The guy at Camp Sherman Fly Shop summed up the Metolius River perfectly; it’s the prettiest river in Oregon but also the hardest to fish. The water is super clear and the trout are educated and picky! We all got fish, but had to work hard for every one.
Special thanks to Josh Linn for his presentation on fishing the Metolius before our trip. His info was spot on!
Green Drake dries and Euro Nymphing tactics produced the best. Rich even had a big bull trout rise from the depths of a big pool to grab a rainbow he was fighting. It was a sight!
The water temperature averaged 46 degrees. Thick winter socks under your waders made long wading sessions confortable.
Five of us camped at the Lower Bridge Campground. On Friday we enjoyed a fun dinner at the Three Creeks Brewery after hitting The Fly Fishers Place for the hot fly patterns.
Overall we had good weather but mornings & evenings were chilly. Fortunately we had plenty of firewood and good times were had by all.
In spite of another hot, extra dry summer August was a good month to get out on the water. As always, pictures first with the reports below.
From Tim McSweeney: Sorry I’ve been so MIA this summer, been fishing a lot! Excited for the next meeting to catch up and swap summertime fish tales. Spent the last week fishing for bull trout on the Metolius and caught a whole bunch of angry fish.
From Matt Isham: McKenzie was straight up good trout fishing! Chernobyl and dropper or skating a dry fly produced action.
From Chris Brehm: Got out for a few Tuna trips plus a limit of Salmon at Buoy 10.
From Greg O’Brien: Brother visited and I took him out on the Willamette for bass on the fly. We got a few; always fun and close to home.
From Jim Behrend: Went to North Santiam once which was not rewarding, and to the Wilson a week ago. It was low and fishing was not great. Hopefully rain will help.
From Dave Kilhefner: Went out on the ocean out of Depoe Bay with Joe Warren. We had good fishing for Rockfish and Tuna plus landed a couple silver salmon. Double limits of crab was a great bonus too!
An ocean caught silver taken on a sand lance streamer.
Summer is winding down and my favorite fishing season, fall, is almost here. It’s the best time of year to be on the water and CFF has some great Fish A Longs lined up the next three months.
Our September 19th meeting is at High Rocks. I’m hoping to have Josh Linn do a presentation angled towards fly fishing the Metolius River. Social hour starts at 6pm and the program at 7pm.
The September 23rd Fish A Long will be held on the Metolius River. Several of us are planning to go a few days early and camp out.
For several years now we have been posting monthly fishing reports. Looking back on them is a fun way to get ideas for local fly fishing opportunities currently happening or coming up. Type “September” or “October” in the Clackamas Fly Fishers website search box you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
Harriet Lake was freshly stocked and the fishing was on fire! As you’d suspect most of the fish were in the 10-13” range but a few 15 to 18” trout were landed. The hot techniques were trolling small dark leeches on an intermediate line or the lake standby, suspending Chironomids (or small nymphs) under an indicator.
We chose Harriet as the water stays cool thru the summer. This weekend is was 48 in the morning and got up to 52 in the afternoon. Also, the water is extremely clear and will all the trout swimming around it was like fishing in an aquarium. We had a good turnout with 8 club members fishing on Saturday.
Five of us camped out at Shellrock Creek campground, a semi primitive first come campground about ten minutes from Harriet. We were blessed with perfect weather and good times we’re had by all. Thanks to everyone for coming!
Every year it seems like summer will never get here but once it does it starts flying by! I find myself scrambling to squeeze in all the things I wanted to do once the weather gets nice. The picture above was taken last week from a Dory trip with Connect Outfitters. George & I got our limit of Black Rockfish before 8am then spent the rest of the day chasing silver salmon. We hooked about a half dozen, most of which we lost. It was a great day on the ocean.
Our July 18th meeting is at High Rocks. I don’t have a speaker lined up yet but will let you know when I do. Social hour starts at 6pm and the program at 7pm.
The July 22nd Fish A Long was scheduled to be at the north arm of Timothy Lake. However, hot weather and warm water have put the damper on this fishery so we will go to Harriet Lake instead.
For several years now we have been posting monthly fishing reports. Looking back on them is a fun way to get ideas for local fly fishing opportunities currently happening or coming up. Type “July” or “August” and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
Every year it seems like summer will never get here but once it does it starts flying by! Then I find myself scrambling to squeeze in all the things I wanted to do once the weather gets nice.
We don’t have a speaker for the June 20th meeting and instead will have a swap meet. I’ve got quite a bit of stuff that has been donated, mostly fly tying materials, books and other odd & ends too.
We have a GREAT Fish A Long lined up this month. Chris B has generously offered to host a multi day fish a long at his place between Sunriver and LaPine. I will get an email out with the details; heres a link to last years report: https://clackamasflyfishers.org/2022/07/27/july-2022-fish-a-long-report/
For several years now we have been posting monthly fishing reports. Looking back on them is a fun way to get ideas for local fly fishing opportunities currently happening or coming up. Type “June” or “July” and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
This months Fish A Long was about more than fly fishing. Besides catching fish in a beautiful coastal forest setting, we had a steak lunch, camp fires plus some very good weather.
Several of us decided to have a long weekend, starting off with a late lunch at Copper River in Hillsboro on Thursday before hitting Howell Ponds for Bluegill. We fished for a few hours then headed to Rainier Lakes, arriving about 8pm, pitched camp and started a fire.
On Friday we slept in then enjoyed coffee and conversation around camp. There didn’t seem to be any reason to rush as the early morning anglers were not catching anything, so we eased into the day and started fishing around 10:30 then quit for lunch at 2:30, all of us doing pretty good on Chironomids, both cast & slowly strip or dangled under an indicator. With the warmer weather many of the trout were six to eight feet down in the cooler, deeper water near the dike.
We made a run to Longview and had a late lunch at this great place called Porky’s then picked up a few supplies for our Saturday lunch at Fred Meyer.
On Saturday I went down the hill to open the gate, made coffee and waited for people to arrive from 7:45 to 8:30 while listening to an Audible book. It was a relaxing way to start the day.
With the warm weather all week the bite was a little slow but everyone got fish.
The best flies were Red V-Rib Chironomids, Brown Snow Cone Chironomid and an Olive Chironomid w/red tail, all around size 12-14.
Our steak lunch was a big hit and we had a perfect day for it. Afterwords several of us had a strong case of food coma. This lead to the invention of a new effective technique; dock nymphing. This is nothing more than being too lazy to put back on your waders and fins to float tube, so you sit on the dock, soak an indicator rig close by and tell jokes & lies until a cooperative fish comes along. It’s surprisingly effective!
The weather turned cooler on Saturday evening. Sunday dawned cool & cloudy. We each caught a few in the morning before packing up and heading home.
Thanks to everyone for coming and making this months Fish A Long a success!
For the most part April continued to be unseasonably cool but good times were had and nice fish were caught! Pictures first with the reports below.
From Dave Kilhefner: finally caught a winter steelhead on the Sandy!
From Chris Brehm: hit Lake Billy Chinook for bull trout with my brother Stevie.
From Rich Harvey: had a very nice day on the Deschutes at Maupin in early April. Found this really cool old CFF hat at Northwest Fly Fishing Outfitters. The OFC lakes are really picking up with the warm weather; Dave Hopkins and I did really well on our first trip to Turner Lake throwing streamers. Later in the month we went back and they were taking a red chronimids about 3’ deep in 5-6 ‘ of water.
From Darryl Huff: got my granddaughters out fishing at Commonwealth Pond by Beaverton.
From Matt Baker: Got out the west fork of Dairy creek, Williams creek and some other creek. We had a number of strikes on all three creeks and were able to land a few using elk hair caddis and blue wing olives. Be prepared for LOTS of stinging nettles. Here is my friend Ben on the un-named creek with a fish and another with him walking along Williams creek.
From Ian Porteous: Carp season is on. It’s seriously fun fishing, I’m hooked!
My apologies for the late presidents message. April went by so fast that its hard to believe May is here. Just like last year, crazy weather unsettled the local lakes and melting snow has the rivers flowing high. Still, there is good fishing around, but you have to be flexible, do a little research plus pay attention to the river gauges & weather reports.
Our speaker for our May 16th meeting will be Micole Jensen. His website is www.kayakflyangler.com and thus he’ll be talking about Kayak Fly Fishing. Also, he has some new cool kayaks to talk about and I’m looking forward to his presentation and hope to see you there.
Our May 20th Fish A Long will be at the Rainier Lakes, an Oregon Fishing Club property out past Vernonia. Just like last month, several of us will be camping. It will be a good time!
As soon as the Deschutes drops a little it should be game on. The big bug action isn’t happening just yet but nymph fishing is always dependable this time of year. Lane fished Rocky Ridge Lakes recently and had a good day. Lake Billy Chinook is producing good to excellent action for bull trout; this is the first time I’ve reported that. The point is, everything is changing these days and it’s important to be on the lookout for new fly fishing opportunities. They are out there!
For several years now we have been posting monthly fishing reports. Looking back on them is a fun way to get ideas for local fly fishing opportunities currently happening or coming up. Type “May” or “June” and you’ll get all the past reports for that month.
Please remember our sponsors, they are the lifeblood of the club. Stop by their shops and let them know you appreciate their support. Better yet buy something or book a trip.
MB42MY Midge (Chironomus plumosus) emerging from pupa. Female imago of non-biting midge in the family Chironomidae
Our fish a longs are starting to morph into some first rate guys weekends! Rich came up with idea to head out Friday & camp at the lake. But first we’d stop at the newly opened Smokehouse Chicken & Guns in Gales Creek before hitting Howell Pond (we didn’t want to soremouth the fish in Schmedeke before the fish a long). It was a great place to fuel up before fishing.
Fishing at Howell Pond wasn’t hot but we all got some nice fish up to 19 inches. Rich stuck to throwing small “no see um” dries to match a hatch of small dark midges while Dave & I got our fish on leeches.
After fishing we had good burgers at the Gales Creek Tavern before driving to Schmedeke Pond to camp for the night.
Saturday dawned a little misty with drizzle off and on thru the morning.
Woke at 7am with a call from Chris B who got to the lake early. His extra effort paid off with a 27 inch piggy rainbow that took a brown balanced leech in the morning.
The afternoon weather was very pleasant with little or no wind and the perfect amount of cloud cover to keep the fish focused on the surface. The trout rose all day to larger sized “bomber” midges, but they were very picky! Rich solved the fly pattern riddle and got 18 fish on dries. A Midge Cripple was the best pattern with Griffitts Gnat a close second.
Midge pupa patterns fished close to the surface produced too but it was a grind. Most of the trout were good sized and we all agreed the effort was worth it.
Since the weather was nice Rich & I decided to stay one more night. The next day we ran into some locals that had the bomber hatch wired using a foam “suspended” midge pattern that hung vertically in the surface film. Those picky fish loved them.
This fish a long was very well attended. It was great to see everyone having a good time on the water. Thanks to everyone for coming!
