Wowza I am busy, which is why I am writing the report at 8 PM on a Saturday. Guide trips are rolling, I am trying to get moved in to the new house and getting it ready for paint both inside and out, it’s preseason order writing time and I have friends from Australia and Idaho coming to visit this week.
From Australia Tom Jarman and his wife Greta are arriving to Oregon. I met Tom when he was my guide in Tasmania in 2018, and some of you met him here in Oregon that same summer when he came to stay with us for a couple of months. Tom is one of the best anglers I know and is in the USA after competing in the World Fly Fishing Championship which was held in the Yellowstone area this year. Tom was a fierce competitor as always, but I should mention it was Michael Bradley of the USA who won the individual title, and Team USA won! A 1st for the USA.
I hope to get to fish together this week with Tom and Greta, but I am for sure looking forward our dinner date tomorrow night and to catch up and here how his comp was, how life is in Australia and to meet Greta for the first time.

The Metolius has been pretty darn good this week again, and I expect it to be the same for the weeks ahead. A lot of Kokanee have shown up to spawn (please don’t fish for them) so that adds a lot of protein to the diet for rainbows, browns, bulls and whitefish. Eggs mostly, but Mattias landed a bull trout this week that coughed up 3 kokanee and still ate his big streamer.
Drakes and Flavs remain a force in the afternoon. Look for spinners on warm mornings now.
PMD’s and BWO’s are strong, and could hatch late morning, afternoon or even early evening. Add some afternoon mahogany duns to the mix in a #16 Quill Gordon, Upright Rusty or Purple Comparaduns #16. Someone was in the shop talking about a good old Adams too. It can be a forgotten fly and in size 10 to 18 can match a lot of mayflies.
Caddis have been excellent too, from nymph/pupa patterns to emerging pupa at the surface, adults and even egg layers. Tan #16, Grey #14-16, Orange #6-8 and still a few Micro Caddis #18-20 around too.
Stoneflies are also rolling, with little olive stones #16-18 and golden stones #8-12 being the best and most common now. Could be some cascade stones #6 around in pockets of the river too.
There is just a good mix of many technical ways to fly fish on this magnificent river now. Euro, dry fly, streamer, indicator.
Bull trout action is going really well so it can be worth it to focus on that alone, or carry an 8 weight along with your lighter trout rod too.

The Lower Deschutes was good for a lot of the FFP guides last week. Mattias and Chris from the shop had a bang up day down there from WS to TC and we had a lot of good guides days this week there. It’s mostly on nymphs and small streamers and leeches during the day. In the evening there are a number of caddis hatches and the fish are eating on the surface really well. Try a fin fetcher, iris or X caddis when the fish are on the dry fly. And a purple haze is a great dry fly and can be good to just to search the eddies and shallow riffles with all throughout the day.
And if you are missing the swing, and the take of a fish on a tight line, try your trout spey and sowing a sculpzilla or a leech or a soft hackle. It’s a blast and you know the feeling of a swinging fly being taken! That tightening of the line is pretty awesome.

The Crooked River is down to 99 cfs today. I doubt that is the basement… 99 is a nice flow to fish and wade. We are seeing a lot of afternoon PMD and BWO hatches and good dry fly action mid day. Nymphing is terrific with 2 bits, micro mayfly, split case PMD, brown or olive perdigons, fire starters, eggs, Spanish bullet, scuds and Ray Charles.
On the top the extended body cut wing PMD and the BDE dun are 2 we always love on the Crooked, along with sparkle duns, comparaduns, film critics and winger emergers..

The Fall River is fishing very well, and like the Metolius a good mix of techniques from Euro, dry fly, streamers and indicator applications all working throughout the day. I love the Fall River from now until well into November.
PMD’s are still a force, but BWO’s are more likely to be the dominate hatch now. Midges #20-24 and a mix of caddis including #16 olive, #16 tan and #12-14 amber. I always recommend the orange missing link caddis and the Silvey’s edible emerger for good caddis to use on the Fall this time of year.
Small euro jig streamers, balanced minnows and balances leeches are killing it.
With your nymphs you want to get down and stay there. Sometimes around the ledges a single nymph on a light leader will sink and stay tight to the drift better than a dual fly set up. Perdigons, fire starter, scud, zebra midge, Ray Charles, walt’s worm and some larger nymphs like a baby got bead or TJ Hooker or 20 Incher.

Thank you for those of you who wrote me to correct my mistake on the Upper Deschutes. Please refer to the ODFW regs, but just to clarify I said the section from Sheeps Bridge to the Dam at Crane Prairie was closed, but it is open until Sept 30th. Sorry for the mistake.
This is the final few days to get up and fish the upper river until May 22nd. There’s some good water up there and it looks like a really nice week to be on the upper river. I would choose the section from Crane Prairie up to Little Lava. Hit is with a dry/dropper, euro nymph, swing or strip small streamers, find a hatch or fish a terrestrial.
Drifting is still possible at 900 cfs from the dam, and LaPine State Park to Big Bend CG is a good one. Watch the levels though, if it drops more getting over some of the shallow bars can be tough to get a drift boat over. Wickiup is at 14% (!) and that is so low I imagine they are going to shut off irrigation season any day now.

The Middle Deschutes from Bend to Lake Billy Chinook is very nice to hit now. Flows will bump a bit when they do turn off the irrigation canals.
Purple Haze, Yellow Sparkle Duns and X Caddis are great dries, Soft Hackle PT Jig, Brown Perdigons, Spanish Bullet, Split Case PMD, Walt’s and Caddis Pupa. Don’t hesitate to get some streamers stripped or drifted in the right pockets and runs.

The McKenzie is fishing well for us, and flows are low but good enough to keep on floatin’! I can’t believe it, I was really down at the beginning of the season thinking we’d be unable to fish the McKenzie after early august. But here we are and thanks to the super talented guides at FFP who know the way to do it. They’ve been doing well on a Chubby with a perdigon dropper, and leeches and slum lords.
Golden Stone nymphs, girdle bugs, king prince and possie buggers are good nymphs, sculpins and leeches for streamers.

LAKES REPORT

I hope none of you were crazy enough to be on the lakes Friday. That was one heck of a windy day and the white caps would have driven me off for sure. In fact, I postponed fridays trip with Scott and Tom and will take them monday now.

I had a lot of good days on the lakes this week. I’ll share more below.

Hosmer Lake was kind of my highlight this week. Skip and John in the boat and we had ourselves a day! Red PT Jig under a NZ Wool indicator was on fire at times, and just consistent all day.
There was a callibaetis hatch in the upper lake near lunch time, but the floating grasses made it really hard to fish up there, so we stuck to the channel.
Also in the channel we saw some heavy, splashy rises and no real hatch to see. My mind went to water boatman and I tied one on for John and BOOM. Add some floating boatman to the box on the lakes for fall.
The lower lake is in fine condition now and fishing well.

Paulina Lake was good this week, and one thing every lake angler and every lake guide needs to be is patient. And to not assume today is going to be just the same cycles and rhythms as the last trip. Thursday took a while to wake up but after lunch we got a lot of fish on beetles. A few good takes on a hopper, but none to the net on the hopper.
Some chironomid action thursday, but really good eats on a chironomid at 16-18′ under an indicator earlier in the week.
Balanced leeches and callibaetis cate, red jig PT, red 2 bit and scuds are good nymphs you should probe the ledges with.

East Lake callibaetis hatches are slowing down but still going well enough on the white slide to be a planned trip for this week.
Beetles are strong contenders too.
Balanced leeches, chironomids, CB Cate under the bobber at 14 to 18′ will find fish.
Boat launching is no picnic, but getting a drift boat in on the steeper ramp at Hot Springs is ok, pontoons at the EL CG are fine. Or walk the edges and forget the boat.
Kokanee are un full spawn mode. Stripping big streamers in the early morning light could result in a very large brownie.

Little Lava was still green this week, but more clear than last week. I was with Milt and Ilene Tuesday and we had a lot of good fishing after lunch on a Red Hippie Stomper and a dropper of a Red PT Jig.
There was a really good callibaetis hatch, but again no fish rose to them at all.
In the morning we used a balanced leech under the indi, and wind drifted a leech and diawl bach nymph on an intermediate line and it worked well. Milt got in to 2 really large, healthy wild crane bows in the afternoon on the red PT. Fun!

Three Creek Lake is fishing well. Callibaetis in all stages, but smaller than the summer hatch, so go #18 and you’ll have better results.
beetles, ants, hippie stompers on top.
Leeches and chironomids under the indicator.

On November 1st we will run our Fall Special on Guide Trips again. $500 float trips and $400 walk and wade trips for the whole month. 
Hit us up for a later season trip and enjoy another day or 2 out there with this exceptional guide team.

TRAVEL

2 spots open to join us in Argentina January 9-16! Come on…. I know you want to do it.

Belize May 1-7 is about half full. Be a part of the other half.

OK, it is time for bed. I have a guide trip tomorrow morning and for the next few days and need to be ready to go.
Be well, thanks for everything including just being a fly angler which makes you a good person in my book. I appreciate you all very much.

Bugs