Black Friday Deep Freeze

For the traditional post-Thanksgiving fishing trip, Tom came down to the Tri-Cities so Rick and Tom could try and find steelhead in the Touchet River. The weather didn't look too bad, about 25°F and foggy when we left before dawn Friday. Sure, it will ice up the guides, but we can live with that. We were heading to explore a section of the lower Touchet, which steelhead are reported to move into before heading upstream later in the season. As we headed east, the temperature started dropping, and as we pulled into the parking area next to the river, it was 15°F with dense ice fog.  Hmm, never tried fishing when it was this cold. Shelf ice lined both sides of the small stream, and after a few casts, not only was there ice in the guides, but the leader and line had a sheath of ice, and would cast like a stiff wire. Reeling in line was next to impossible as the ice from the line would jam up the first guide. Admitting defeat by the elements, we headed back to the car, and after the couple minutes it took to get there, our reels were frozen solid and unable to turn to bring in the excess line, punctuating our defeat with an exclamation point.

 

Not wanting to accept defeat, we checked the weather conditions with the smartphone. Waitsburg to the east was currently 21°F, forecast to get into the low 40's. Dayton, a little farther east (and closer to the mountains) was 24°F. Nice inversion. We could see the fog dissipated to the east, with the promise of sun to warm things up. So off we went. At our first stop east of Waitsburg, we found sun, a balmy 25°F, a couple really nice steelhead runs, but no fish.  Not surprising, as the steelhead usually don't make it up this far until later in the season. Tom turned one nice sized trout, but nothing else, surprising as normally you can catch a lot of small trout (smolt) in this section. The cold made some interesting ice in places, but it was nothing like the cold at the first stop.

 

Ice sculpture on the Touchet

By now it was nearing lunchtime, and we decided to try a favorite section near Dayton, after the obligatory stop for burgers and shakes at Ray's Drive In (Cougar burger - double 1/4 pound patties, slice of ham, bacon, and all the fixings - along the their awesome milkshake. Great!). Recharged, we headed to the stream with the temperature now a balmy 40 degrees or so, and promptly found lots of steelhead, just ones that hadn't headed out to sea yet (or that had decided to stay in the stream rather than make the long trip). They pretty much ignored flies (even the psycho prince), but couldn't resist the peachy pearl bead. It was still a little hit and miss, with some great looking water delivering no fish, while shallow riffles near the bank would crank out fish after fish. We found quite a few decent sized fish like the one pictured with Tom below.

Tom and a nice Touchet trout

It would have been nice to have found a steelie or two, but we did find some nice water that I might try and revisit later in the year. A great day fishing. Thanks, Elisabeth, for loaning Tom out for the day!

Rick Gives Thanks for Trout...

What would Thanksgiving be with a trip to "The Ford"? I finally found a day to get out with Boyd Robertson, a neighbor and fellow fly-fisherman. And he gets a special guest post on the blog.

 

Arrived fairly late (10:30 am) but no cars at the lower parking area. Beautiful sunny day, but I'm partial to snow and sleet for the best fishing this time of year at the Ford. Lots of weeds still in the water in the run above the lower bridge, only strippable from the corner to the bridge.

 

First cast at the corner above the lower bridge brought a wake and strike on the green bunny, good pull, but missed the hook. I wish that was a sign for how the fishing would be for the day, but it wasn't quite that good - until the end. I found some, but most of the wakes did not end in a take. I watched some smaller ones right in front of me at the bridge that would follow it in with a wake and almost have their mouth around it, but never close the deal. Boyd had some better luck fishing with a secret "fly" that I won't share here, but action wasn't wild and crazy. I tried a little in the skinny water, not too many fish down there, and no action on what I tossed their way. Some fish below the bridge and off the peninsula above the dam.

 

Boyd and a little guy

Mid-afternoon Boyd headed up the east side to the middle skinny, and a little later as I left the bridge to follow him up, I noticed a truck with blue tanks in the back drive up to the edge of the creek - I should have given that a little more thought...but we found no people and a few fish in the middle skinny. Heading back down I had lots of wakes, no takes, at almost every opening I fished. Boyd caught a couple more. Approaching the bridge, there were four guys lining the path to the bridge, hauling in fish after fish.  Yup, the truck had dumped a load of 18" to 20" fat, silver-bright, hungry trout. Boyd caught 18 from the east side down below the bridge, I caught not that many fishing above the bridge, but it was pretty fortunate timing. Wish I had stayed to see what was in the truck....But the action was fast and fun until almost dark, when we called it a day and headed home.