Caddis Fly Shop: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

This morning I got up early for a quick fish and floated the Mckenzie from Leaburg Dam to Greenwood for steelhead.  I’ve never run that section at these levels and a look at the dam got my attention:

Turns out it is even easier with lots of water. For the most part rocks aren’t an issue and higher water makes some marginal runs look really fishy.  No steelhead today but this bull trout was hunting:

I was really excited to finally get up close to one of these guys and it was totally unexpected! Other than that I caught a couple planters nothing exceptional. It didn’t matter . . . my day was already made.–KM

The lower Mckenzie River near Eugene continued to fish well today.  From put in to take out, roughly 9am-5pm the river dropped about 800cfs. The graph was heading straight down. NOAA river forecast has the river coming down to around 6000cfs by Saturday, still a big number but much better than the 8000-9000 we have had the past few days. Swung wet flies remained the best producers, although this afternoon a massive Pale Morning Dun hatch had fish up on the surface a bit. We caught several great fish today but the oversized cutthroat pictured below is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen on the lower Mckenzie.

This fish had a huge jaw, it is hard to see in the photo but he had a big golden stone nymph half way down his throat when we landed him. Best flies to have in the box right now include Sparkle Dun Pale Morning Dun #16, Possie Buggers #8-10, yellow and hare’s ears soft hackles #12-14, March Brown Wet #12-14, Green Mckenzie Caddis #8-10, Brown Elk Hair Caddis #12-14, and Outrigger Caddis #14.

More photos below including a terrible osprey wound in an 18 inch native Mckenzie Rainbow.CD

Despite continued high flows the Lower Mckenzie River has been fishing very well. I have floated the river the past couple of days and have seen some gorgeous large native rainbows. Green Caddis, Pale Morning Duns and a host of various caddis and mayfly species have been present. Dry fly fishing was good yesterday with Green Mckenzie Caddis size #10. With a bit of wet and unsettled weather today best luck was had on swung wets, possie buggers and hares ear soft hackles.

Huge snow pack and full reservoirs add up to high water. We are not going to see it come down anytime soon. Access is already tough on the Mckenzie without a boat, the high water makes it even tougher. This is the year to bargain for that floating craft, whatever it might be.

The fish on the lower river are in great shape. They have been eating well and are showing superb fitness in the big flows. Water temperatures have reached 50 degrees late in the day the past couple. CD

Sunday, I ran the lower Mckenzie from Bellinger to Armitage with lawyer extraordinaire Keith Semple. The fishing was solid and steady if unspectacular.  Most of the action seemed to come between Hayden and Armitage but that could have been because I finally stopped dragging my MOAL Leech around and started concentrating on the trout.  The mayflies were prolific, a few Mckenzie Greens showed but didn’t seem to get the fish moving. According to my new William Joseph boat thermometer the water temp mainly ranged between 49.3 and 49.7 degrees. The bugs and the fish seemed to like it when the water warmed just a bit. We caught a mix of cutts and rainbows as you would expect. The fish weren’t oversized but were healthy and feisty. Most of them looked like this, give or take a little:

Fish ate Light Cahill wets and the Mega-Prince but our most prolific producer was a March Brown wet #12.  Special thanks are owed to the gentlemen we saw winching a mini-fridge out of the river at Harvest Landing!

Don’t be shy, sign up for our big resident rainbow competition on the post about it below!–KM