Gorge Fly Shop Blog: Columbia Gorge Fishing Reports

Beautiful day, beautiful scenery, beautiful fish! The Deschutes has a lot to offer during the course of a trip.
Try not to focus just on the fish.

Trout - Deschutes River:

Lower Deschutes River

The salmonfly hatch is officially on throughout the entirety of the Deschutes. Fish are fully keyed in on top and eating dries. Today’s warm weather should have really gotten the bugs and fish active. Look to fish your big dries right off the bank in places with good depth (3-5 ft), walking speed current, and a rocky bottom. Also, trees. If you find overhanging trees, you’ll find trout. Leave the 5x at home and run a 7.5ft 3x leader straight to your big dry. This is the start of the dry fly season on the Lower and we couldn’t be more excited!

Middle Deschutes River

Got a good report from a buddy who fished the canyon section around Steelhead Falls recently and he reported good action subsurface on stonefly nymphs. Fish were in pocket water as well as more traditional pools and riffles. Salmonflies are hatching on this section as well and will be for the next 2-3 weeks.

Metolius River

Good reports from the Met this past week. Green drakes are starting to make appearances in the afternoons, especially on cloudier and more humid days. It is not as consistent as it will be in the coming weeks, but if you’re heading out to the Met, it would be smart to carry some green drake patterns.

Bull trout fishing is okay. Fish early in the mornings for more streamer success and mid day it is more of a nymph show. Stonefly nymphs, chironomids, and pheasant tail nymphs are good patterns when targeting bulls under an indicator.

S hop Trout Flies

Mount Hood Lakes:

Lawrence Lake Update.

Lawrence Lake opened on Friday April 22. The current situation is with snow and road culvert repair needed the access is gated at the Middle Fork settling pond. This is about 2.5 miles before Lawrence lake. The spring stocking of Lawrence has been postponed until access allows.

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Steelhead -

For the latest on fishing regulations in your angling zone visit https://myodfw.com/recreation-report/fishing-report/

Smallmouth Bass / Carp:

Smally fishing has been pretty solid recently! Good catches have been reported slow stripping streamers. The RIO meat sweats is a great pattern that can imitate a lot of different things. Olive and tan are my favorite colors for smallies. I use an intermediate sinking line with a weighted bug and slow strip and twitch my fly in. This is a super fun fishery right in our backyards. Smallmouth put up a heck of a fight and are another great fish to challenge yourself to learn.

Won’t be too long before we’ll be stalking the flats of the Columbia looking for 20lb goldfish cruising the shallow flats. Carp fishing will humble you up really quick. Great practice if you have a saltwater trip coming up. These fish require accuracy and stealth to have success.

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