For now, as we usually do let’s visit that lovely spring creek 15 miles to the NW of our fly shop. We love the Metolius and all of us at FFP fish it often throughout the year.
I think it’s safe to say you won’t see any fishable green drake hatches this week, but they will be back in September so put that on your calendar.
The Upper river from Gorge towards the headwaters is seeing an increase in Golden Stones and that means a Clarks Stone or Norm Woods Special are going to be your best bugs. Don’t hesitate to run a Pheasant Tail or Red Copper John (there are many other nymphs to drop too) off the back of the high floating stonefly dries. There are some tight casts to the banks and logs that will be better without a dropper nymph, so be prepared to cut it off for some of that juicy stuff you know holds a nice rainbow but you won’t catch if your dropper is snagged up.
PMD’s in a #16 (especially sparkle flag or sparkle dun and film critic), Beetles, Ants, Yellow Sally’s and Tan Caddis #16 are all important on the upper river and equally so all through the sections down to Candle Creek on the lower river areas.
The upper river also provides some wonderful euro nymphing runs, and a split case PMD, yellow napoleon, jig PT, fat caddis, spanish bullet and olive with orange hot spot perdigon are great choices.
Middle River action has been good with PMD, BWO, Tan Caddis, Rusty Spinners and keep an eye on midges and toss a Griffiths Gnat in the box to fool a tricky riser you’ve shown all of the previously mentioned flies too already. Also make sure to have a 16 & 18 purple comparadun. Hatches can see waves of any of these more than once in the day but afternoon and evening is the most likely saving the morning for more nymph fishing times. Or early morning at dawn for a bull trout streamer through a good pool. Ooh la la. And there are a lot of bulls in the river now.
Nymphs to have this week = tan or olive caddis pupa #16, brown, olive and purple perdigons, split case pmd, soft hackle PT, tungsten 20 incher, golden stones, 2 bit hooker, olive micro may and zebra midge.
Dries to have this week = PMD KD dun, PMD Sparkle Dun, PMD Film Critic, Rusty Spinner, BWO in all the same patterns and add the CDC Parachute #20 to that. Yellow Sally, Hemingway, Clarks Stone, Norm Woods. Purple Comparadun. Iris Caddis, Weiss caddis, Corn Fed. Parachute Adams. Beetle and Ant patterns.