I hope you had a good Christmas holiday with the people you love. I know the holidays can be a whirlwind of activity, and certainly this coming week things will slow down a little and desires for fishing and tying flies, or reading fishing books, going to the fly fishing film tour, and pouring over videos of cool fish stuff will be a part of your life too. I heard from a lot of you that the book Bug Water and the video Bugs of the Underworld made it your lists of things to learn from, and I love that you want to know more and more. Me too.

I am writing this report from gate A7 at John F Kennedy International Airport. I chose A7 because it is in a quiet’ish area today compared to where my flight will take off from in a few hours.
Tomorrow morning I will be back in Argentina (and then to Chile) with so many good friends and plenty of good fishing to look forward to coming up in January, February and March.
Reconnecting with friends down there is a real gift. I am also very excited to meet a new friend Chris at his lodge in Argentine Patagonia on a lake, near the border with Chile in a few weeks. And then to fish with my new friend Carlos in Uruguay for Dorado in February while I am between trout trips in Patagonia.
What is it that I am doing down there? People ask, and friends wonder…. I am pretty confident in my actions and choices but last night at my sisters house in Portland I joked to another family member I was heading off for my mid-life crisis tour. I prefer to think of this trip as more than that, it is a part business; with so many of my friends & customers coming down to fish. It is a bit of a sabbatical after 40 years of working in the fly shop, this break from the day to day is going to change the lens I look through when I am done with the adventure. It is an escape from the loss I had in 2025 too.
It offers new beginnings and it will be what I make it out to be. It won’t be without some homesick feelings, and days of missing the shop and the joy that comes from 151 West Main in Sisters and the people who make it so. I will miss Chips & Salsa and driving my truck and the vistas of Central Oregon that we all appreciate how pretty it really is at home.
But adventures await, and facing them at this time in life is not something I would to say no to.
So here we go.
I want to take you on the same adventures, and will tell stories along the way from South America, and continue to write important fishing updates about our home waters around Sisters too.

On the Metolius River this past week the waters saw a steady drop after the big rains around the solstice, and at this point the gauges show a very normal flow.
You have 4 days to use your 2025 fishing license and then remember to pick up a 2026 license online, on the ODFW app or come to the shop and let Aaron, Mattias, Sequoia and Gavin make and print you a new one for 2026.
The last week of December and the early January time period on the Metolius is a good time to fish for trout, whitefish and bulls. That can offer you the excitement of using 3 or 4 distinctly different fishing methods to practice throughout the day. What will those be?
1) Look for hatches of (mostly) Blue Wing Olive mayflies between 1 and 3. Typically the January BWO’s are tall winged and often throw off observers who see them float by and fly off the water and they appear bigger due to the height of the wings in relation to the size of the body. A #18 is a good match for january in most cases, but #20’s ought to be ready in the fly box too in case another kind of BWO overlaps or is the predominant mayfly of the day. Grab some Film Critics, Sparkle Duns, KD Duns and Comparaduns (purple too) and an Olive Parachutes in #18’s and 20’s.
2) Nymphing either with a Strike Indicator or a Tight Line/Euro Rig. Here are X Nymphs to not be without over the next month: Eggs, Golden Stone, October Caddis Pupa, Silver Stripe Sedge Pupa, Fat Ass Pupa, Micro Mayfly in Olive or Black, Zebra Midge in Black or Red, Perdigons in Blue, Olive, Brown, Purple #12-18, Walts Worm and Blue Psycho Prince.
3) Tightline Streamers with Soccer Mom, Slum Lord, Sir Mix a Lot and Mini Gulp streamers. This is a great way to find bigger browns and bull trout.
4) Streamers to swing or strip that are various sized, usually articulated and can be fished on a larger 7 or 8 weight rod in deeper runs and around logs and structure. Also, an articulated sparkle minnow fished under an XL Oros or Airlock indicator is a great way to find Bull Trout.
The trend is good on the river now and there is not a lot of snow to contend with yet.
The bridge over Lake Creek on the road past Lake Creek Creek Lodge in being replaced soon, so prepare for a detour on the upper road past the headwaters this winter. That road is usually not plowed, but this winter it will be so the road crew can replace that bridge on the main road.
Remember the river is closed from the Headwaters to Allingham Bridge in the winter to protect rainbow trout spawning areas. I am astounded by the lack of people who don’t read the regulations (for a lot of waters) and want to remind you that it is absolutely your responsibility as an angler to know what what is open and what is closed, and what kind of gear is okay to use and play by the rules.

The Fall River is fishing quite well now and would be a top pick for the upcoming New Year week. There are BWO’s #18-20 and Black Midge #22-24 hatches and keep an eye on some stray bouncing Snow Sedges #12 (a smaller cousin of October Caddis), but most the day will consist of euro nymph tactics or fishing nymphs and small leeches and streamers with a strike indicator. The fish in the Fall River are as picky as any in Oregon on a hatch, and it seems to me they are more easily fooled with cripples and emergers and by using 6.5x or 7x tippet.
On the nymphs, a 6x fluorocarbon tippet is just right, and with a streamer you can get away with 5x fc, or sometimes even 4x fc with a bigger fly.
Slum Lord in Cream or Black, Mini Gulp (Olive with the orange legs) , Natural or White Sculpzilla Mini’s and Black Balanced Leeches are great flies to strip, indicator or tightline.
Like the Metolius, the Fall has a short area of closure to protect spawning fish too, and that is from the falls to the confluence of the Deschutes.
Access now to the headwaters, campground, hatchery and tubes is all good with a lack of significant snow so far this winter.

The Crooked River at this time last year was just blown out and remained so all winter and into the spring, so it feels good to be talking about it as a viable December and January spot again.
In January not much sun gets in some of those canyons, especially up high near the Bowman Dam. Some days that won’t make a difference and other days the cold gets locked in up there and you should consider going down stream where it opens up to the sun a bit more.
Midges are the #1 winter food source in all phases of life. BWO nymphs are important, but don’t expect to see much of a mayfly hatch from now until warmer period in February.
Scuds, Perdigons (purple, olive, brown #16-20), Rainbow Warriors, Olive or Brown Mini Gulp, Olive Wooly Buggers are good now and for the next 8 weeks as long as the river doesn’t freeze up or blow out.

The Middle Deschutes in not high on the list for Late December or January, with some action starting again in February when the Little Black Stones hatch.

The Lower Deschutes is closed on all waters on or across from the Warm Springs Reservation. Warm Springs, Mecca, Dry Creek, Trout Creek, South Jct are all closed until 4/22/26
Maupin upstream to the Locked Gate and up by foot from there, and down to Macks Canyon are open, but the water is high and I would recommend skipping this area for a while until things improve. Often January is pretty darn slow anyway, but things will improve in February with the right conditions coming together for us. By March with good water flows it is a must do for Central Oregon.

Last year we ran some fun trips I hosted to Justesen Ranch in the Spring. I plan to do that again in March and April of 2026 so let me know if you want to be joining the list for that fun trip. You need a boat or tube to access it right. We will find some middle of the week days in around Spring Break and go whack some awesome trout in Chironomids.

The other day I was reminiscing about fly shops in Central Oregon and was telling a friend about a cool shop old shop in Sunriver called Hook, Wine and Cheddar. It was owned by a guy named Jack (his daughter Pip went to Bend High with me) and Jack loved French wines and cheeses and he combined that love with his passions for fly fishing. It had a classy feel to the shop, and I purchased many good dry flies there along with some darn good sandwiches on the way to the Fall River in the 80’s with friends Cary, Chester and Hans. Honestly, it was too classy for Chester or Cary, but we made it work.
In these days of fly shops with a niche, I am not sure I ever saw a better one than the one Jack had going.
Do any of my old freinds here remember this shop?
Now I kind of want to buy a sandwich made on a crunchy French roll, with Brie and Dijon, and hive a glass of a crisp Chardonnay.
And it’s dinner time here in New York I’ll go see if I can round up something tasty.

To those of you who email me or message me your fishing reports, I APPRECIATE it so much. Along with your stories too.
We are a community. Thanks for helping spread the gospel of good fishing.

Happy New Year,

Jeff