Good morning

This morning the crew will begin bringing back all the flies, and rods & reels to the sales floor at FFP. This will be pretty smooth with all that are helping and in a couple of hours we hope that you will come enjoy the store again as we get back to work. Not normal. But we have faith that is coming back too.

Air quality is good. Sister’s, Three Creek Lake and the Metolius River areas have AQI in green or yellow which is great on any summer day in Central Oregon! It’s bound to be a great day for the Met! Golden Stones, PMD, Tan Caddis, BWO and Rusty Spinners to those of you staying to dusk.

3 Creeks is going to be breezy at 6500 feet but beetles and ants get blown in from these winds and a little chop on the water is great for indicator fishing. Use a Callibaetis Cate, balanced Leech or Damsel, Hanging with my Chromies and Ice Cream Cones. Should be some Callibaetis hatches mid day to enjoy. Winds are to die down later this evening, but tomorrow is calmer and that should be great for the evening Caddis and Midge hatches there.

Crooked River is hard to get an AQI but there is a yellow reading up from Chimney Rock. Fishing is good but you need to okay with a little smoke. PMD nymphs and dries are the best, with some Caddis and Midges mixed in. Perdigons (orange, brown and pearl) , scuds and Ray Charles, zebra midges and soft hackles are all great options.

Fall River this morning is green AQI, so our two spring creek’s are getting air quality as good as the water quality. How nice is that??!!! There are some good PMD hatches along with black caddis and tan caddis, yellow sally’s, ants and beetles and I certainly would pop a hopper or chubby out there in a few grassy banked places. Streamers continue to be hot. These fish want to chase and eat a lot of the time. For nymphs the usual suspects like eggs, perdigons, Walt’s, scuds, zebra midges and Fall River fish like peacock herl so show them a TJ hooker or 20 incher too.

Besides 3 Creeks I think the only other lakes we ought to be fishing are upper (and I mean upper) Hosmer, East and Paulina. Take a thermometer to all and check the temperature. Callibaetis, damsels (blue chubby with a nymph dropper or blue chubby with an extended body adult damsel) , black caddis, traveling sedges (Goddard Caddis), ants, beetles and hoppers, leeches, blobs, chironomids.

Literally you can hit the lakes in so many ways. Tubes, pontoons, wading (but keep in mind the shallow edges heat up the fastest) and boating. You can dry fly fish, dry dropper, indicator. Use sinking lines from an emerger tip to a hover, camo intermediate, type 3 and 5 for deep stripping or wind drifts, and type 7 for deep dangling. All of these lines can find healthy zones and put you in the right places where the food is attracting the fish we want to catch.

Lower Deschutes remains closed due to the fire.

I know Troy was running the McKenzie and it’s fishing well in the morning but slows a bit in the afternoon. He’s been using a chubby with a leech or nymph dropper a lot because it’s catching fish.

All of us at FFP and in Sisters, Black Butte Ranch and Camp Sherman will look forward to seeing you here and enjoying your time in the outdoors fishing.

I’m way more optimistic today than 2 or 3 days ago which is why we are going back to normal operations right now.

Be well!

Bugs