Metolius / Black Butte Ponds

Day two of the four days at Camp Sherman we decided to stay on the Metolius.  We had thought about
heading to the Crooked River, but decided that it would be better to stay on the Met for the weekdays instead of battling the weekend traffic.  Despite this cleverly laid plan, it was hard to find a rock to stand on, so to speak.  Whether or not (many times not) people feel this way, I believe that the etiquette for a river should include the entire run.  Riffle.  Run.  Tail out.  I've had my fair share of honkies (that's racist) saddle up right next to me at the tail out while I fish the riffle and in my mind it should be obvious that if I started at the top, I intended to fish all the way to the bottom.  Just because you got your Disneyland fast pass doesn't mean you don't have to wait in some sort of a line.  I can understand the frustration that many have on the Metolius because it is an out of the way destination and chances are pretty good that it took them quite a drive to get there.  Is this worthy of breaching river etiquette?  Negative.  You're just (unfortunately for you) out the gas money.  So, as we combed the relatively few places that you have to drive into to fish on the Metolius we found most to be claimed.  Bummer for us.  Looks like it's driving game day on the Met.  Miraculously there was no one at Allingham Bridge and we claimed the territory for a bit.  Though this is probably close to my least favorite spot on the river for quiet and scenery, in the past it has been a pretty consistent fish producer.  I was on dog duty so I didn't actually fish here, but got the top of the bridge job spotting fish.  MIL put several casts through, but as before it seemed like the river was cooking a little as far as speed.  Weighted flies are the option on the Metolius, which definitely makes for more of a challenge than just dumping a couple of split shot, but for the better.  There were plenty of whitefish combing the bottom though and T finally was able to get his flies to the down to get a look at one.  Say what you want, but I'll take a whitefish any day versus skunk-o.

A nice rainbow on the Metolius is supposed to be the ultimate prize, but for us it's the bull trout.  Again, we dig weird fish.  T has "developed" two flies that are bull trout candy for the Met.  I quote developed because I don't necessarily think that tying a super long bunny leech constitutes a massive discovery, but I've never seen it in a fly shop either.  It seems too that anywhere you see whitefish, you're likely to find some bull trout.  T dead drifted a five inch weighted creamy rabbit leech through the run and tail out and discovered that our previous collected knowledge was still legit.  Bull trout cannot resist flesh man...

Now, it's pretty hard to hold a bull trout properly for a picture because their tail is floppy, slippery, and seemingly boneless. We've found it best to just keep them low to the water to keep them calm and for easy release.  If you hold one up for the classic photo it will undoubtedly flail and you will drop it hard.  It could hit your net, pop your fly (to have it stuck in its face until it eventually rusts. Brutal.), or just swim away before you actually get a decent shot.  This wasn't even close to the biggest bull trout we've seen in parts of this river, but it's always cool to catch one and they really look like dinosaur fish.  Very cool.  

After the whitey and bull trout we played the run around game hitting up Pine Rest and the spot just below it only to find them taken.  With this info we decided to opt out on the Wizard Falls hatchery and headed back to the cabin for the day for (you guessed it) beers.

The next day we headed back out on the Metolius after a consensus that the Crooked sounded like it wouldn't be that much fun for the drive that it took.  Also snakes.  Aside from the fact that I vehemently hate snakes (especially the poisonous bitey kind), we had the dogs again and didn't want to take the chance.  We headed to the Canyon Creek campground and set off for a bit of a hike to burn up some of the day and see some beautiful scenery.  This section has quite a bit of gradient in the river so the fishing spots are far between.  It was also apparently International Hiking Day as the trail was clogged.  After we had hiked for about a mile and only glimpsed one bull trout that chewed on T's fly for a while as he watched the birds or something, we decided to head over to the Black Butte Ponds.  Last time we had been to the ponds there had been a callibaetis hatch and we had worked hard to trick some of these big fish into eating on the surface.

It was a beautiful day at about sixty degrees but as always at Black Butte, the wind was up.  Not Florida flats windy, but enough to chop the water and leave little hope of rising fish.  The first lake had an incredible amount of vegetation and algae making it impossible to fish anything but top water, which was not happening at the moment.  The second lake (pictured above) we fished with small lake streamers; wooly buggers and egg suckers.  The main portion of the lake didn't fish at all, but the small canal between the algae lake and the larger lake seemed to be where the fish were.

For reference, waders are not necessary here.  We had just come from the Metolius and chose not to wader down.  Since it was toward the end of the day and T had proved that fish do in fact live in the Black Butte Ponds still, we headed back to the cabin to bbq and watch the comedy awards.  The next day (Sunday) was our last so we decided to head back to the Black Butte Ponds instead of fighting the crowds on the Metolius again.  There was zero wind and a callibaetis hatch that held a small candle to the one from five years ago, but the fish were occasionally rising.  I must have changed my fly thirty times to no avail.  The fish would take a natural (in the canal again) directly next to my pattern.  As much of a bummer as it is to not have the right fly, it never gets old seeing fish feeding all around you.  It's actually kind of fun when the fish are smarter than you, because it means there is still more that can be learned or at least attempted.  With the wrong flies and a run in with an aggressive kayaker, we decided to wrap the vacation up.  We tubed all the rods and headed back over to the coast.