Trying to learn new knots can be one of the most frustrating steps in an angler’s development. But there are definitely times that the right knot tied well can make the difference between a sweet shot of a huge fish or the dreaded long distance release. Even the most experienced fishers don’t know every knot or can use a refresher sometimes if they don’t use a certain knot much.
The animated knots site is a good resource for anglers of all ability levels. It gives step by step instructions on how to tie some of the most important knots out there. It isn’t the most glamorous aspect of fishing but ranks up there as one of the most important. The greatest fly rod and nicest line won’t be able to do their job without a few good knots!
Opening Day is still closed for most of the Cascade Lakes due to excessive snowpack. Only Wickiup and North and South Twin have open boat landings along with Odell. ODOT is shooting to have the remainder of the landings open by Memorial Day.
The Middle Deschutes is now open as well as the Lower Deschutes. Remember when floating the Deschutes, BLM requires all boats, private and guides, to have a throw bag on board. These are available at the Caddis Fly. The Upper Dechutes and all sections to reservoirs (Wickiup, Crane and Little Lava) are closed until May 24th. Look for abundant stonefly activity and a good hatch of March Browns.
Owyhee has slowed a bit but still nymphing well. Chironomids and BWO’s working well with a few callibaetis starting to surface.
Chickahominy continues to fish well using Chironomids, streamers and woolly buggers.
Fall River and Metolius’ banks are still high with snow but both rivers offer quality fishing as usual. Metolius has good BWO and Baetis hatches. Fall is also fishing well with light (white or tan) leeches.
The Caddis Fly can order quality women’s clothing and shoes for you from the following companies websites. Please generic cialis soft 20mg check out the websites and you will be amazed at the wide range of women’s clothes to choose from. You will need the size, item number and color choice when you call us to order for you along with a credit card number. Caddis Fly Angling Shop 541-342-7005. It couldn’t be easier!
These are the top-of-the-line companies that you are able to order from:
Mountain Khaki’s have skirts, pants, jeans, capri’s and shorts. The clothes run a trim fit so you may want to order up one size. www.mountainkhakis.com
Orvis has a wide line of women’s clothing and fishing gear. You can also order from any Orvis catalog you receive or through the website. Just let us know what you’d like, and the Caddis Fly will order it for you. www.orvis.com
Patagonia has a fun, young line of women’s dresses, skirts, shoes, capri’s, shirts, pants, rain coats, waders and vests. They run pretty true to size. www.patagonia.com
Simms now has some great new sizing for waders for women. We have a pair at the shop and think you will be very impressed at the look and the wide availability of sizes. We have worked very hard with Simms to come up with new sizing to fit more women. They are also carrying pants, shirts and a great new rainjacket for women. www.simmsfishing.com
Cloudveil is also offering women’s waders and apparel. www.cloudveil.com
Ex Officio is a company we all know when it comes to Buzz Off wear. To keep the mosquitos and no-see-ums at bay on your tropical or just buggy fishing expeditions, look into their line of clothing for women. Good assortment and fun colors in shirts, pants, shorts, jackets. www.exofficio.com
Dan Bailey’s is a Montana company you may have see catalogs for. They carry women’s waders and clothing and we can order anything listed in their catalog or online. www.danbailey.com
Women’s biggest complaint is there are not enough fishing clothes designed for women. You now have quite a wide selection to choose from and it’s easy! Try ordering from the Caddis Fly next time!
We took advantage of the sun yesterday and banged around on the Upper McKenzie River. It was the pellet head opener, but you wouldn’t have known it. The planters decided to wait for things to warm up, but we found some wild fish that were willing to mix it up. Mega Prince nymphs and golden stones pulled fish out of deep holes. Despite a blizzard caddis hatch, not much was working on top. Video montage below…
Looks like we are in for some much needed warmth this weekend. Anglers should expect more numerous caddis hatches and a diminished March Brown emergence. Look for larger species of caddis and even a few golden stone adults to crawl out and dry themselves on suddenly warm river rocks. Try the following patterns, Hackle Stacker Flag Dun Adams #12,14, peacock caddis #12, Beldars golden stonefly nymphs #8,10, and kaufman stonefly nymphs fished deep under and indicator. Waters are dropping and opportunities abound, enjoy the sunshine.
The pellet-heads are in! Per the ODFW recreation report, here is the trout stocking schedule for the McKenzie and Willamette River watersheds for opening weekend.
-Blue River above Blue River Reservoir was stocked with 1,500 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Blue River Reservoir was stocked with 3,000 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Carmen Reservoir was stocked with 3,500 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Clear Lake was stocked with 4,500 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Dexter Reservoir was stocked with 2,900 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Fall Creek above Fall Creek Reservoir was stocked with 2,000 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Leaburg Lake was stocked with 3,000 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-McKenzie River above Leaburg Lake was stocked with 7,000 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Salmon Creek was stocked with 2,000 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Smith Reservoir was stocked with 4,000 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Coast Fork Willamette River was stocked with 1,500 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
-Middle Fork Willamette River above Hills Creek Reservoir was stocked with 1,350 legal-sized rainbow trout this week.
Hands too cold to get the tippet through the eye of those tiny size 20 BWOs? This magnetic tippet threader might be the best $10 you ever spend on something hanging off your fly vest. Check out the video demo.
The Mckenzie River Wooden Boat festival is this Saturday at Eagle Rock Lodge. This is a great chance to get out and see for yourself the history, evolution and present of these nimble, stable, beloved boats.! This show is a fantastic display of the huge gift that the fishermen of the Mckenzie River gave to the world of flyfishing!
At the show you will get to see not only the past but the present of wooden driftboats and how they remain relevant today. Many of the region’s top-builders will be there including the guys from Ray’s River Dories, Tatman Wooden Boats, Mckenzie River Driftboats, and others. I believe that the guys from Montana Boat Builders are coming all the way from Big Sky Country. I think though they’ll probably leave the stich-and-glue boat at home and bring a traditional framed Mckenzie boat. We’ll see . . . .
The Mckenzie River driftboat evolved for fishing the big waters of the Mckenzie. In 1925 Guide Veltie Pruitt built the first very light board and batten driftboat that began to resemble the modern driftboat. Later, Tom Kaarhus was the first to convert to plywood. These Mckenzies were square sterned boats (the square end was downstream) and the upstream end was pointed. It was left to Woody Hindman to build the double ender in the winter of 1939-40 that he converted to the final basic design of the modern driftboat we all love with squared of transom and the pointed downstream end in 1946. For a brief history of the evolution of the craft see Roger Fletcher’s site.
Don’t miss it! Go and and see some historic boats built by the legendary pioneers in river boat design and celebrate our region’s huge contribution to fly fishing throughout the world!
The Karnopp’s Riffle Diver is a killer pattern on the McKenzie Green Caddis hatch. You’ll catch fish swinging this or suspended under a big dry fly. The black head is critical for the caddis look. This will fish from the end of April, all through May.
Karnopp’s Riffle Diver: Green McKenzie Caddis Emerger
Hook: TMC 200, size 10
Bead: Black
Thread: Black or olive 6/0
Body: Chartruese Ostrich
Rib: Silver wire
Hackle: Partridge
Wing: Pheasant tail fibers
Thorax: Black ice dubbing
The Middle Fork of the Willamette remained at a fishable level today despite all the rain we’ve had over the past few days. Although not as clear as usual, the river did have decent visibility, especially below the North Fork confluence. Most of the fish we caught were on stonefly imitations. Kaufmans Stone and Tungsten Rubber legged stone in both golden and brown were productive fished near the bottom under a “Thingamabobber” strike indicator. As the day “warmed” up a bit around 2pm numerous bugs emerged. March Browns, Caddis and Blue Winged Olives were present during the 2-4pm window. We did have decent dry fly fishing in softer water below riffles. Best patterns were Hackle Stacker Flag Dun Adams sizes #14-16, March Brown Parachute #14, and Peacock Caddis #16.Both the Mckenzie and Willamette are experiencing some of the coldest water temperatures for this time of year that anyone can remember. Look for things to blow up when we get temps up around 50 degrees on a consistent basis.
Scientific Anglers new Sharkskin fly line does put a dent in the wallet but it is well worth it.
We started using this line in earnest this January for winter steelhead. Fishing the Umpqua I had ice in my guides yet the line remained perfectly straight, and lacked the memory of other lines.
Another great feature of this line is the way it facilitates feeding line out of the rod. Because of a micro-replicated surface, it feeds out of the guides with greater ease than any line I have ever used. When fishing down stream dry flies or nymphs, “micro drag” is eliminated if you can feed your line smoothly, the Sharkskin excels at the downstream feed tactic. In addition the line has a super small welded loop, making a looped leader connection easy, and the small size limits line/leader hang up in the guides.
The Chain Effect:
The micro-replicated surface in Sharkskin lines gives actual points where the line can bend or flex without cracking. An additional benefit is the structure also relaxes or relieves memory of the line to give an anti-tangle effect, which improves shootability and line control.
Wear on Guides?
According to extensive testing by 3M on fly lines and wear on guides, Sharkskin has shown to wear less on guides than other leading fly line manufactures. Furthermore, the material used to make guides matters more to the longevity of your line than anything.
Fly Line Stretch:
Over a 100 foot span of line, stretched with 500 grams of force the difference between Rio Gold, Cortland 555, SA Mastery Trout, SA Sharkskin was less than 1 foot of stretch. Interestingly, Aiflo was shown to stretch the most at 1.8 feet, with Cortland, Rio, Mastery trout, and Sharkskin stretching between just under 1 and 1.2 feet comparatively.
Flotation:
Current top end fly lines including, Rio, Airflo, and SA float half in and half out of the water. You can also think of this a percentage of fly line floating out of the water. In this case 50% of the line is out of the water. 3M has purchased a machine that can measure the angle of the line to the water, or contact angle. In the case of Sharkskin, when this contact angle is expressed as a percentage of line floating out of the water; it consistently tests out at a contact angle of 130, equating to 72% of the line out of the water. Micro replication is a phenomenon found in nature, such as the pad’s on Water Skipper’s feet (do Water Skippers have feet?), and has been emulated in the Sharkskin series of fly lines for supreme flotation.
Now for the contest: We will be drawing, at random, one winner from the comments on this post (and others) between now and May 1st to giveaway one of these Sharkskin lines. We’re going to put all the email addresses in a boot and pull one out. One comment will be counted per person. Saying something intelligent isn’t necessarily required, but it’d be nice.
Cold water, slow fishing — seems about right for the annual Trout Unlimited Chapter 678 spring outing on the Lower McKenzie. We braved hail and high water to bring you this video. We hope you like it.
It’s no secret we faced adverse conditions on the Mckenzie River Sunday April 20–cold temeratures, snow, rain, hail, wind, and frigid water. The river temperature at Vida topped out at 45 and started the day at 41. We floated from Hayden Bridge to Armitage. Mid-afternoon there was a decent hatch of March Browns in those fleeting moments when the sun peeked through the clouds but any fish of decent size was feeling to sluggish to move. Unlike what was observed upriver the caddis had gone into hiding (along with most fisherman). If there was one good thing about the weather, the gore-tex hatch was about as slow as the fishing.
We picked up small fish on dries when the mayflies were around other than that we tried Possie Buggers, Prince Nymphs, big wiggly legged Stones, and Hares Ears, picking off a few small fish but nothing to brag about. We persevered and Brent got into a couple of nice fish near the end of the day and drift. Both trout ate a big Mega-Prince fished near the bottom:
This native redband put up a solid fight before coming to hand. A couple minutes later Brent picked this nice native cutthroat:
After the second fish we declared victory and got off the water. We’ll always be able to say we fished the great blizzard of April 2008.
As of this writing both the lower Mckenzie and the Middle Fork below the North Fork remain at fishable levels. That could change really quickly though so keep an eye on the levels or call the shop for a report.
Mother nature dished it all out Sunday on the McKenzie River for Caddis Fly employee/guide Lou Verdugo and Jason Mariner. Hail, snow, wind, rain, and and some sun, greeted them during the day from Dearhorn to Bellinger. March Browns were on the surface with plenty of caddis from 2:00pm to 4:00pm. However, the Possie Bugger and the March Brown Wet, Coachman style were busy below the surface for some nice redsides.
Tied in classic wet fly style, this early season fly is best fished down and accross on a tight line swing. When there are emerging March Browns on the river, this fly fishes very well in tandem with other March Brown nymphs or adults — a killer pattern on the McKenzie and Willamette. Golden Pheasant tippets and hares ear are two fish catching ingredient to any fly. You can consider this pattern a “drab” version of a Royal Coachman Wet. Fish it behind a dry all year long and you will have success.
The detail on this video is a lot better than some of our previous efforts. Check it out.
March Brown Wet
Hook: TMC 3761 #12,14
Thread: Uni 6/0 or 8/0 brown or tan
Tail: Golden Pheasant Tippets
Rib: Copper Wire
Body: Hare’s Ear or Possum fur
Hackle: Brown Hen
Wing: Wooduck or Dyed Wooduck Mallard
