Early spring in the Mid-Willamette Valley always brings unpredictability – so when the weather and water levels cooperated this last week, I took advantage of it! In the last 8 days, I floated the river 4 of those days. Yes – very lucky for me! Other than this past Sunday, April 15, the river was high and fast, but it still produced some fish. On Sunday, the 8th, the weather sparked a phenomenal grannom caddis hatch –videotaped it. The video tape won’t win an academy award – but it does show how thick the grannom hatch on the McKenzie can be. Enjoy the video!
On each of the floats there were sporadic fish feeding on the surface. Most of these were smaller fish, and we picked up several swinging dark colored #16 soft hackles. We had our best success for the McKenzie red-sides subsurface. Flies that produced fish were the mega prince, golden stone, possie buggers, and caddis pupa. The following video shows a few fish caught on the Bellinger to Hayden run. I floated this on Tuesday with Lou Verdugo and then Sunday, with Dave Dozer. As you watch the video you will notice that we were fishing a switch rod. It was the Reddington CPX 10.5 foot 5 wt. I enjoyed casting and fishing this rod. I loved how I could easily mend the line and had the extra length to manage more line. It took a little while to get used to landing the a fish with the longer stick – but the ability to manage the line outweighed the challenge of managing the fish. Enjoy the video!
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