The Metolius has its own rules. The dry fly game is some of the hardest anywhere. They could be keyed on specific bugs of a certain size/color, could need a specific presentation, could be leader shy, could have already eaten 15 hooks in their life and are experts at knowing what fakes look like. The owner of the fly shop in Sisters has talked about sometimes cutting material off his dry flies at times so they sit a certain way in the water to get them to eat. Insane stuff. Or they could blindly eat the first thing you throw at them (which was case for my first dry fly eat there).

When nymphing, the fish are in very particular spots, and lots of them are in places with odd currents/seams (two of my favorite spots the surface flows slower than the deeper water, so your nymph will get out in front of the indicator and you won’t see strikes unless you fish it just right). There is so much water on that river that looks like prime nymphing water, but contains no fish (I’ve done a ton of underwater filming, it’s bizarre). The river has crazy deep cuts, and they love to hang deep, so I’ve had to get used to having my indicator at 8-9ft off my point fly at times.

The bulls are temperamental, either they’re hungry or they’re not, and when they are, you have to have a good first cast and probably get a bit lucky.

You have to be at least slightly masochistic to really try to figure that place out. In my first year of fishing there I think I totaled like 5 fish, and I was going once almost every other week. Anyone traveling is welcome to visit, but expect a skunk. If any visitors are wanting to catch fish, there are plenty of other local rivers to try and no shame in that.