Hello from Sisters, Oregon. I was guiding all week and have a lot to talk about and share ideas, some heat warnings, and working to send people to the best places for good water conditions and healthy trout.

Right now, all over the western states it is hot and dry, and in some places like Montana, the government imposes a mandatory shut down on trout waters in the afternoon, only allowing anglers to go out in the morning when the water temperatures are safe for catch & release fishing.
I have never seen the State of Oregon do this, but in some places they should.
Or all of us anglers should voluntarily limit our fishing as waters warm up and quit after lunch and head out the next morning.
Taking care of trout is an investment in their future, and ours.
We are so lucky to have such cold rivers here; whether that be our spring fed gems, or because of deep releases from the bottom of the dams like at Warm Springs* and on the Crooked River.
Not every place is okay, with this heat, some areas of our rivers are suffering, and a lot of the lakes are too. The Middle Deschutes is one I would avoid for a bit. Little Lava, Lava, Crane Prairie, South Twin are places I just would not go to until significant cooling occurs.
The others places I will detail more in the body of this weeks report. And you might have heard the Lower Deschutes Steelhead season is going on Pause next week on August 12th, and ODFW will reassess reopening the season in mid-September if the counts coming up the Columbia River hit the threshold to let us swing for steelhead later in the fall. Let’s hope. El Nino sucks.
This heat wave is a double whammy on top of having much lower water because of the 30% snow pack last winter. It is dragging on things like I haven’t seen in a while, but in my 40 years of working in the fly shop and as a guide I can tell you we’ve been through this before and got through it. Cooler days will return.

The Metolius River is one we do not worry about temps! Even on these days in the 90’s I personally never wet wade the Met. It’s too cold for my bones. Some people do, but they are way tougher than me.
Hatches on all sections of the river have been good. Highlights are PMD #16-18 and BWO #20-22, Golden Stones #8-12, and there are 2 Caddis that are most important: a tannish yellow micro caddis #20 and the ubiquitous #16 tan caddis so prevalent on all western rivers in the summer. There are many other things to watch for that can be important in the exact moment you are on the river casting with great hope to a rising trout. They include the larger Olive Ameletus Mayflies #14, Salmonflies #4-6, Little Olive Stones #16-18, Rusty Spinners #16-18, and a mix of other Caddis in Olive and Grey shades from #12-18. Add some black midge patterns and some ants and beetles and build your selection to be ready for any August session on the river.
Hatches are spread out over the upper river, middle and lower sections and you can likely depend on some good dry fly fishing this coming week and it just gets better and better over the next 8 weeks some of the Metolius’s best days are just getting going. Mid August to Mid October are some of the best days (I also like April 15 to June 25) because of my huge love of hatches and dry fly tactics.
Besides dry flies there has been a good bite from the bull trout on streamers. This is your time to get your stout 7 or 8 weight rods rigged, usually with a sink tip and strip or swing a streamer. Or switch to the floating line and run a streamer or leech under a large Airlock or Oros strike indicator, dead drifting your flies to cover good water with a potentially slower presentation but one that can also keep the flies off the bottom and snag free with the support of the indicator. All 3 presentation methods are effective and can be used to cover different runs with success.
Nymph action has also been diverse, I know our customer Matt has had a lot of good days on a stonefly dry and a PT soft hackle as a trailing nymph. A lot of us spend the majority of our time with a Euro Nymphing rig and for good reason. Brown, Olive and Purple Perdigons are always solid flies on the Metolius. Add some Soft hackle PT’s, Walts Worms, Tan and Olive Caddis Pupa, TJ Hooker, Jig 20″, Golden Stone nymphs, 2 Bit’s, Micro Mayfly in Olive for BWO and Brown for PMD and either a Red Lightning Bug or Red Copper John and you’ll have the prefect selection of nymphs for the river this week. And next.

The Lower Deschutes in the Warm Springs to Trout Creek is back open at the WS boat ramp, and our drift from WS to TC is all good. Water temps from Pelton Dam are 55.8 degrees today and that is fantastic. Bottom release just began, departing from the mix of water released from different depths.
This week good summer caddis activity is to be expected, with #18-20 dark micro caddis and the typical summer hydropsyche #16 tan caddis in abundance. Some Pale Evening Duns and PMD’s out there too.
Nymphing with caddis pupa, stonefly’s, PMD split case, jig napoleon, 2 bit hookers, squirrel leech, slum lord, sculpzilla and soft hackles.
Steelhead season is closing for a month long pause on 8/12. I just saw a report there was a dead wild hen washed up at Wagonblast on the lower river. This is so sad to me, and makes me wonder what kind of person who loves wild steelhead so much they would even be down there during a poor run and with such hot weather.

The Crooked River is running a nice level and a plenty cold to keep trout healthy in the upper 6 miles from the dam down. Scuds, Perdigons, Frenchie, Ray Charles, Split Case and 2 Bit’s have been fantastic nymphs. During the day when the shadows come over the river you can see rising fish to PMD’s. The Extended Body Cut Wing PMD and a Film Critic are 2 Crooked River favorites, and we have a really cool extended body PMD with a hot pink wing that you can see in the shadows. Speaking of hot pink, have you tried our new hot pink parachute adams? Not just at the Crooked River either. Midges and Caddis are important too, and having them in larva, pupa, emerger and adult patterns will be a smart plan to be on the river.
And never count out a soft hackle on the Crooked. Plus it’s just a fun way to fish and swing the fly across the currents.

The Fall River is a place you’ll find really cold water, so no worries for the fish. This week there were a few less folks around, maybe because of the smoke. But expect it to be busy from 9 or 10 am to 4 pm most days. A dawn to noon session is a great time to be there with leeches, streamers and possibly some midges hatching or some mayfly spinners. After dinner to dark is a wonderful time to go too.
There have been good hatches of PMD, BWO, Caddis in Black, Olive and Tan too.
Ants, Beetles, Stompers and Hoppers plus Red PMX and Peacock PMX.
Stripping a Squirrel Leech or Zonker is a wonderful and active way to cover water and get cool chases and awesome takes.

I got some good reports from Michael and Gavin from the McKenzie River this week, both reporting good fishing but no longer netting copious amounts of fish but it’s certainly good. They both said Walts Worms, Perdigons, Leeches and Stonefly Nymphs. Dry Dropper with a Chubby or straight Euro-Side Drift is working well.

The Upper Deschutes Headwaters section was good for shop “doooods” Mark and Steve this week. They had a blast with a Split Wing PMD when the hatch was on, and on a small Purple Chubby and a Duracell nymph with many redsides, brookies and whitey’s to the net. Up there the euro nymph game is a good one, and streamers are always a potent way to find some of the larger trout hiding in the logs and under cut banks.
The Upper Deschutes section below the Wickiup Dam has been good too, with hatches of PMD’s and the subsequent Rusty Spinners that fall to lay eggs, and some caddis hatches there has been some good dry fly moments to enjoy. Hoppers and Ants are good ones to drift down the bank lines and logs but practice your down stream drift with a reach mend. Streamer fishing produces some good fish up here with a Sparkle Minnow or Dungeon being 2 that swim really well as you strip them off the banks.
I can remember in 2009 I had back surgery and was out of commission for fishing for a while, and my first trip back to the water with my rod in hand was drifting Tenino to Bull Bend in August. Bruce Berry the Montana Fly Company Rep and a long time friend was in the boat chucking articulated streamers to the bank and landed a pretty massive brown trout, mid-day, bright sun and at a time I just would not have expected such a good fish to be be found.
Another more recent day, certainly post pandemic (who else measures time before 2020 and after 2020? It seems to be a timeline I use to remember life events all too often). Troy and me and our friend Book Shelf (aka Joe) were floating the upper river in my drift boat and Troy had just taken over the oars from me and I moved back to grab my rod. It was a summer of bad fires around Oregon and that evening we got a nice night with no smoke to be found. I was casting one of my most favorite dry flies, a purple comparadun to the grassy banks and landed a very chunky brown that came as an above average surprise to the area we were fishing. The Upper D is a good bet in August and September.

The Middle Deschutes is low and warm and I think it’s best to let it rest until it cools a little later this month or in September. If you do go, go at Dawn and wrap it up by noon, but check water temps because it is important.

Lakes

I was on East twice this week, Paulina twice this week and Hosmer mid-week and it was interesting what I saw and what I can share. Some good and some not good.

East Lake on Tuesday was actually quite good. Yesterday was really poor. There are barely any callibaetis hatches that I have seen, so the normal hatch of the 2nd brood has not started. Let me explain that a little. The callibaetis that hatch early in the season are the 1st brood. Those nymphs are ones that spent the winter under the ice cover, and when they begin hatching in the spring they are the most robust of the 2 broods, due to the extra time spent as a nymph it has more time to grow. Biologically, it might need to be bigger to survive all of that. But the spring hatch of callibaetis lay eggs that incubate to mature nymphs pretty quickly. The 2nd brood are callibaetis from the hatch earlier this year. They are smaller and often way more abundant. My guess on the latter is because of the easier life they would have as a nymph in summer conditions and not having to endure time under months of ice cover.
Usually August is one of my favorite months to fish East Lake, partly because of the 2nd brood of mayflies, and also excellent chironomid action and terrestrial fishing.
This week Phil from the shop fished on Monday morning, and reported to me a strong caddis hatch near the East Lake campground. I went there Tuesday morning and it was indeed awesome. These caddis trend toward a charcoal color, especially the wing. They are commonly called Longhorn Caddis and are recognized by their long antennae. They are common hatchers on most of our lakes in the summer, and from time to time they become a very good food source. My good freind Jesse uses a caddis pupa on lakes much more often than most of us would remember to even try it. He’s smart. But this week the fish were up eating the emerging adults and fishing was good using small dry flies in a #16 to imitate the emergers. X Caddis and CDC Emergers were successful for us. Phil from the shop also did well stripping callibaetis nymphs on his hover line over the weed beds.
I did not have success on the damsels despite seeing fish actively taking the adults hovering the surface.
Beetles were our best dry fly the rest of the time, BUT the areas the beetles are most productive are shallow areas near rocky shorelines. In the heat of summer those areas of the lake are the 1st places to warm past the threshold of responsible and safe fishing. Shallow water warms fast, and add the heat from the rocks baking in a relentless August sun and our favorite bank water quickly becomes unfishable.
68* is likely lethal, so when it hits 67* I am looking for deeper waters to nymph. At 30 feet in East Lake this week it was 62*. When the wind blew across the lake most of the lake ran 66* or under.
Last year in August the deep dangle method was on fire, so far this year I can say it is fair but not crazy good like it was last season on these same weeks. The fly that has been the best is a #12 Chartreuse Ice Cream Cone with a Red Butt and a Silver Rib. I am tying it on the Talon Chironomid Hook that is silver. It is a pattern Phil Rowley showed me last year when he fished with me on East Lake in June. A few fish have reached the net with the Blob in their lip, but the Ice Cream Cone has been best.
Let’s all keep fishing here but also be cool about watching out for the health of the fish. Alternate methods, fish deep or only stay until lunch time and call it a day when water temps rise above 66 or 67* if you can’t fish effectively in 30 to 35 feet of water.

Paulina Lake was more of a highlight, with grasshoppers and beetles working particularly well this week. The other encouraging thing was how many larger fish we found this week. If you’ve been fishing Paulina these last few summers you know ODFW stocks a lot of 9 to 10″ rainbows and they can be hard to weed through to find some bigger trout in June and July due to the abundance of them. Well, this week Tom caught some real beauties.
We did a little leech under the indicator fishing and had some success there too.
Nymphing with Chrironomids, Dark Assassins, Red PT Jig, Red 2 Bit Hooker, Balanced Leeches (Brown/Orange, Vampire and Watermelon) either on a midge tip line or with a bobber will be good for sure.
I usually use a pink hopper here, but this week I used a yellow one. Not because the pink wasn’t working but just because I wanted to play with something new.
Some areas of the lake got 68 and above this week, and other areas stayed at 66 or below. Bring your thermometer and be good to the fish. Also, this is a good time to say don’t take the fish out of the water for photos and if you can keep them in the net and wet to unhook them that is best. Then make sure they get some rest before the release and they will be there for us next month too.

Hosmer Lake is an interesting discussion. First of all, there is no area of the lake other than the upper lake near the islands with safe water temps that I found. In the morning a little bit of the channel up high near the outflow of the upper lake had temps that were safe, but there were not many fish there.
In the upper lake there are a lot of fish stacked up and this leaves the question as to the ethics of fishing for fish that are taking refuge in the only spot where it is safe for them now…
What do you think?
I can tell you we fished there, and had a tough day anyway. Hal and Chris caught some, and we found stripping a damsel or leech on a Hover line was about all they would eat. They chased a Platinum Soccer Mom around but didn’t want to bite it like an Olive one with a chartreuse bead.
The other thing that was a bummer with the lake is how low it is and how much grass and weed and algae clumps are floating in big mats over the lake. This may be an absolute blessing for the fish to protect them from aerial attacks, and certainly it was thick enough to make us fish in areas where it wasn’t so thick. I have never seen Hosmer like that to this degree. And the entire bottom of the upper lake is covered in a mat of green weeds, where so much of it before looked like a bonefish flat with a light sand bottom. Still lots of fish! Fall at Hosmer is going to be great, for me though I am not going back until Fall Weather shows up.

Three Creeks Lake is getting pretty warm, which seems crazy for a little mountain lake tucked in just shy of 6500 feet! But it is… morning fishing conditions are good to go, with balanced leeches and callibaetis cate nymphs and ice cream cones (black with red rib and red with silver rib). Beetles, Red Hippie Stompers and Ants are the top dry flies with some callibaetis, black caddis and midges hatching too, but later when the water temps are higher so it might be a time when we ought to be resting the fish.
Damsels, Scuds, Sheep Creek Specials, Birds Nest and Flashback PT are some great nymphs to kick/troll on an intermediate line.
Get there early and enjoy it until lunch time and see after that how the water is and decide how long you can stay.

I think there is just no way to fish safely on Little Lava, Lava, South Twin and really most of Crane Prairie other than right at the mouth of Quinn or Cultus or Deschutes. Those are little areas that don’t give a lot of room if other anglers get there first. In a couple of weeks I hope the story is a lot different.

Shop

We have some incredible deals on T&T rods at 40% off this week, from mid priced Zone’s to high end fresh and salt models come get your self a great deal on a super fine fly rod.

Travel

I need 3 more people for December 5-12 in Patagonia, and 2 more in January 16-23.
January 9-16 is all open with room for 7 + me.
$5500 is the greatest deal in fly fishing travel to Patagonia by a good 30% less. My trips with Southern Loops Fly Fishing in San Martin de Los Andes are truly superb fly fishing travel experiences.

I started writing this last night, and got too tired after guiding all day. Then got up early and got a bunch done, went to the shop early for a meeting with the Sage rep, then another meeting with the Umpqua rep, then on the phone with the simms rep writing the 2027 spring and summer orders. Now, I’m watching the Mariners play the Rays and putting the finishing touches on the report.
It was super good to be in the shop and get to see some special people like Eric and Clell. I m really going to try to be in the shop more next spring and summer and guide less. I need that balance and guiding 4 or 5 days a week is not something my body and brain can continue doing next season. I have a lot more trips to fulfill this season and then I look forward to my trips to Patagonia and seeing all my special friends in Argentina and Chile.
I am committed to my business for several more years and hope to tell you more exciting news in about a month.
Until then, love the trout and be good to them as you are to yourself.
I appreciate so many people who I know read this report on a regular basis and who support the shop so fully.

All the best!

Jeff