Stream 125!

June 27, 2015 Chinook Pass Highway

 

It is not always just about the fish. Left about 3:15 this morning to pick up Melinda and a friend from the Especially for Youth camp at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. Caught the first morning light on Mt Rainier looking up the White River Valley. Picked up the girls and told them we'd be travelling my style - stopping along the way, including a try at picking up stream 125.

 

Sunrise on Mt Rainier

Returning over Chinook Pass, we took a little time to hike a bit of the Naches Peak Loop trail, finding incredible wildflowers blooming everywhere.

Avalanche Lily trio

Lupine, paintbrush, and more

After a short hike to the pretty little Union Creek Falls, I spent about 20 minutes looking for a fish in this nice little stream. Dry-dropper was run through some really likely looking water, but no sign of even a small one. This left me to try my hand once again in the American River. Years ago I remember fishing a stretch of this river, beautiful water, with nary a rise. I was determined this time to change that.

 

I had scoped out some nice water near pull-outs in the early morning light on the way over. I came to one and headed down to the stream. Still with the Turk's Tarantula on top and a size 16 pheasant tail on bottom, something that works well on the Tieton. Three likely holes, sweet looking water, nothing but one very small fish (possibly fry) that flew downstream when I lifted up. I couldn't count that one. Upstream was a beautiful run, the flow split by a boulder, the water looks thigh deep water with a nice seam between the fast and the slow water. I laid out the fly on the edge of the fast water, dropped it in the slow water, drifted it down the main current. Nothing. There had to be a fish there. So I changed the top fly to a beaded stone to get it down and put on the thingamabobber. First cast right against the rock, seconds later this beautiful cutthroat was on and to hand. Probing the water above brought two more fish. Then it was fast water for quite a ways. It was time to go anyway. All it takes is one fish to make it number 125.  

 

Beautiful American River cutthroat

Squaw Action...or Pike Minnow for the Politically Correct!

Mutual tonight.  Boys were working on Watersports Merit Badge.  Boat was full.  Time to practice some spey casting on the Columbia!

Beautiful evening to practice casting into the wind!

Took out the 13'3" Sage VXP 8 wt for an evening.  Cast a black wooly buggar and did some stripping.  Landed 5 or 6.  The boys were happy to build a pool and play with their new friends.  The 8 wt did handle the 8 inchers pretty well.

I definitely need some work on the spey cast, but it's getting there.

FISH ON!

Rob's Farewell to The Creek

June 13, 2015 Somewhere in Eastern Washington

 

With Rob leaving for Peru on his mission for 18 months, it was time to say goodbye to one of his most faithful and reliable friends. For 25 years, The Creek has been there for us, ever since Rob moved to Wenatchee and discovered this little gem. It could always be counted on to deliver an abundance of beautiful redband rainbows. Some years the stream was fairly open with easy fishing; lately it has been filling in with grass, severely limiting the ability to fish. A big flood this past winter did a good job of washing away a lot of the grass and opening the water back up. It also washed away a lot of the fish, though still leaving plenty to keep things interesting. Based on past experience, it will only take a year or two to return to the normal abundance.

 

We (Rob and Rick) arrived about 10 am and found no other vehicles in the parking area above the canyon. That was a good start. Rather than walking the old road and starting at the crossing, we decided to start down in the canyon pools, hiking the steep, but scenic trail.

Parked above the canyon

Starting down the trail

That is the water we'll be hitting

 

Nice view!

Once down in the canyon, it didn't take long to find fish. Rob had the first one on while Rick was playing around taking photos. Deep pools, waterfalls, and a fish or two in most of the holes. This was a beautiful start to the day. The waterfall hole has really changed. I never knew it was so big as grass had previously lined both sides of the bank with the creek flowing in the channel in between. The floods took out all the grass, leaving a big pool that stretches from one wall of the canyon to the other.

Rob with the first fish of the day

A typical rainbow

Nice canyon pool

Narrow section...

...with a trout below the waterfall

The new waterfall hole



Leaving the canyon, we continued upstream through a much more open stream. Only one or two fish found in most holes rather than the typical five to ten, but it was pretty constant all the way up. Just below the crossing, I cast over the top of a fallen log about six feet above the water and high-sticked it to get a good drift. You could see the fish darting up to the fly and back, running in circles, but never hitting it (I was fishing a dry dropper, with a Turk's Tarantula on top that they had been hammering). So Rob tosses his Renegade the same way, and as soon as the fly hits the water, the trout comes flying 18" straight up out of the water and down on the fly. Crazy! And so it continued, some slowly rising fish, some darting out from under the grass, some appearing seemingly out of nowhere to take the fly down.

This section was a mat of floating grass last year!

Five hours after starting, we had fished higher than I had ever been in the creek, past the bubbling spring, past the side creek that comes in, sometimes pushing through grass that covered the creek, but always finding another stretch of open water beyond. And in most every stretch of open water, another beautiful little fish or two. If Rob hadn't had family pictures that evening, I probably would have kept going until it was dark, taking joy in each new hole and the fish encountered therein. But Rob did have pictures, so five hours and 1.4 miles from our starting point, we climbed out and started the long walk back to the car. We maybe even gave Rob enough memories to last him through the next 18 months...Don't worry, Rob, I'll post more pictures next year when the fish have grown even bigger!

Looking down the valley as we start back to the car