Spring Runoff

What’s a person to do when a storm goes through and dumps a ton of rain and melts the remaining snow? Well, spring runoff means it’s time to tie more flies!

Here is an image of the Metolius River at the Wizard Falls Bridge. This is the upstream side. And no, it’s not a common sight to have the water almost touching the bridge!

Since returning home from Maui less than a week ago, I must have tied at least 6 dozen flies. And I was able to fit in the men’s and women’s NCAA final four and final basketball games as well.

Most of the flies I tied are for customer fly orders, but I did manage to get a few extra tied for the provider box.

I currently have orders in hand for 15 dozen flies. Some are the flies I use and I try to tie at least an extra half dozen for my own use.

Remember the rain I mentioned above? I really wanted to go fish the Metolius, but I’ve been watching the river gauge rise and knew it wasn’t in the cards. It has been running around 1550 cfs and quickly rose to over 3800 cfs over a couple of days.

If I couldn’t fish, we decided to check out the river at a very high level.

Here is a video I took of the water immediately above the Wizard Falls bridge.

And a few still images showing popular fishing spots.

Here is a shot from Allingham Bridge. There is definitely more water in the river, but it is somewhat clear and moving swiftly.

The Idiot Hole above Wizard Falls Hatchery.

Notice the difference in water color? Several major creeks flow into the Metolius from the eastern side of the Cascade mountains. Canyon Creek is a major tributary and is about three miles above the Wizard Falls Hatchery. Looks like it’s dumping mud into the river.

Image below Wizard Falls Bridge.

Big Eddy below Wizard Falls Hatchery.

You can tell by the images how off-color the water is. It’s nothing like the clear river I’m used to seeing.

It looks like all the rivers in Central Oregon will be blown out for several days.

When I was in Maui, the tranquility made me think it was time to conduct another drawing of my subscriber base to thank my loyal readers. Since I’ve been tying so many Sparkle Duns, I thought it appropriate to send a dozen to a lucky winner.

And the winner is…drum roll please…Bob W!

I’ll be in contact with Bob in the near future.

I’m headed back to the fly tying bench and work on my next order…Quigley Film Critics to imitate BWO and PMDs.

Enjoy…go fish!