Taking a trip tomorrow with Mrs Zen down to the Metolius for some camping, stream fishing and sightseeing in the local towns.

Please don't expect much in the line of a successful report as "zen" doesn't cut it down there for me. Two trips so far.. and only one "hooking". Me, I ran the point of a stimulator in my thumb while showing some other fishermen my fly. They left chuckling. Me.. I was trying to get that fly out of my thumb. What made it hard was it was still on my leader and the leader was tight. Probably how it snapped in my finger.

Anyways... new trip starting tomorrow afternoon.

Have a good trip Zen Leecher

The Zen is a natural lake fisherman and would have a much better time on Crane Prairie Rez.
I tried to tell him,but Ohmmmmmmmmmm,Ohmmmmmm,Ohmmmmmm.

Yeah... streams, if there's any size to them, seem to have my number.

Back in the old days, when I lived in PA, I didn't have this problem. Maybe because I baitfished back then and also learned how to minnow fish for trout. My grandfather taught me that. He could catch a limit of goodsized trout with "minnies" fairly quick. He also used frogs for pike.

My trip to the Metolius was, in a word, interesting.

The Clouser Minnows I imagined would work for bull trout, didn't get a single bite. Well... unless the submerged pine tree doesn't count. It bit and kept my Clouser.

The other fishing was "interesting". I finally caught some fish. Caught two small trout and one afternoon fishing the Allingham Bridge hole.. had lots of strikes, mostly on brown soft hackles. I fished them under a BWO and a golden stone Stimulator and while I only had about 3 strikes on the dry flies.. had lots on the trailing wet flies. Must have missed 12 or so strikes.

This was the first time I fished a trailer under a dry fly, and when the dry fly went under, not due to a strike, it was hard to get used to lifting the rod. I missed all strikes.

Had strikes on two types of Golden Stone dries, BWO dries, zug bugs, brown soft hackles and some other wet flies that I can't remember.

This time I did NOT fall in the water and amuse my fellow fishermen, nor did I hook myself while revealing my "secret fly" to other fishermen.

Did get to tour the E. F. Payne bamboo rod company in Sisters, Oregon and see their museum with the old H. L. Leonard rod making equipment.

Payne has been in continuous business since 1876 and incorporated as a business in 1898. The bamboo rods are cheap... (my humor). Lowest price one was $1850 with the regular rod going $2700. Kinda out of my range.

Bill