I had a good response too about my brown trout opinions, and I am going to start our Metolius River report by promising a story at the end about Atlantic Salmon in the Metolius and what a wild thing that was. Stay tuned.
Right now the Metolius is excellent fishing. Chester wrote me Thursday after a great dry fly session on the upper river where he fished 4 mayfly hatches and some caddis and put some nice fish in the net, all on dries. And some nice browns too. I know you can easily guess 2 of the 4 mayflies you’ll see this week. PMD’s #16 and Blue Wing Olives #18-20, but the other 2 seem to be overlooked, and they are important. Mahogany Duns #16 are a fall hatch on all the Central Oregon rivers, and on the Metolius I sure love seeing a trout tip his nose up on a Quill Gordon or Upright Rusty Spinner (don’t let that fly name throw you off, yes it is a rusty “spinner” that has not become spent, but it is also a great fly to fish when paraleptophlebia (sp.) aka Mahogany Duns are on the menu. A Purple or Grey Comparadun is also an excellent fly during this cycle. Mahogany Duns are from the crawler nymph family which puts them in the same family as PMD and Green Drakes and Flav’s. The other fly is one we talk about in the spring and again in the fall is a cinygmula (sp.) which in the Metolius are a yellow, 2 tailed #14-16 mayfly that often show strong hatch cycles in October and early to Mid-November, and then trickle in to early December before petering out until Spring Break time. These mayflies are clinger nymphs and are related to March Browns and Pale Evening Duns. They are yellow bodies with 2 tails and that tail identification is one of the ways we as anglers can tell the difference between these and a PMD stream side. PMD’s have 3 tails, cinygmula have 2. The good news for you is a #16 Yellow Mayfly matches both and you don’t need to count tails, just observe (or guess) that is what the fish is eating and tie it on your 12′ Trout Hunter Finesse Leader with 2 more feet of 6x tippet and get after it.
Plenty of caddis out and about and the fishing with Pupa almost any time of the day has been good to very good. Tan #14-16 pupa and Orange #8-12 are the best, but add some #16 olive in there.
My “Chief of Security” Eric was visiting with me yesterday and was raving about a Corn Fed Caddis and how much the fish wanted to eat that during a good caddis hatch a few days ago. X Caddis, CDC Caddis, Edible Emergers and Missing Link Caddis are a few others that come to mind for October days on the Met.
Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs. Eggs.
Golden Stonefly Nymphs, Perdigons, Frenchies, Walts Worms, Soft Hackle PT, 2 Bit’s, Zebra Midges need to be in the daily selection from now until you’re too old to fish anymore. WINK! Seriously, these are staple Metolius nymphs and fish these well and you’re going to have good days out there.
Bull Trout fishing is quite good on big streamers and also on smaller Jig Streamers. A lot of good fish being caught now and with cooler, gray days the bite extends to being more realistic to target Bulls mid-day instead at low light periods. We’ve got some really great streamers including some custom tied long articulated stuff the fish like to eat.