I had an easy drive yesterday to McKenzie Bridge, stopping at the McKenzie River golf course to play 9 holes and I shot a 45. Then I drove on to the upper river and began to drive toward the Metolius, where I knew some easy spots to wade. It became apparent to me that to drive to the Metolius would require an lot of effort so I gave up on that idea and started to look for the perfect water to fish at 7:00. I remembered a long, relatively calm stretch that was pretty easy to wade, and I could always head there if I couldn’t find anything better. Up by Clear Lake, the McKenzie was much smaller, so I pulled off on a dirt road above Sahalie Falls. It was a couple of hundred yards to walk in and when I got to the river it was still very fast even though the flow was less. I did wade in and cast to a decent pocket but nothing came up, and after trying a couple more spots, realized that this wasn’t the best idea. I walked along the river trail but couldn’t find anything tempting enough and easy enough to access so I gave up and decided to head for my calmer stretch.
I pulled over at a turnout where a steep path led to the river, but I wanted the perfect spot so I walked up and found a boulder strewn ridge that would let me easily climb down and the water below had long flat stretches.
I worked my way down very carefully and finally got to the water. I lowered myself in and began casting upstream with a Stimulator. I got one small hit, and remembered that last time I had had success with a smaller fly so I tied on a no 14 Royal Wulff and quickly caught two tiny trout. I started wading upstream and saw that the water was too deep to wade so I would have to climb up the rocks to get around the deeper water. It was very hard and I almost fell a couple of times. I finally got back down and waded out a few feet to a flat rock. Even that was hard and it was very tricky to even stand up. I realized that if I tumbled over I could be in a lot of trouble, so I had to give up and clamber back up to the road. It depressed me but I have to be safe.