but she was out). They said absolutely and that was a small slow down to venture to the lake. On the way to town to pick them up I narrowly missed a deer by the airport and slammed on my brakes. What I didn’t realize until we went to do the Oat Milk deliver was my tie down straps came loose and one of the fender lights was hanging by the wires which took a short moment to fix all of that. And we were off. Well that must have been good timing for going down the highway and being able to save a Chocolate Lab who was running through (mostly) slowing traffic on the highway about 5 miles east of Sisters. We got him loaded up safely in my truck and back to his owner with not too much more delay. Dog people understand the importance of looking out for each others pets in times of distress. We love dogs and do anything to make sure they are safe.
Despite the delay’s in game, we were still the 1st boat to the Paulina Lake CG launch and we were soon greeted by some young cyclists who lost all their food to raccoons over night. My guide Steve (who was 3rd to the lake) and I each shared half of our sandwiches with them. And I think Micheal (2nd boat to the ramp) and his nice fishing buddy had some granola bars to share making the cyclist morning trip down the mountain to Bend a lot more enjoyable not having a rumbling tummy and the strength to get to the destination. Well, one would think those Karma points would have resulted in a 10 pound brown 1st thing in the morning, but apparently the universe is holding on to the points for another day. Either way we will take it and it is nice to help people and dogs one way or another. As for the fishing, it wasn’t until after lunch did we find much of a bite. Still some callibaetis hatching there, and fish were eating them. We did best on a purple chubby, a jiggy twist beetle, a red aero legs and a parachute adams.
Mike and his friend about the same but did get some on Black Balanced Leeches, and I heard from Pat O that a Quigley Flag Ant was hot for him, and our guide Steve said Beetles all the way for his client was the ticket.
The Big Boy Browns are just starting to congregate together and I think the next few weeks ought to see some really fine opportunities to get to fish for some of the biggest brown trout we see on a fly rod over the course of the season.

East Lake has been a lot better, and fishing conditions are similar to Paulina with the afternoon terrestrial bite going well with Ants and Beetles. Colder nights have done something to waken the fish to realize winter is coming and now is the time to eat.
Leeches and Balanced Minnows and Chub looking streamers are good and ought to be good or even improving as we march through our last 3 weeks of the season. Wade fishing the edges from EL CG to the White Slide is just as good as boating, and in fact EL is one of our best wade fishing lakes in the region.

Hosmer Lake was really good this week with good reports from our guide Troy. He said the fish were quite keen on a balanced damsel.
I am not surprised at that at all.
Still recommending Red Ice Cream Cone, Water Boatman, Tan Zebra Midge, Scuds, Red Holographic Jigs and Chubby’s. Balanced leeches and red worms on windy days with some chop are flies I would cycle through as well.

I had a Crane Prairie trip on Thursday with Mike and Dave and I jokingly told them at the Quinn River boat ramp that we wouldn’t catch a fish until 2. That was at 8:30, and the joke wasn’t far from the truth. We fish the Quinn, Rock Creek and Deschutes Channels and frankly found it to be quite slow until 1:30 when we got some fish on Red Worms, Rowley’s Olive Balanced Minnow and Red Hippie Stompers. That fly would have never been on my radar unless my friend Phil Fisher from Sunriver who I regard highly as a very proficient stillwater angler suggested it from the previous week when he found good success on it.
My customer Micah who I trade info with from time to time was there 2 days before me and said he found okay fishing in the Cultus Channel on Black/Red Chironomids and Balanced Leeches.
When I put on a large Red Ice Cream Cone for Dave we got an immediate eat on that. I will tell you the weather was just too bright and calm on Thursday. When we had a breeze the bite was better, when it was glassy, the bite was off.

Three Creek Lake was pretty good this week. Folks were getting fish on Ants and Beetles and also on Olive Buggers and Leeches. I would fish it from 10 or 11 to about 3 or 4 and call it a day. This is another good lake for wading the edges, or bring a pontoon or float tube for good access to a little deeper areas.

As cold nights come on (We’ve had 24 in the morning a few times this week at our house 2 miles North of town) lakes like Chickahomiony near Burns, and North and South Twin Lakes can be really nice options too. Also, Justesen Ranch Lakes are private, but will fish well from now well into mid-November for big bruiser Rainbows.

If you’re coming by the shop be sure to check out the patagonia wader sale, we have several mens size waders at 40% off and women’s at 50% off. If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook check out the listings there.
We also have a few discontinued rods on the sale table including a 8 1/2′ 4 weight Winston Pure and a Sage Trout LL 389-4 pc and a Redington Vice 690-4. Great deals on these at 40% off now.

We added a 2nd week in Belize April 19-25 since our week of April 12-19 filled so quickly. If you want to join me let me know and I’ll get you more details. It’s a great trip for Bonefish, Permit and Tarpon.

Hope to see you in the shop or on the water soon. Depending on the day, I’ll be out there somewhere enjoying the day with good folks.

Jeff
10/5/24