I, a fly fishing expert, thought I should check to see if there were any fish in this river. I caught fish there years ago (a decade ago?) and thought I’d give it another go.
Turns out… there are no fish there anymore. See, if there were, I would have caught them, because I’m such an expert fly fishing angler. So, ergo, thus and so forth, there can’t be any fish here. You get it. Flawless logic.
This river is known by some, and by those who decide what things are named, as The Metolius and what it lacks in fish it makes up for in just jaw-dropping beauty. Man… this place is pretty. Of course, there are no fish. I checked… and there’s not really a way I can think of I could fish for hours and not catch a fish. I mean… that’s crazy talk, right? Ha.
I stopped by The Fly Fisher’s Place, in Sister’s, to drop some knowledge on them, to grace them with my experiences from 10 years ago. I think they were pleased to have been so graced (really, they were very nice and gave good advice and I dropped some coin).
It is a humbling place… beautiful and difficult. I didn’t see anyone else catching and there were plenty of anglers out. Blue, cloudless skies are great for bonefishing, but not as great for trout when you want a hatch to come off. Who knows… maybe the few fish in the river (about 600/mile) were frisky and had moved to other areas of the river to spawn. I don’t know.
I got skunked. I didn’t see a fish and I didn’t feel a fish and I didn’t hook a fish and I didn’t land a fish. Zero. Nadda. Nothing. Damn pretty place though.
This river is in my top ten of most beautiful places to fish.
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Just when you need a shot in the arm the fish disappear!
Luckily, there were a couple more days of fishing and fish were caught.
The Metolius is hard. The trout there are smart. I think you need size 9x tippet and size 24 flies there. So the last few times I have gone there I have caught no trout. But there are monsters there. Big bulls who will hit a 4″ long streamer fished deep. Those I have caught did not fit in my trout net, they were too big.
A decade ago I hooked, fought and lost a nice bull in there, after it attacked a smaller trout I had caught. I have caught fish there in the past, but I fished a section new to me. I have LOTS of excuses prepared!