Water temperatures on the Mckenzie are edging up. I fished Friday and Saturday and had a thermometer in the water start to finish. Around 9am water temps were 45 degrees and by 5pm we had 49.6 in some areas. Lower in the river near Armitage temps were over 50 degrees. In close to shore temperatures were higher and bug life was abundant. Numerous cased caddis were crawling around many of them close to full maturity. Willow bushes had good numbers (in spots) of Salmon flies and some Golden Stone fly exoskeletons indicating they had recently crawled out and emerged. I found this giant under a near shore stone.
Although we have had nice weather and warming water hatches have been sporatic at best. The past couple of days we had few shots at consistently rising fish. When they were rising, they were catchable with CDC Green Mckenzie Caddis #10, Barretts Emerging Peacock Caddis #16 and Hackle Stacker flag duns #14-16. When they were not rising, which was the majority of the last two days for me, they did eat March Brown Emergers #12-14, Possie Buggers #10-14, and other traditional wets fished swung down and across.
Things to look for in the coming week are, increased numbers of big green caddis, more stonefly activity both little yellow stones and larger golden stones, as well as smaller lighter mayflies including Pale Morning Duns.
