Salmon Fly

Every spring Maupin, a small town in central Oregon explodes overnight with anglers from around the world to experience the Deschutes river world famous salmonfly hatch. To experience it at its peak is fantastic and should be on every angler’s bucket list.

Many of the central Oregon rivers experience great salmonfly hatches, but every spring when the rivers begin to rise and the snow begins to melt, western Sierra rivers experience Pteronarcys californica, more commonly referred to as salmonflies. They’re big bugs and fly fishers love them.

Salmon Fly

The trout take salmon flies in all their stages including the nymphs and adults. Big black stone fly patterns such as Kaufmann’s Black Stone and other black stone nymphs work great in the spring imitating salmonflies.

Big dry flies however are the favorite amongst fly fishers. Stimulators, Rouge Giant Foam Stone, Chubby Chernobyls, Crowd Surfers and many other dry fly patterns imitate salmonflies and stoneflies. I recently had success on the Merced River with RIO’s Juicy Stone.

RIO’s Juicy Stone Size 6

Casting bigger bugs requires a 4wt. or 5wt. rod with a 9ft.-12ft. leaders. I use 3X when casting bigger salmonfly patterns which are less likely to break off with a bad cast and gives confidence if fishing the faster riffles where the fish begin to move into in the spring.

A dead drift down the riffle and skating the fly out is how I fish these patterns. I’ll even give the rod tip a twitch every now and then to give the fly movement on the surface skittering the fly. Rainbow trout take them with aggression and it’s a lot of fun.

Rainbow Trout

Salmonfly hatches begin in March peaking in April and last until May. Once the snow begins to melt and the flowers begin to bloom look for this bug on the banks of the river and fluttering downstream in the rivers.

Try a dry/dropper combination too. The bigger fly patterns are great strike indicators and can suspend heavier nymphs when needed.

Tight Lines,

Greg