Gorge Fly Shop Blog: Columbia Gorge Fishing Reports

Nice Brookie that ate a small sculpin near some log structure.

Lower Deschutes River

The lower is still a good central Oregon fishing option. Again, with temps throughout Oregon still quite hot, it's important to focus your efforts from dawn until about 1pm for your most productive fishing window. Afternoons when it's hottest out, can be more challenging, and also not an ideal thing from an ethical standard as water temps are getting upwards toward 70 on hot days in the lower sections of the river, which can be lethal to trout and steelhead alike.

Mornings are productive fishing caddis dries in the back eddies and off grassy banks. Nymphing is still your best bet. Focus on faster riffles where it is most oxygenated. Some good bugs to run this time of year are jimmy legs, euro style frenchies, copper johns, red lightning bugs, various caddis pupa patterns and psycho princes. Dropper flies should be in the #16-18 range for best success.

Middle Deschutes River

Middle Deschutes has been productive in the mornings. This is great dry dropper water, so using a golden stone or small chubby dropped down to a euro style frenchie is a fun way to target the rainbows and browns that live here.

Upper Deschutes

The upper Deschutes has been fishing strong. The upper upper in between Little Lava and Crane Prairie is running cold and clean this time of year. This is a very fun stretch of water if you are the type of angler who likes to put some miles on their boots and fish in a beautiful high alpine setting. The brook trout are moving in from the lakes in prep to spawn next month and have been fired up and eating small streamers and buggers around log jams and in the deeper pools and seams. Small chubby's with a beadhead nymph dropper is a great tactic to to target some nice fish as well.

Nicely colored up brown that ate the #18 split case pmd.

The section below Wikiup down to Sunriver, is fishing really good as well. Lots of active fish eating nymphs hard in the seams behind log jams. Predominant hatches up there include pmds, various caddis and bwo's. Dry dropper during the hatch windows is a great tactic. Last Sunday I ran a #10 chubby with two flies beneath, a #16 euro frenchie and a #18 split case pmd nymph.

Metolius River

The Met continues to be a great option with it's consistent 46 degree water where the trout thrive. Caddis, pmds and various golden stones are the main bugs hatching the Met right now. Rusty spinner's at dusk is picking up some good fish and caddis are happening in the afternoons and into the evenings. Nymphing with rubber leg stoneflies, peridigons, rainbow warriors, frenchies and zebra midges are all great patterns.

Lots of lake run bull trout are in the Metolius getting ready to spawn in the tribs. Streamer action is strong both dead drifted and stripped when targeting these fish. These lake run fish will hang around after spawning all fall and into the winter so the time is now to string up the 8 and 9 weights with your favorite articulated streamer pattern.

Mt Hood Lakes

Lake season around Mt. Hood is in full swing. Float tubes are the best tool for the job up there and can be a ton of fun. Slow stripping wooly buggers, damsel nymphs and leeches is a great method. Nymphing with a set of chironomids or a pheasant tail nymph is a good bet too. If fishing this method, giving the indicator a few pops and strips here and there help bring those bugs to life and will trigger more takes.

Columbia River Carp

Carp fishing has been killer during this heat wave! Look for carp cruising the shallow flats and back sloughs off the main Columbia River and be prepared to put an accurate cast right in their face to get an eat. It's a super addicting way to fish and we have all the good carp bugs at the shop.

Steelhead

The lower Deschutes has been open now since August 15th and there have been mixed reports, even given the strong numbers of fish around. Fish are definitely being caught but you have to work for them and cover water to find them. Early mornings right at dawn until about 11am is your best shot at hooking a summer fish so get to your spot early.

Tight lines!