My good friend Phil was in the shop yesterday to buy more Tan Caddis Pupa. He’s been hammering fish on the Metolius with them! #14-16 Tan Caddis Pupa. Add to your box a larger orange pupa to match October Caddis and you’ll have your caddis covered. No doubt small dark mayfly nymphs will do the trick too. #16-20 Two Bit Hookers, Micro Mayflies and small Perdigons. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again in this report, in December, January and February a nymph angler on the Metolius could catch fish every day on 2 flies if they fished them right. What are they again? A Golden Stone and an Egg.
Zebra Midges in Red and Black #18-22, Rainbow Warriors #14-18, Blue Prince, Blue Perdigon, Walts Worms, Frenchie, CDC Hares Ear are some of the other nymphs to show them.
If you haven’t tried it yet, the new Lance Egan Umpqua Micro diameter lines are amazing (3 brilliant colors, but I love the hot pink the best), and all you do is pull 25 to 30 feet off the spool, tie that to your fly line, add a 5x sighter (or color it on with the new Scientific Angler sighter pens) and tie on 6 to 7 feet of 5x or 6x Fluorocarbon tippet with a dropper tag (optional if you only want to fish one fly) and you will be fishing the most sensitive and modern nymph rig to date. This is the future of nymph fishing.
hatches have been light, which is not uncommon in December. You might run into a BWO hatch mid afternoon usually around 1:30 to 2 or so. You might not. If you really want to look for a hatch and fish dries, be ready by 12:30 and stake out one of the good eddies from the hatchery to below 99 and wait. Don’t take your eyes off that water and watch for light dimples in the seams of the eddies and be ready with your 12′ 6x leader and a BWO Knock Down Dun or Film Critic or Sparkle Dun.
Bulls are still chasing streamers, and it’s important to show them different colors. Some days they like light ones like a Milkshake or Circus Peanut and other days they like the dark streamers like our custom coneheads we sell. The black one with the rubber legs is back in stock BTW.
Access is great with no snow anywhere you want to go. Remember that the river is closed from the headwaters to Allingham Bridge until May 22. The rest of the river is open all year.