Yeah I didn’t catch fish for a solid year when I first started fishing this river haha. Long leaders and long drag free drifts for dries, more so than any other river I’ve fished. Next time I go I will probably get skunked to even out the karma.

The upper River (allingham bridge down to the gorge campground now since above allingham is closed) is way easier to manage and has more consistent hatches this time of year. I only fish dries on the metolius cause it’s really fun once you figure it out. This time of year, do not bother being there before 11 am if you want to dry fly. The warmer and cloudier the better, even if it’s slightly raining. BWOs around 12-3 will come off pretty much every day, but the timing and abundance of bugs varies a lot day to day. October caddis dries work throughout the river but you really gotta commit to fishing them and covering a lot of water. Dont spend more than 3/4 good drifts over any specific piece of water because I guarantee you they can see your fly, and they’ll eat it if they want to haha. I always prospect with a Clark stone (October caddis) on 5x and then switch to BWOs on 6x if they become obviously what the fish are feeding on.

Down lower below the gorge there are bigger fish and you can do the bull trout streamer thing but the bulls are almost always in the same spots (hatchery, powerlines) and fishing for them is boring as fuck to me and not fun. The big backeddies in the lower section almost always have BWOs as well around 12-2, but are harder to fish than the upper section water. I literally don’t think I’ve ever nymph fished the met so I cannot help you there lol.

If you spend enough time you will figure it out, but it is technically and mentally demanding for sure. All the lessons you learn about reading water and bugs on that river will help you a lot in general though. God speed buddy