Oregon Fly Fishing Report – Small Stream Outfitters & Guides

It’s been a couple months since I last blogged a fishing report. My apologies, Small Stream Outfitters has been busy with Video Production, Alaska exploratory prep and guiding like crazy!

The Summer is off to a smashing start. We’ve been running lots of trips along the Central Oregon Coast for native coastal cutts and summer steelhead, as well as working the famous McKenzie for trout.

COASTAL CUTTHROAT
The Summer coastal cutts, while not quite as large as their anadromous brethren the Sea-run Cutts have been providing great dry-fly action during the afternoon and evening. Large fluffy dries are the ticket with hot June patterns like Stimulators, Royal Wulffs and deer hair caddis. Some smaller yellow and green stones have also been working well.

SUMMER STEELHEAD

COASTAL STREAMS
Coastal Summer Steelheading continues to improve as more fish enter the systems each day. High daytime sun can be problematic for these fish as we’ve been having our best success early in the morning and late in the evening. The Siletz has been our favorite haunt as of late, concentrating on working upper sections out of the raft. Small Steelhead nymphs have been the way to go, fished with light lead and light leaders.

SANDY RIVER
The Sandy has also been fishing well for Summer fish at times. Times of rising and falling water after brief Spring and Summer rains have produced the most fish, including several larger Summers in the 10 plus pound range.

MCKENZIE RIVER TROUT
The McKenzie has been a consistent producer of trout as always and still is our signature trip for beginning anglers. It’s a joy to fish, the scenery is spectacular and the trout are most often hungry. Hatches in the past few weeks have been limited, although there are some Yellow Sallys, a few smaller caddis, and a handful of Salmon Fly and Golden Stones flying about. Our best success has been fishing hopper-dropper style or nymphing with an indicator. Good nymphs to try are golden stones, pheasant tials (flashback and bead-head), zug bugs and green rockworms.

We’ll be fishing trout and steelhead through Mid-July and then it’s off to Alaska for a couple weeks to explore some remote western streams. Stay tuned for reports and video from that trip. Also, we’ll be releasing the trailer to our Winter Steelhead video in a couple weeks so stay tuned for that!

Until then tight lines and warm sunny skies,
Small Stream Outfitters