Check out our newest hatch report here!

After a long winter fishing size #20 flies and struggling to get 6X tippet through that tiny eye with frozen hands, anglers dream of a day where they could fish a 3" dry flies on 3X tippet in the warm sunshine wearing a t-shirt. Well every May those dreams start to come true! The famous Salmon Fly hatch starts on the Deschutes River in May and runs through mid-June. This big bug also known as the "Stonefly" starts as a very small nymph in the river and spends the next 3 years among the rocks in the whitewater where they can breathe, eat and grow to there mature size. During the start of May the river temperature warms and starts the now 2 - 3 inch nymphs on their journey toward the shore and out onto the river side foliage where their outer casing will split open and the dry or adult stonefly will emerge like a caterpillar into a butterfly. When their wings dry and they mature into the adult stonefly, they will mate while on the bushes over the next couple days. A few days after the mating process, the females will be ready to lay their eggs and do so by dapping on the waters surface and dropping her eggs which filter down into the rocks starting the whole lifecycle over. During the end of this two week hatch period, the fish see the heaviest concentration of bugs on the water and figure out or key in on the fact that there's a whole buffet of little cheesecakes on the surface for their eating enjoyment. This leads to some of the best dry fly fishing in the west with big Deschutes Rainbows crushing anything that slightly resembles a stonefly dry that's drifted by them.