Temple and Trout

Gotta love the drive to the Seattle temple. I went over with the young women to help watch the primary of another ward. On the return back, I asked the YW if they would mind stopping for 5 minutes so I could catch a fish. They said sure. After landing an 8" cutt on cast one I said "OK, we can go." Their response..... "That wasn't 5 minutes. Can you get anymore so we can watch more closely?"

4 minutes more and 3 more fish. 2 Cutts and 2 bows. Largest being 8". Smallest about 5".

I love summer!

Trip to Spokane Airport

Well, the Courtright Family Reunion has come and gone. Mike C. flew into Spokane on Friday, so I volunteered to go pick him up. The flight got it at 3 PM, so I left at 4:20 am to make sure I would make it in time.

I made great time to Ritzville and after a #7 McDonald's breakfast (with OJ!), I looked at the time and realized I might be getting to Spokane earlier than the 3 PM arrival. Hmmmm. What to do with several hours extra??? Oh, how about a quick trip to Nunya!

Fortunately, I happened to have my rattlesnake chaps, wading boots, 5 wt TFO and an assortment of black buggars and hoppers. Man, was I glad they happened to be there!

After a quick drive (meaning 65 mph on dirt roads), I arrived at Nunya to find myself alone. The first 1/4 mile was unproductive. I fished both hoppers and nymphed buggars with no takes. At mile 0.25, however, the buggars turned on. I proceeded to catch lots of fish on buggars the rest of the way up. Did finally take a small 9" brown (didn't know they made them that small in Nunya!). At the final hole, I put on a hopper and proceeded to take 3 browns on the dry including a fat 22 incher. The lower 1/2 of Nunya produced all rainbows. The upper 1/2 all browns. Chance??? I don't know. Largest rainbow 23" in the corner hole. Most were 17-20".

Well, after 5 hours of a holding pattern at Nunya I figured it was time to pick up Mike. Got him from the airport and I just happened to have an extra set of waders and another fly rod. Sounds like a return trip to Nunya since it is "on the way home".

We fished from the upper bridge both up and down. Didn't find anything large at all. Mostly small rainbows, but Mike did end his Nunya skunking with a FAT 19" bow out of the last hole. I'd like to park cars lower and upper and make the full trek sometime.

Rick, this did merit a post due to the fish size being > 20".

Fish: 30+
Snakes: 0!
Lost flies: 3
Memories: Priceless!

Rob & the scouts @ Myrtle Lake

Plans for the scout hike got changed due to lots of snow in our planned destination along with snow covering backup plan #1 as well as backup location #2. Well, when the going gets tough, the tough go fishing. So we went instead to Myrtle Lake up the Entiat River. Good thing since it was a training hike and one of our boys who is new and has some difficulty hiking took 4.5 hours to get to the lake compared to 2.0 hours for Brian and the faster crew. However, to give incentive to the boys to go back and help the slower one, the adult at the end of the line, was the one with the lunch!

Lots of brook trout in Myrtle Lake. Several boys had their first ever experience fishing and catching fish. I like being scoutmaster--it gives me reason to take these boys and introduce them to the great outdoors, and fishing too!


Sorry, I couldn't get any of my images to upload to the blog today.=-(

Three more streams

July 22, 2011

The big event of the day was dropping Jessica off in Seattle, on her way to Japan for a year for a job teaching English with the JET program. We enjoyed the mini-road trip and a last meal together at a pizza place downtown. A few teary eyes as Sarah, Melinda, and I bid her farewell. Then we were off. Carlynn said goodbye in the morning and stayed at home, so we were free to take as long as we wanted to get home - and you know what that means!

First stop, Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie. This is a sizeable, but beautiful river, crystal clear, but probably higher than normal due to the heavy winter snows and late spring. Since this trip was simply to pad the stream count, I found a pull out with likely water, landed two small cutts, and called it good. On my deer hair headed, rubber-legged fly, what ever it is called (dry). I can't believe I never fished here in all my time in Seattle. Definitely worth a return visit if time permits on a trip to Seattle.

Middle Fork Cutt

Next stop, Taylor River a few miles up the Middle Fork Road. Running a little bit high and fast, but crystal clear. This river drops a bunch, but in lower water would have some nice pocket water. Stopped at the first turnout, turned several, finally landed a little one, but no photo as the phone camera locked up. Turned a nicer fish (10"?) on the deer head thing. Most fish came to the elk hair caddis, size 12.

Left the Middle Fork and headed east for Meadow Creek, a tributary of Lake Keechelus just past Snoqualmie Pass. Nice camping area at the bridge. A faint trail heads upstream, but since I was looking to pad my stream count, I started fishing right away. First hole brought up this little cutt. Caught a few more, similar in size, and missed a few. Nothing I saw had any size at all. Perhaps the parents are farther upstream? Beautiful small stream, lots of nice pocket water and holes, pretty open with not a lot of overhanging branches. Might be fun to explore further up. It appears there may be a road that follows it upstream for a ways. Elk hair caddis, size 12

Meadow Creek Cutt

Finally, stopped a little further west on this road to check out Roaring Creek. It was roaring, a challenge to even get to, with steep short canyon wall and lots of brush. Found one hole with a little slower water, looked good, but no fish to the fly. So on the day, fish in 3 of 4 stream, all three new to me, so mission accomplished with my Washington stream total incremented by three! Every trip is an excuse to fish!

One more closer to 100....

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Took Jessica and Melinda on a day hike up to Meeks Table. A little late for a lot of the wildflowers, but the tiger lillies were out in force in the meadows.

But this isn't a blog for sissy wildflowers. On the way home I thought I'd give Oak Creek another shot. Years ago I stopped very briefly and found it very small and overgrown and didn't raise any fish in a very brief attempt. While the girls slept, I took a little detour (really Natalie, it was little - only about 10 minutes out of the way) and found a wide open stream. A few years ago a fire burned the whole canyon, so it is completely opened up. Stopped two miles up, fished about 20 to 30 min, at least a couple dozen to the fly, a dozen or more to the hand. All quite small rainbows (3" to 7"). Most on a Goddard Caddis, some on the size 16 Psycho Prince. A smaller hairwing caddis probably would have caught more - there were a lot of rejections right at the fly.

A couple more miles upriver might find some larger fish. If the lower stretch tends to dry up small, the upper reaches in the forest (rather than oak scrub) might be more hospitable for trout year round. But most importantly, never caught fish here before, so this adds one more stream to my total on the way to 100 streams in Washington.

Nunya!

Friday, July 1, 2011

There were some early fireworks for Tom, Rick, and Brian A today at Nunya. After the obligatory #7 and McDonalds (Rick was sure to order OJ today, no chocolate milk, and it payed off handsomely with the highest fish total of the day), we arrived at Nunya and found it running a little high, a little colored, but very fishable. What a place!

Short summary first, a few stories after the photos:

About 24 of these:

About a dozen of these:

Only one 24" monster like this:

A couple of these (the sketch effect is cleverly used to hide the fact that the fish took Rick's fly just behind the pectoral fin, one of two he skillfully caught this way on the day):

And somewhat thankfully, only 3 of these:

OK, a few stories.

Brian's monster (taped at 24"): Tom and I are coming upstream and see Brian fighting a stick in the river. But wait, it isn't just a stick! The fish wrapped the line around the stick and is now just sitting there looking up at Brian and laughing at him. "Hah!" says the fish, "The only stick within 30 yards any direction, and you let me wrap the line around it!" But what the fish didn't know was that Brian was delicately fishing with 2x 12-lb test tippet - With that tippet, he could lift the fish out of the water and swing it around his head if he wanted to. So the fish didn't break off and Brian was able to unwrap the line from the stick and land the beauty!

Tom in the first hole: Tom and Brian saw a splash near the grass in the shallows of the riffle at the head of the hole. Brian fishing in the next hole up directed Tom a little more precisely to where the fish splashed, and Tom's hopper briefly hit the water before getting sucked into the mouth of a nice brown. Always a good way to start the day!

Rick and the killer brown trout from Monte Python and the Holy Grail (or was it a rabbit?): Standing in hip deep water, Rick hooked one that proceeded to swim right at him. He was frantically pulling in line and lifting the rod to keep the line tight when the 18-20" brown leaps out of the water and uses the bend of the rod to perform the longest, highest jump Rick has ever seen from a fish of that size. It left the water several feet in front of Rick and hit its apex about even with him at shoulder height (at least two feet above the water!). As it passed by no more than a foot or two away, Rick watched the fly come free from the fish's mouth. After throwing the fly, the trout continued on its flight path and fell back into the water a couple feet behind Rick. I guess with only 3x - 10 lb test, Rick couldn't quite spin the fish around his head.

Details: Spring is 2 to 3 weeks late here as everywhere else. Vetch was in full bloom everywhere, water level and color was typical of early June. A few hoppers around. We caught a few fish on hoppers, but very little action along the banks, even with Tom's incredible casts and drifts along the grass banks. Most of the fish were on black buggers, Brian had an olive beadhead bunny leach. Quite a few follows without takes, a couple tried to take the fly literally on top of Rick's toes. We tried to walk through to the upper bridge, but ended up walking out to the road before we got to the bridge. It was a long way over to the road, added maybe 10 minutes to the hike compared to going back along the creek (but we didn't see any snakes). Speaking of snakes, they are creepy things, especially in the grass. None really rattled, even when harassing them a little. Still a little cool to be really active it appears.