On Thursday 5 of us arrived in the late afternoon & got camp set up. Only one of us fished but no fish were brought to hand.

Friday morning dawned clear and crisp. The morning temps were in the mid 40’s. The local wildlife showed up every morning to keep us company while we had our coffee.

Temps rose into the low 80’s in the afternoon and it was a great day to be on the water. The Metolius maintained its reputation as a tough river; fishing was good for some and not as good for others. The famed Green Drake hatch was light and finding the right fly was the key, but as I discovered having fish rise & refuse your fly can be a lot of fun too. In the early evening we had a delicious steak dinner provided by Ken. We couldn’t have a fire so we set a red lantern in the fire pit that provided surprisingly good ambiance.

Saturday as another very nice day; crisp in the morning and warm in the afternoon. In mid morning Ken cooked up some of this wife’s fabulous egg rolls. Today most of us got into fish, plus we had a few “bull trout encounters.” Chris got a couple 18″ bulls nymph fishing, Rich had a big one follow his streamer to the bank plus two other anglers in our group had big bull trout attack a hooked trout as they played it! Today the fire ban was lifted so we gathered up a little of the very plentiful wood laying around and enjoyed burgers by the fire while telling fishing stories.

Sunday the weather changed. Clouds rolled in plus there were a couple very short rain showers and wind gusts; a good day to head home. Our best flies this trip were smaller Green Drakes (12-14), Parachute Adams and dark olive X-Caddis. 6x was the best tippet size. Nymph fishing for whitefish with any small buggy nymph worked.

Thanks to everyone that attended and brought food to share, and a special thank you to Ken for bringing a lot of good food to share with everyone. It was another great Fish A Long!