Brian Boat Float--Yakima River

Brian and I took his first float trip ever with the guides from Red's Flyshop on the Yakima River.  We did an evening float July 3 followed by an early morning float July 4.  We started the evening with Craig tossing streamers and were not disappointed.  We tossed slightly upstream while drifting and slowly retrieved the fly to keep tension and keep it moving "head first" downstream.  Few things compare to actually feeling that tug on the line as the fish grab the streamer.

"Woah, that's a nice fish!"

We found quite a few nice rainbows this way.  Brian got the best fish of the day.   After that, I was the recipient of comments such as, "That's not even half the size of the one I caught earlier!" when I landed a "lesser" trout.  

We floated from milemarkear 20 to Roza and enjoyed seeing deer, bighorn sheep, young eagles in their nest, turkey buzzards, geese, ducks, mergansers--most of the waterfowl with young--and a turkey along the shoreline to round out our wildlife roundup.

"I like it!"

We switched up to big dry stonefly patterns as the evening drew on and had lots of fish up to the dry.  We fished until it was no longer possible to see the fly on the water, we got the boat to shore and got back to Red's Flyshop about 10:05 then headed to Ellensburg for our "nap" at the Super 8 motel.

Arising at 4:30am to meet our guide Eric at the flyshop, we began our float from Red's to Roza. We started again with big dry stonefly patterns and we found some nice fish sporadicaly as the morning light approached.  Once the sun hit the water we switched to a double nymph setup under a strike indicator.  Action really picked up once we made the shift to nymphs.

Today it was my turn to get the best fish.  However, the best part of the trip was spending time with my son.  Fishing is just a good excuse for doing so.

A well-fed Yakima River rainbow--19.5"