Metolius River Fishing Guides and Conditions, Oregon

About the Metolius River

The Metolius begins as a spring at the base of Black Butte and arrives as a river, not a trickle. Within a mile it is wide enough to fish and cold enough to hold trout through a Central Oregon summer, and it stays that way for its whole length to Lake Billy Chinook. The water is startlingly clear, the temperature barely moves off the low fifties in any season, and the ponderosa forest along it makes the corridor one of the prettiest in Oregon.

It is also hard. Wild redband rainbows in that clarity see everything, the currents are complicated by spring inflows all the way down, and the standing advice is long leaders, small flies and better drifts than you think you need. Bull trout, some of them very large, live here as well and are pursued with big streamers under strict protections. The river is fly-only for its entire length, with wild-fish-only rules on most of it, and no fishing from a boat.

Because it is spring-fed, the flow is remarkably steady. The Grandview gauge sits well down the river and typically reads in the low thousands of cfs, which reflects the accumulated springs rather than runoff. That stability is the Metolius promise: it fishes in June when the freestones are blown out and in August when they are too warm, and the number you see is close to the number you will see next month.

Camp Sherman is the base, a small resort community with a store and a fly shop, and the campgrounds along the river road fill up all summer. Sisters and Bend are the nearest towns of any size.

Access

Head of the Metolius: the spring itself, a short walk from the parking area.
Camp Sherman: village access, footbridge and the most-fished water on the river.
Allingham, Smiling River and Pioneer Ford Campgrounds: Forest Service camps with river frontage.
Gorge Campground: popular upper-river access below Camp Sherman.
Lower Bridge and Candle Creek: mid-river access down the west-side road.
Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery: parking, trail access and the start of long walk-in reaches.
Bridge 99 and the lower river: the roughest road and the fewest anglers.

Seasons

Open year-round with fly-only, wild-fish regulations; the river never blows out.
March through May: blue-winged olives and March browns, cool days, easy access.
June through September: green drakes, caddis and terrestrials; the coldest water in the region.
October through February: kokanee and bull trout activity, midge fishing, snow on the road but a fishable river.