The Caddis Fly: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

Early season March Brown adult insects are bigger than the ones that hatch into April. Even guys over 95 can spot the big dark sailboats on the flat matte glarey surface of the Mckenzie in March.

Go with size #12’s early and move to #14’s for the later part of the hatch, or when you get […]

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In a perfect world, we’d recommend trout fishing on Saturday and trying your hand on steelhead on Sunday. Here’s why:
Rain is forecast and our coastal rivers are expected to rise fairly quickly presenting challenges for steelhead anglers of all stripes on Saturday. The Siuslaw is projected to crest at approximately 7.28 feet on Saturday afternoon. […]

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The Oregon Council of Federation of Flyfishers is hosting it’s 2008 Northwest Fly Tyer & Fly Fishing Expo March 7-8 in Albany, Oregon. That’s a Friday and Saturday — it’s hard blowing a sick day and not actually fishing, but we’ll be there.
Trout Unlimited Chapter 678 had a booth at the event last year and […]

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The Snake River was once the most prolific producer of spring/summer chinook in the Columbia basin averaging 1.5 million of those fish per year.  In addition to spring/ summer chinook the basin supported fall chinook, coho, steelhead and a strong sockeye run.  Snake River coho are extinct, four sockeye returned last year to Redfish Lake and native […]

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Once again the “lowly glowly” (lead eyed egg) coupled with a “Thingamabobber” does it’s damage to wild winter run steelhead. Low water makes these fish a bit vulnerable to the angler willing to search out a lesser known steelhead run. The good thing about the fish we caught and spotted was they were not on […]

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The North Umpqua is staged for a tremendous winter run for wild steelhead. Water conditions are less than ideal being high and cold. Numbers are great over Winchester Dam. As weather warms and fish move out of the lower river the fly only section should offer incredible fishing in March.

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Hatch Note and Conditions:  I observed a decent hatch of #14-#16 Blue Wing Olives coming off but didn’t see any fish moving to take them.  I also noted some midges but no March Browns.   Size 10 Golden Stone Nymphs and Size 12 Possie Buggers were both effective.  The river was at an excellent level for […]

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Last week Chris Daughters tackled a large stretch of the McKenzie River, drifting all the way from Leaburg to Armitage — a long drift, not a lot of fishing. Local fly tying guru and guide Barrett did catch a 9lb steelhead and a few nice trout. They didn’t spot any March Browns, but a few […]

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A growing Walleye population could spell trouble for salmon, trout and steelhead in the Upper Willamette River. Walleye, invasive predators from the Midwest, have been found as far upriver as Lookout Reservoir.
Biologists say it is improbable that the fish moved upstream from past the Dexter and Lookout Dams, but instead were likely introduced by local […]

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Just a little disclaimer on our Oregon Coastal Stream reports: These waters aren’t big enough for publicized fishing pressure, so they will remain anonymous. Just assume that conditions and stories will be similar wherever your secret coastal stream may be.

The wild steelhead are in the streams. We managed to have a really good day last […]

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