We arrived at Black Bear Lodge on Sunday afternoon, 6/22/26 and fished for three days, hoping we’d find Green Drakes on the Upper Columbia River just below the US/Canadian border. We left our home waters, the Metolius River hoping to find more Green Drakes. I hope you read the last post about Chasing the Green Drake Mayfly Hatch. It seems I may be a little obsessed with these Mayflies!
This was our third trip to Black Bear Lodge.
We first fished the river in July 2017 and couldn’t believe Green Drakes would hatch in this size of water. That year, the river was around 150,000 cfs!
The second trip was last year. After reading Jack’s newsletter mailing list about an opening for two guests beginning in 10 days, we jumped at the chance. Like last year, this is a hosted by Nick Wheeler of The Portland Fly Shop.
The water level was down to 115,000 cfs in 2025 and this year fluctuated between 130,000 to 150,000, but I still can’t believe trout eat dry flies at that level!
Here are quick links to those trips:
There are three “seasons” to fish the Upper Columbia River. Late winter/early spring you’ll be fishing single or spey rod tactics. In June and July, tremendous caddis hatches can be found along with great hatches of Green/Brown Drakes, and Yellow Mayflies. The last season is late summer/fall where October Caddis, Baetis, Yellow Mayflies, and terrestrials will be seen.
You guessed it, we were interested in the Green Drake hatch!
Guided fly fishing trips on the Upper Columbia River are a little different than most. You get a later start, but fish until dark, somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00 pm. The rest of the guests planned to depart between 2 and 3 pm, but we new when to expect rising fish and decided a departure between 3:30 and 4:00 pm was plenty early.
Black Bear Lodge is owned by Jack Mitchell of The Evening Hatch in Ellensburg, WA. It’s not the easiest to get to because Northport, WA is only a few miles from the border with Canada. It took a little over six hours of driving to reach.
Each day, we’d launch from the public boat ramp in Northport, WA and motor upstream to the Canadian border, a trip of 11 miles in 20 to 25 minutes.
In each of the previous years, we’d eat lunch on the water around 6 pm and have dinner between 10:30 and 11 pm…they called it Argentine dinner. Our first night stuck to that plan, but each of the next two days, breakfast was served around 9 am and a bigger meal was served about 2 pm. Our “lunch of the water” ended up being dinner whenever we chose to eat. Here we are with Kirsten an Brian with guide Hank on the last evening.
Like last year, we fished 3X leaders with Justin’s variation of a Film Critic, Quigley Cripple, E/C Caddis, or Caddis Soft Hackle flies. Here’s Justin tying one of his creations on the second day before heading out to fish
And more of Justin’s flies.
I can’t say enough about Justin. He’s a great guide, but a talented fly tyer as well. Justin has fished these waters over 40 years.
All three years we noticed other Mayflies besides Green Drakes, available for trout. Massive Caddis flit over the water and we imitated them all the years. Here is an upside-down Caddis I captured.
I found these insects floating next to the dock one evening when we launched the sled.
These are the flies our guide Justin Hotchkiss tied to imitate the Caddis.
Needless to say, they worked!
Several of us sat around the table before heading out on the water the second day to tie some flies. Nick and Steg attempted to tie flies that were “glow in the dark” to fish when they couldn’t see.
Here they are with their guide Rial headed upriver to try them out.
But alas, the fish didn’t seem to like any of them. It was a one and done experiment as Rial went back to his standby fly patterns the next day.
Here are a couple fish Dancingtrout caught our first night. They seemed to like the Caddis Soft Hackle.
Almost all the fish caught are thick, colored Rainbow trout. Here is an exception.
This is the large eddy we fished.
She hooked and landed more the first evening, but it was my turn the following night.
And this 24 inch beauty Justin is holding for me.
And the release…
Other fish were hooked, lost, or broke off. Green Drakes were hatching, but Justin told us they only began three days earlier. I was surprised, but that’s how fishing is sometimes. Here are a few more of our fish.
How about a couple images of the Green Drakes.
They sure are a different color than those on my home river.
I’ll end with a few wildlife images from our time on the river.
Thanks again Justin for a memorable trip! I’m looking forward the a return trip next year.
Lastly, we celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary on the Upper Columbia River with Justin, just like last year. I think he can add “photographer” to his resume.
Enjoy…go fish!
