The Metolius is a river I really love to see come more alive in August. There are so many hatches that increase in importance, or intensity this month and it is just getting started.
For mayflies, PMD #16 and BWO #20-22 are the main 2 to focus on. Soon we will see afternoon hatches of Ameletus mayflies. Usually this #14 robust olive mayfly hatches below the canyon and down towards the hatches and bridge 99. An Olive Haze or Flav or Larger Purple Comparadun are the flies I prefer to match it with. On the PMD and BWO film critics, captive duns, KD duns, sparkle duns, comparaduns and make sure to have rusty spinners in #16-18 and 20 for dusky times.
So far the massive hatch of tan micro caddis has not begun, but #18-20 tan caddis are coming soon and you need the flies to be ready for that. #16 tan caddis are abundant and will continue to be. Olive #16, Grey #14 will play nicely too.
For stoneflies there are a lot of golden stones #8-12, some yellow sally’s #16, olive stones #16-18, a few salmonflies #4-6 and some other weird stones around. A friend (colin) of mine said he did well on a Chubby the other day. That’s not a pattern I usually choose for the Met, but hey. I love a Clarks Stone and a Norm Woods Special for a thinner profile and natural look.
My friend Jesse ran into a tremendous midge hatch that had the fish up and feeding the other day.
I say this as it is a little rare for some of these hatches to occur day after day, while other hatches we count on all season long. But, there is nothing worse that being on the river and say a massive midge hatch comes off and you don’t have the fly to match it.
There’s a method to the madness of a fly collection, and thinking about entomology cycles on each river (or lake) you fish and having the “forget me nots” also tucked in the box for those weird moments will make you happy when you can conquer it.
A ton of good nymph action too. I know Sequoia has been doing well on a Yellow Jig Napoleon perdigon, and Golden Stone Nymphs with rubber legs. And we all love the 2 Bits, 20 Incher Jig, TJ Hooker, Caddis Pupa and Soft Hackle PT with a bead and w/o a bead to fish in different ways. A yellow soft hackle is a good fly too, without a bead on it it can be greased to float as an emerger or let if get damp and swing it under the surface….or fish it as a dropper in the tag position with a heavier nymph as the point.
Bull Trout fishing is quite good. That (damn kid) Mattias went out middle of the day a few days ago and told me he was going to catch one. I think he was showing off for his lady, but he sure did catch one. A nice one. Well shoot, they are all nice.