McKenzie River Trout Fishing Is Hot - Get Yourself Out There!!

The McKenzie River is in peak condition right now, and fishing will remain strong until the first heat wave of the summer, or if we get an unfortunate large dosage of water. As long as we do not get a heat wave, or the water levels stay steady, the fishing will be very good. The green caddis has not been reported yet, nor have I seen any when I am out there. It is the time though, and they are seemingly late as of now. Although, this year seems to be late for many things though; so lets hope those big green bugs start hatching soon. 

Fish On!!

 Recently, I tool out a regular client for a day on the lower McKenzie, and our trip was focused on improving techniques and skills. Shortly after we started, Gail was really getting dialed in on her nymphing skills, and she was casting the heavy flies upstream with a nice D-loop water loaded roll cast motion, and then mending the strike indicator just upstream from the flies. I was impressed by the improvements I was seeing, and I knew that a trophy fish was in the making to reward those skills.

Lower McKenzie River Sunshine....

We had a serious dunk on the strike indicator not to far from the ramp, but the connection with hook and mouth didn't exist when Gail struck; so it was time to attempt to get another presentation intercepted. We probed the flies into the depths; since nothing was looking up, and I told Gail nymph fishing would be most productive until the fish showed interest towards the surface around "hatch time". A little ways down, the strike indicator went down, and Gail struck the line tight. The line swam off, and it was FISH ON!! The rod had a deep bend in it; so I assured her that the fish on the other end was a serious one to contend with. I managed to get the boat to a safe landing spot, and the fish ceased to the landing net after a sturdy battle. 

Picture Perfect McKenzie Native Rainbow Trout

We fished on throughout the day, and caught a lot of fish, but none were larger than that gorgeous rainbow. A short windowed March Brown hatch occurred, but they only came off for literally about 10 minutes, and just as the fish started to respond with surface feeding; it was over. Luckily, the wet fly swinging had really picked up after that short hatch happened; so it at least made the fishing more surface oriented. A gorgeous weather day it ended up becoming, and I would say that the McKenzie fished much better when there is some intermittent showers in the mix. High pressure and bright sunshine are not the most productive of conditions for the river, but being in the nice weather is always a plus.