good morning from a very chilly central oregon! This weekend we will all be getting out our puffy jackets again, but by monday and tuesday and going out to the holiday weekend (yes, Memorial Day weekend is next weekend!) the weather looks great for all of our guide trip guests and people coming over to enjoy the outdoors for the holiday.
As for me, I am glad I am not working on the lake today! Brrrr.
So many times when trips are booked we have to go out despite the weather. With Simms bibs over heavy fleece pants, chunky puffy jackets topped with a gore tex shell and a warm wool hat and fingerless fleece gloves it can be done, but I sure do love wearing shorts and a patagonia sun hoodie and an FFP baseball cap on a summer day. How about you?

A comment that came after last weeks report leads to this: fishing reports written on my normal saturday mornings are based on trends we’ve seen as a team of guides and anglers over the past several days, from week to week to week, it provides the fuel that I need when I sit to write again on the weekend.
My reports are based on hatches, the weather we’ve been experiencing in all the locations from 1500 feet to 6500 feet. Add water conditions, the upcoming forecast, and know that I rely massively on seasonal reoccurrence of aquatic invertebrates or terrestrial opportunities, which not only have I experienced over decades of fishing here, but have studied as an amateur aquatic entomologist since I was a nerdy teenaged boy. Anglers need to know (or remember) that not everyday on the water comes up roses. The days we hope all the stars will align sometimes throw us a curve, and on other days we may go lamenting the weather, or last nights full moon (hypothetically) or maybe a lack of hatches, yet as luck would have it the fish eat really well.
That’s fishing. The fish owe us nothing of course, but we owe them everything for what they give to us.
The best I can do from here is provide the best knowledge I can, and share it with people interested in knowing what they need to know to be as ready to enjoy a day on the water.
I certainly do my best to be accurate, honest and to provide some education and humor, plus grass roots conservation messages or etiquette reminders. I have a real conversation with approximately 2000 to 3000 people that read the report each week.
What my writing is not is an outright effort to jam products with endless links to what you see, and it is not copied from someone else’s ideas, and it is not driven whatsoever by any assistance from AI. This is me, this is what I can share I do each week with 2 to 3 hours of time because I love the people who read it and I know for most people it makes a difference.

The Metolius River is fishing well with caddis, blue wing olives and pale morning duns and if sputtering to start the 2026 green drake hatch so far. I really expected to see more drakes early this year, but it is not the case, and so far most of the best drake hatch activity has been around Lower Bridge, and very few upstream to the hatchery or in the canyon. It will happen, but it might take until June to get it.
Phil from the shop did have a short lived session on drakes Wednesday down river, and my friends from Argentina and I were upriver near the hatchery and Esteban caught his first (and second) ever Oregon trout on a PMD dry! That was a fun moment to share with him after so many years of him bringing me to great waters in his country.
My friend Chester who fishes the river about as much as anyone told me he was seeing the most prime caddis hatches later morning and early afternoon last week. These are the summer caddis that are a #14-16 tan adult dry fly, tan pupa and emergers. For emergers you’ll want an Iris Caddis and a Silvey’s Primetime Pupa, although an X Caddis plays nicely too, but I love the air bubble feature on the two I suggested for best results on our spring big spring creek.
For the PMD’s this week Esteban and I had our best success on a CDC Comparadun, but the Metolius is never a one fly does it all day after day, even minute after minute type of place. Sheesh, sometimes one fish will eat a Film Critic, and the next one downstream won’t look at it at all, but will rise to a KD Dun. Cripples, Emergers, Duns and Spinners are essential to fish the Metolius for both PMD’s and BWO’s.
There are a fair number of little green stoneflies crawling around, and I think it’s always a good idea to have a Hemingway or Henryville #16 to match these. I would say it’s not a first or second fly choice, but for the trout you have made several fly changes on, this needs to be in the quiver.
I would also put ants and beetles on this list, as they are commonly found accidentally drifting down the currents and are a great food source for the fish and perhaps will be the fly that unlocks the gates to a tough trout.
Nymphing has continued to be impressive using caddis pupa #14-16, small mayfly nymphs in brown #16-18 and olive #18-20, green drakes #8-10, golden stones #6-10, soft hackle PT’s #14-18, perdigons #12-18 (purple, brown, olive and orange are favorite choices) and some tiny zebra midges #18-22 that we may overlook, but midge larva and pupa are a high value food source for trout in this river and every river.
Don’t forget about the bull trout, and you can use a few methods to find a willing bull. Swinging a big articulated streamer is great, and also nymphing a jig streamer on a euro nymph leader, or under a larger strike indicator. DOn’t forget to fish the logs and undercuts, not all the bulls are out in the middle of the river! Wade deep, cast far and fear not does not apply always on these fish, so give some technical considerations to the approach to find them and direct the river looking at important habitat and find the gifts that come out of hiding for your well presented fly.
How fun! All of it. The Metolius is a gem.

The Lower Deschutes is in full Salmonfly mode with Golden Stones picking up too. While it is big dry fly time, it is important to realize the fish may occasionally key in to smaller #14-16 tan caddis (thanks Chris for your report a few days ago) and yellow mayflies matching both PMD’s #16 and PED’s #12-14.
The big foam flies on the surface, often on the bank lines and under the trees will provide explosive and exciting takes on the dry fly. Not every fish in the river is in that holding position, and some of our guides and a few of my friends will take their trout spey 4 weights and fish quite far out in the middle of the river. If you get down the river this time of year when the hatch is on, you’ve seen it too, there are fish that crush those flies that are drifting quite a ways out in the current. We can’t wade there, it can be darn near impossible to get a cast that far out due to limited back casting room, and yet they rise and drive us crazy to try to catch them. Well, don’t just use your trout spey for small streamers, now is another opportunity to use yours for big dries.
Nymphs you’ll be fishing this week will be caddis pupa in grey #16-18, tan #14-18 and olive #16, PT Soft Hackle and flashback PT’s in #12-18, perdigons (brown, olive, purple, pearl and black) #10-18, jig leeches and jig minnows, soft hackles (red butt/peacock body, yellow, PT and olive) and here you want to think about what you might be matching in the drift and what size it is for best results. One of the beauty’s of soft hackles is their subtle movements, and the impression of a life like food source.
All in all this week, especially with the warm days returning on Monday and lasting through the week I believe you can expect to be using big dry flies to match goldenstones and salmonflies as much as anything else!

The Middle Deschutes still has good areas to find trout keyed on big stones! I would hope to see this happening all week again. SO don’t go to the Middle D without some salmonflies and goldens for now. Tan caddis, pale evening duns and PMD’s are going to be really important too, along with purple haze and comparaduns (come check out the new purple comparaduns we have with the synthetic fiber wings, they are so cool and tied on a really sharp fulling mill comp dry fly hook), plus some other Deschutes fave’s of mine like a Renegade and a Float-n-Fool.

The Fall River has been consistent with occasional good hatches (typically every afternoon), some good streamer action and really prime nymphing with heavy jigged nymphs that sink quickly to the depths and along the lava ledge rock structure.
From the headwaters stretch to the campground is holding a lot of nice fish, and look for afternoon hatches of PMD’s #16 and a mix of much smaller BWO’s #18-22, a good possibility of tiny black midges, some various caddis but trending a lot to grey #16 and tan #14-16, and it is important to carry a #10 green drake in 2 or 3 profiles at this time for the next 4 weeks on the Far River. You’ll find much of the same down to the hatchery and around the tubes. On May 22nd the area below the falls opens to the confluence of the Deschutes and I always look forward to getting all of the river opened up for clarity of where one can fish, and to spread out anglers over more river miles and just to see water again that is dear to me. There are some wonderful stretches of water to explore from the base of the falls downstream.

Sequoia and her customer Shelly on the Fall this week on a BWO! Nice work Shelly. *Speaking of Sequoia, she is writing a story for the FFP blog each week that is a fictional account of a woman guide in Central Oregon. I read the 1st chapter this morning and it was awesome. She is a super writer and we can’t wait to share it with you on the FFP site. I will try to add it to the site tomorrow, and if I can’t do it I’ll have our super web lady Shannon get it up for us each new chapter and I hope you enjoy the story as it develops.

The Crooked River is another gem to put on the list for the week. Our guide Sequoia has been enjoying some really strong fishing days with her clients there. She said the strong hatch of Mother’s Day caddis seems to have waned, but reported very good fishing on two bit hookers (especially the tan one) and small hares ears, X caddis and PMD’s. It is nice to know the PMD hatch is starting on the Crooked and that should be getting stronger now as we move towards summery days.
Other great flies include Scuds, Ray Charles, Fire Starter, Spanish Bullet, Soft Hackles in Yellow and PT, Zebra Midges and Winkers, Split Case PMD and a ton of perdigons in brown and purple especially, but black, olive and pearl have game for sure.

I am not sure yet about the Upper McKenzie River. There was a truck accident yesterday morning that spilled about 6000 gallons of milk in the upper river above trail bridge reservoir! Crews were on scene quickly to place containment booms in the river and they were able to keep the milk and some diesel fuel that leaked in to the river from getting very far down stream! This should have zero impact to the area we fish from the Blue River area down towards Leaburg.
In this stretch from Blue River down, the FFP guides have been finding some good trout on slum lords, perdigons, spanish bullets, copper john jigs, possie buggers, king prince, TJ hooker, plus larger elk hair caddis, small stimulators, light cahill and we always watch for flying ants in mid May.

On May 22 the Upper Metolius, the Upper Deschutes, Whychus Creek, Lake Creek and Tumalo Creek all open for the summer season and are great small stream spots to enjoy. All of these waters are also great for our Tenkara anglers and should be on the list of waters to enjoy starting next Friday.

Stillwaters

Paulina Lake is getting a high rating this week as there are some really good nymphing and the beetle bite is also fair to good most days. I fished on my birthday this week here with Esteban from Argentina and he and I both did quite well with a Jig Red PT under an indicator, and on the advice of a customer Nick I was also using a Balanced Dark Assassin and got 4 or 5 fish on that fly too. My jiggy beetle was good for me along the shoreline and I know as the weather warms again both ants and beetles will be a smart choice to fish here.
Don’t forget balanced leeches and minnows, chironomids and scuds and nymphs like the spicy squirrel, red holographic jig and red 2 bit hooker here.

East Lake is fishing really well with a lot of things happening as the water is slowly warming. Callibaetis nymphs like the CB Cate, and Jig PT have been 2 of the best, but usually we save those for indicator use. If you are stripping on a hover or intermediate, or even a type 3 in the depths near the white slide use a poxyback, a flashback PT and strip them with 4 to 6 inch pulls for good success.
Scuds, leeches and damsel nymphs on the shoreline, and now chironomids in the 8 to 12 foot range will be your best target depth. Red and black ice cream cones, chromies and summer duck are great, and blended 2 tones with a red butt and olive or brown body are solid choices.
Beetles and ants so far are the only real dry fly options, but I believe the callibaetis hatch will begin here soon so be ready with emergers and dries.
The other nice thing is it seems the rainbows are finished spawning already and are getting back to their feeding patterns and holding in better water to find them with your fly.

Little Lava Lake and Lava Lake are both seeing very good fishing on Callibaetis in all stages from nymphs to emergers to duns and spinners. Also the fish have been very susceptible to ants and beetles, and there has been a decent hatch of large traveling sedge (caddis).
Bloodworms, ice cream cones and hanging with my chromies, balanced leeches and damsel nymphs are all important flies now on both the Lava’s.

Hosmer Lake is fishing well in the Lower Lake and Upper Lake. I did not see many fish in the channel when I was there.
We did best stripping damsels on a midge tip, and fishing callibaetis nymphs under an indicator until the hatch started and then I like to switch to an emerger or a dry fly. The Callibaetis so far seem very dark so the Black Butte CB is a good choice, or bring a sharpie and darken your flies on the fly as needed before you ge them wet.
Leeches and Olive chironomids are important, and don’t forget soft hackles at Hosmer.

Crane Prairie is firing really well in all areas of the lake. Balanced Leeches in Black or Olive and experiment with the bead color from orange, chartreuse, gunmetal and silver. Chrironomids, dark assassin, damsels, callibaetis nymphs, red PT jig have all been solid under the indicator, and some stripping of the leeches and damsels is a good idea on slow sinking lines, especially a hover or intermediate.

Three Creek Lake is ice free but the gate remains closed until 5/22 so it will be accessible by Memorial Day weekend from what I hear.

North and South Twin Lakes are perfect small lakes to get out of the wind, and even offers some shoreline access to avoid the boat if you prefer. There has been good fishing on both lakes with callibaetis in all stages including dries, chironomids, damsel nymphs, leeches, ants and beetle patterns. Definitely both are great for tubing or small pontoons.

Travel-

We had a great week with Esteban and Erica from Southern Loops in Argentine Patagonia visiting us in Sisters. We had a great time at the Library with Esteban and I both delivering different styles of presentations and a different perspective message to our guests. We loved the turnout for the presentation and have already booked some people from the event. A total win.
Our dates for December are 12/5 to 12/12
January 2027 are 1/9 to the 16th and 1/16 to the 23rd
We will add February 6 to the 13th if there is interest in the 4th week.

In Chile we will be at Baker River Lodge February 19-27 and the Magic Waters Lodge February 27 to March 6, 2027.

I will be in the shop over memorial day weekend and really look forward to seeing a lot of friends in the shop then! As always, thank you for your support of all the FFP team, whether that be coming to the shop for leaders, tippet and flies or going a guide trip with Steve, Troy, Gavin, Sequoia, Mattias, Eric, Shad, Michael, Adison, Aaron, or Doug I can tell you each and every one of us appreciate the people who make us what we are.

Have a happy week and see you on the water or in the shop.

Jeff