The Metolius River is full of kokanee so eggs are a very good nymph to be using, along with caddis pupa, soft hackle PT’s, TJ Hooker, 20 incher, walt’s worms and many colors of perdigons. Nymph fishing has been the best, but many days there have been good hatches and decent to very good dry fly opportunities too.
Flav’s and Drakes are not quite done but this may be the last good week to use them until next year. When the hatch is good you can expect to see fish eating emergers and duns. Fall drakes see good spinner falls in the morning so look for that between 8 and 10 AM.
PMD’s are one of the best mayfly emergences now, along with Blue Wing Olives and Mahogany Duns. October and November (and sometimes into December if the weather is not too cold) Cinygmula mayflies are added to the mix. I have also seen PMD’s on the Met in early December. That is highly unique and as we all know, the Metolius is a highly unique place.
Plenty of caddis around. The 3 to really pay attention to mostly will be #18 dark grey caddis, #14-16 tan caddis and #8 orange october caddis. Fish the adults during the hatch, or as a searching fly, and fish the pupa pretty much any time you want.
Today I imagine the stoneflies are hunkered down, but later this week high 70’s and maybe even low 80’s return and the goldens and little olive stones will be active again. Clarks Stone, Norm Woods Special and Hemingway’s. We also have a sweet little olive parachute caddis #18 that is killer because it can be accepted as a little olive stone, or it’s dark enough to match those little charcoal caddis I mentioned already.
With all the kokanee in the river, the Bull Trout action is quite good. Best of the year? Probably.