Hot weather, cooling waters

I was sitting in the backyard last evening with Jennifer and the chickens when Rob Crandall called to check-in to give me a first-hand report on the Deschutes River. He and his Water Time Outfitters crew have been working hard the last few weeks in the Warm Springs to Maupin stretch, enduring smothering heat and hot Caddis action mixed with a sampling of Euro Nymphing tutorials for their clients. Our own Fly Czar, Josh Linn, joined the team to pull on the oars and impart his vast knowledge of all things Euro. Overall, it sounded like everyone enjoyed the experience in spite of the warm weather.

Rob relayed that while river users were up, the number of anglers was not and fishing was very good with Elk Hair Caddis and Silvey's Pupa being the rockstar producers. Mr. Crandall is not up to speed on all of the Euro Nymph variations, which is why for this report I would have you call the shop and ask for Josh or Nick. They hosted our newest employee, Bryan Cohen for a crash-course in the technique and have the latest intel on the must-have patterns. While Bryan is relatively new to the Euro craze, he is an accomplished tyer and many of the hottest patterns in our bins were born in his vise. As I said, call the guys and they'll hook you up. There is a rumor that Nick netted a pig on this trip and I'm sure he'll tell you all about it.

Looking farther down the creek, we see water temps are dropping as PGE started adjusting the outflow at Pelton last week, mixing in more Metolius water and offering hope to wet fly swingers plying the water below Mack's Canyon. The Steelhead numbers over the Columbia River dams are promising, but we'll hold out on forecasting until we have a few thousand casts in the bank with 2020 samples of fall chrome brought to hand. It's time to dust off the longer sticks.