Happy World Cup Sunday. I usually write the report on Saturday but I was taking a Spanish class yesterday and here we are.
There is a lot of good fishing to be found, and some to avoid due to heat. I will outline those more carefully below. I was personally relieved to see the lakes in the Newberry Crater where I spent 4 days working this week stayed 64 and below. That doesn’t mean we as responsible anglers don’t continue to monitor the temps on all of our lakes and quit when the temps might become lethal to catch and release.
Here is a great reminder from Trout Unlimited to save-

Rivers in the area like the Metolius, Fall River, Crooked in the first 5 or 6 miles downstream of Bowman Dam, the Lower Deschutes below Pelton Dam and a lot of the McKenzie are staying cool thank goodness.
The Middle Deschutes is one to watch, and should be fine in the mornings but ought to be checked and monitored (by YOU) in the afternoon.

I think the highlight of the Metolius in July is the opportunity to fish the golden stone adults, especially from the headwaters to Gorge Camp Ground , but can be in pockets of the river (this is due to water temps around springs or tributary streams) and even if you don’t see a lot of stones around, the fish are used to them and want to eat! It is essential to have Clark’s Stones and Norm Woods in your selection. I also recommend in these same areas to get some yellow sally stonefly dries in the mix.
The neat thing with the bigger goldens is you can run a nymph dropper off the back and find results on both the dry and the nymph. I’ll remind you that on some of the grassy banks and logs that the trout like to hide around, the nymph is likely to snag so these are areas I like to cast and re-float my bigger dries over. The re-float is simple with a down stream presentation with a big raise of the rod tip (slowly) skating the flies back upstream, then lowering the rod tip to allow the flies to float down over the target again. Years ago McKenzie guides Aaron Helfrich and others showed me this and it is effective when wading while presenting the fly downstream. Try it.
There are PMD’s and tan caddis spread out on all sections of the Metolius now. You need to think nymphs now, with a PMD split case jig becoming one of our new favorite flies for 2026. A yellow jig napoleon and a brown micro mayfly are great choices and any Met box need a soft hackle PT which in a #16 is a great PMD imitation. For caddis nymphs the fat ass pupa is one of the best, also prairie dog or sparkle pupa and Silvey’s prime time pupa and his edible emerger when the pupa arrive to the surface. The Iris caddis is another one I love when the pupa are at the surface and the adult caddis is going to transition out of the pupal shuck!
When the PMD hatch is on it is important to have cripples, emergers and duns. If you’ll be on the river at dusk you need a rusty spinner too. It is possible to see them at dawn too. I remember a hot spell in August when I was camped on the river and went to the idiot hole about 5:30 AM and found fish chowing on rusty spinners.
Other hatches to watch for are BWO’s, usually the summer BWO hatch is later afternoon or early evening and they are small, like #20 and 22. Little Olive Stones #16-18, ants, beetles and start looking for isolated pockets of salmonflies, especially from Canyon Creek to Candle Creek. It is not a super hatch like the Deschutes, but it can be important here and there and becomes more so as we march towards August.
On the nymph side green drakes, golden stones, perdigons, red copper john, walt’s worms and all the PMD, soft hackle and caddis patterns mentioned above.
Bull Trout are streaming up from the lake and filling up river in preparation for the spawn in the trib’s. Once this happens don’t target them for a bit. And this is also why the tributary streams are closed to angling! It is important to protect these incredible fish. A powerful 7 or 8 weight rod should be used to cast the flies, but also to play them with power for a quick release.

The Lower Deschutes, from Warm Springs to Trout Creek has been holding up with good catches during the day, mostly on nymphs including tan and olive caddis pupa in a #16, dark grey in #18. Michael said he’s also doing well consistently on a 2 bit hooker and a Brown jig perdigon.
In the evening is the best chance to get fish on the surface with a dry fly or an emerger.
Purple haze, rusty spinners, black x caddis 18 and tan 16, fin fetcher caddis is the best hi-viz caddis out there (and hey, none of us old guys can see the fly at dusk anymore so we need this fly), corn fed caddis, yellow para-wulff and sparkle dun and yellow soft hackles in 14’s and 16’s.
Trout spey your day away! leeches and sculpins are picking up fish in the deeper runs with a sink tip and switch to soft hackles in the evening with your floating line and maybe a hover poly leader.

The Middle Deschutes is probably a morning only destination for a while until we get some cooler days and nights. PMD, PED, caddis, perdigons and soft hackles plus smaller streamers like sculpins and slum lords and a brown mini gulp which is a good crayfish imitation.

The Headwaters section of the Deschutes is a nice summer stream, and a nice place to be in the mountains this week. Bring your bug spray though.
Little streamers and jig nymphs are accounting for the best fishing, but a chubby (purple or red) with a nymph trailer is good, hoppers, ants and beetles, hot pink adams, renegades, caddis and light cahills are nice flies to fish up here on a fly rod or on a tenkara.

Our guides have been having good action on the McKenzie in the morning, and we are happy to see the river has not dropped as much as we feared it might in the drought. Troy and Michael both said they are doing a lot of Chubby with a nymph behind it with good success and swinging some soft hackles and small streamers have found some nice fish too. A little dry fly fishing to be found, light cahill, parachutes adams, elk hair caddis, corn fed and sparkle duns.

Sequoia has been guiding the Crooked for us a lot last week and found a lot of good days with a cool variety of flies. Her list was an orange duracell (we also have a purple one) and a black 2 bit hooker. For duty fly times she used our new hot pink parachute adams and x caddis.
All great flies and I am so stoked about the pink adams. I will tell a story about why we began to sell this fly on an upcoming report, but the spring creeks are the reason.
Perdigons, zebra midges, scuds, ray charles and soft hackles would be really fine choices to fish this week too.

Fall River is good fishing, get there early, or later around dinner time to dark to avoid the craziest of the crowds. During the day we all don’t need to be at the hatchery or the camp ground. Drive between those 2 places and watch for other parking spots. Go hunt fish. They won’t be stacked like at the places they stock, but they will hold in cool spots as singles or doubles and it’s more fun to be away from the crazyness.
Our guide Micheal was having success this week on jig leeches, soft hackles and midges. Look for PMD’s, olive stones, olive and tan caddis in #16-18, ants, beetles and hippie stompers and grasshoppers. Mosquito repellent is essential in the evening.

I spent last sunday in the mountains fishing a small creek for small wild trout. It was a lovely way to spend the day with a friend of mine and we caught fish that rivaled the prettiest jewelry only to hold them for a moment and release them to the clear and cold waters we found up there.
There are plenty of places like this around the cascades and even the coast range. Mark and I fished renegades, ants and pink adams. Go explore. I will add that these places are fragile, so naming the exact spot on a report, blog or social media site is not fair to the areas that other people may love too. But with som many blue lines to find on a topo map you’re own spot is out there too.

Lakes Report

High lakes are the target, and mornings are likely to be the only times to fish the lower elevation ones.
PLEASE WATCH WATER TEMPERATURES.

East Lake seems to be nearing the end of the 1st brood of callibaetis so the 2nd, smaller brood will happen soon. For now the heavy hatches of mayflies is not occurring. It should begin in early August with another strong wave of them, but time will tell. There are still some callibaetis, but not the wild days like we were seeing.
Ants, Beetles, Hoppers are all very important, and Damsels all continue to be important. One little ant to add for sure is an RP ant. Use it in deeper waters and not right on the shoreline like so much of the other terrestrial flies we use. Another one to add is Harrops CDC cinnamon ant.
When the fish are eating the damsel adults take a blue chubby #12 or 14 and then tie on 30″ of 5x fluorocarbon tippet and add an extended body damsel to the tippet. This is good on all the lakes when the fish are keyed on damsels or when they opportunistically eat them.
The other day a friend of mine (sorry I forgot which friend told me this) had very good success on a vampire leather tailed balanced leech here under a strike indicator.
Chironomids are very important. Blood worms are the first stage as the larva, then pupa including reds, blacks and shiny chrome ones from #12-18.
Callibaetis nymphs can be fished with indicators (CB Cate and Crostons CB) and stripped or wind drifted (Schrantz’s, Haarrop’s and Poxy Back + I like a flashback PT here too)
Do you have a Sea Anchor (aka drogue)? If you do not, go get one. I use different types but the tapered wind sock looking models are reliable and even my smaller one does a great bob keeping my bigger boat steady and slow. I can have clients troll nymphs on different sinking lines as a traditional wind drift technique, or do loch style down wind which I do a lot with dry flies. Even with a pontoon boat this is handy and an essential tool to employ.
Water temps are creeping up but so far I have not seen them go past just under 65. It could happen on the hot week ahead so watch it and quit as soon as it hits 68, or go to 30 feet of water and deep dangle or to the thermocline found on your fish finder. I use a fish hawk digital thermometer which takes and records water temps to 30 feet. Sometimes it takes going to 20 feet or more to get the temps we want.

Paulina Lake is holding up slightly better which makes sense since it is 240 feet deep and imagine that cold water reserve down deep. When the wind blows, and it has the mix is welcomed.
The one thing about Paulina is ODFW stocked a lot of hatchery rainbows that are 9 or 10 inches long and we have to weed through a lot of small fish to find some quality browns and rainbows. This week my clients Milt, Ted, Skip and Dan all did just that with some darn good fish on beetles and hoppers. This is what I live for as a guide.
We saw a lot of good morning nymph fishing under a strike indicator using chironomids and callibaetis cate nymphs. On Thursday Dan and Charlotte used a watermelon leech with good success, Dan stepping it on a Ghost Tip emerger line and Charlotte under the indicator. It was fun to see Stevie on one of the shoals crushing it under the bobber not too far away. The locals who I get to know from the lakes are all so cool.
Carolina Phil had a couple of doubles on the lake with 2 in the net on the same cast, but Gavin and Mark got triples!!!! Small fish though, but still cool. Phil was using the new leather tailed balanced leech we have with the black/red combo dubbing. So it is apparent the leech game is good now with all of the colors having success.

Speaking of Stevie I talked to him in the parking lot at Paulina to get a Hosmer report and he said he hadn’t been either. He had friends go and there is a huge weed island apparently in the lower lake due to low water. I have never seen that.
I wrote ODFW last week to see what the progress is on repairing the leaks in the earthen dam but have not heard back yet. I know on June 11th I was there when they were inspecting it and had a hope to get some volunteers to come fill the holes. As the crew left they said they wanted to get on this and try to get the lake filling up as much as possible in the drought.
So I do not really have a report from Hosmer. I imagine the upper lake is cool enough and there would be damsels, leeches, scuds, callibaetis, chironomids and traveling sedges.
If you have been, or are going send me a note…

Little Lava Lake is borderline water temps! Dawn to noon is likely no worries but pay attention to it from noon on. Somedays might be ok and the next too high.
Callibaetis, ants, beetles and damsels are good dries, and leeches, callibaetis, red PT jig, chironomids, damsel and leeches are good under the bobber or stripped on various sink tips and full sink lines. Emerger tip, Hover, Intermediate Camo and Type 3 all play here.
Lava lake is similar but has a lot more potential for warmer water temps.

Crane Prairie for trout I can’t see happening for a bit until things cool off. I would not.

Three Creek Lake at almost 6500 feet is holding up and we are getting good callibaetis hatches, black caddis, damsels and midges. All of these are great but ants and beetles are possibly the most important and besides the typical beetles, at Three Creeks a red hippie stomper is often one of the best. This season there is a little green beetle that has been working well here too. Best fishing is dawn to 2 and 5 to dusk.
Red PT jig, cb cate, black balanced leeches with orange beads or chartreuse beads have been best. Ice cream cones, scuds and damsel nymphs are super good, and the old staples like an olive wooly bugger and sheep creek special are good for kicking along in a tube with your camo line.

Travel

December Argentina is close to full, and the 2nd week of January has 2 spots left.
January 9-16 is more open.
Join me.
I am going to do a travel newsletter this week, with way more details and stoke. Watch for it.

The game just started. VAMOS ARGENTIA.

Until next week amigos,

Jeff