Fall Trout Fishing Report - More Bows and Cutts

This past Friday, I ran a trip for two wonderful clients for trout on the McKenzie River. Last year they did a fall steelhead trip; so they decided to try out some fall trout action. Unfortunately, the fish were not wanting to feed with reckless gluttony, but we worked at it with persistence. By day's end, we managed to rack up enough trout with significant shoulders to rate it a good day of fall trout fishing. We did not even get any fish on dries; with the exception of one fish that was a legitimate "cuttbow". It had red fins with white tips like a rainbow trout, but it had a cutthroat paint job, and had the scales of a cutty also. The fish fought with a rainbow's attitude, but crushed the fly like a silly cutthroat. It was a very unique looking specimen for that part of the river.

October Caddis Dry Fly Took This Beautiful Cuttbow Trout - Rainbow/Cutthroat Hybrid

We fished with a dry and dropper nymph, and the nymph took some nice fish here and there. The most productive method was swinging softhackled wet flies on a 45 degree down and across swing. We caught fish on size 18 blue winged olive softhackles, size 14 yellow softhackles, size 10 orange softhackles, and surface october caddis pupas. The smaller softhackles took most of the fish, but the larger ones worked well at times.

McKenzie River Rainbow Trout - Taken on Possie Bugger Nymph

We managed to hook up with a steelhead on a size 14 yellow softhackle, but the 4X tippet was no match for the fish. The powerful fish was on briefly before it decided to pop the tippet like it was a spider web. That was the second consecutive trout trip with an incidental steelhead hooked up. Makes you wonder how many fish are still headed up the Willamette Valley tributaries....

As long as the weather holds up, the fishing will remain good!

McKenzie Trout Fishing Was as Good As It Gets! 6/29/2011

McKenzie River Rainbow Trout - Taken on Dry and Dropper - June 2011

This past Wednesday, I was running a "Split Full Day Special", and the first part of the trip was for steelhead, and the second part of the trip was for trout.  The steelhead part of the trip was not so good, because the water was literally as crowded as it gets. There were more anglers around for the river to be able to hold. Everywhere you looked was a driftboat or a bank angler. It was a sight that would horrify those who seek solitude. Unfortunately, that is a factor that comes with good anadramous fishing. We were so frustrated with the crowd factor, and we had one brief hookup with a steelhead unbuttoning itself in a flipping cartwheeling areal. The weather was really looking promising though for the trout fishing that we planned on for the second leg of the trip.

A fine Rainbow Trout caught on the McKenzie River

It turns out that the fishing was as good as it gets for the McKenzie River. They were taking fish left and right, and one everything we tied on. The outfits we fished had either a dry and dropper or double wet flies. Both setups really crushed fish all day long, and it was literally a matter of what we decided to fish with in the given spot. The best thing about the day was how violently the fish were destroying the dries for the dry and dropper setup. One rod had a Chubby Norman with a prince nymph and the other rod had a the same dry, but with a possie bugger instead of the prince nymph. They took many fish on the dry and both the prince nymph and possie bugger cleaned the underwater area of all fish too.

The other two rods had wet flies for subsurface swinging, and that worked very well. Green caddis wets, yellow softhackles, and red butted softhackles were all taken fish with regularity. It was one of those days where I was having the best time possible as a guide watching my clients roping fish after fish with cheers of joy!