Summer Solstice Celebration - I Caught Enough for All the Boys...

Friday, June 20

 

I had an afternoon free after helping with the Kennewick Stake Trek, and decided to stop at the Touchet "on the way home." It was only 3 hours of driving versus 40 minutes by the direct route, so it's not that far out of the way. It was a beautiful drive, through Wallula Gap along the Columbia River, across the Walla Walla valley, with all the hills striped in green, gold, and brown. Arriving at one of my favorite locations on the Touchet, I found the stream clear, cool, and at a perfect level.

 

I dropped into the stream, double caddis green psycho prince setup, and proceeded to catch thirty without moving or casting more than 30 feet. Size of fish was nice for the Touchet, ranging from 6" to 10" with more in the upper half of that range than the lower half. Was I glad I made the drive instead of heading straight home? Silly question...

 

Finally started moving up stream, but slowly, as there were fish everywhere. Larger fish were often hitting the indicator, so I switched back and forth a couple times from the double nymph to a dry dropper with a stimulator chew toy on top. Saw some action on the dry, especially in some pocket water, which was fun, but ended up back with the double nymph - just too effective at catching. Two hours and twenty minutes later, I climbed out of the stream with a total of 136 hooked and brought in (many more missed or LDR'd). 

 

With a big smile on my face, I made the short walk back to the car ready to head for home (this was all in just less than 1/4 mile of river), but the hole downstream from where I started fishing was calling to me. Since I hadn't quite used the full 2.5 hours I had allotted for fishing time to get me home at a reasonable hour, I answered the call and found 18 more, including #138 below. I figured since I couldn't join my dad and brothers for our solstice celebration this year, I would catch fish for me and them so they could join me in spirit. I hope you guys enjoyed it, but my guess is that I enjoyed it more...

#138 of 154

Creek report

Sixty-two at the creek this afternoon.  Garn caught a bunch as well.  Fished from deep holes at canyon corner about halfway to where the road crosses the creek.  Renegade was the ticket.  A fair amount of "dipping" in small accessible flats among the encroaching grasses.  Fun afternoon!

TresDoctores Pescando

DrRobFish, DrDadFish, and DrDon visited the FRC this morning.  Though clouds were dark and rain was threatening we decided to brave the elements.  It was a short wait for action.  Before we hit the corner for the first time Don & Dad hooked fish almost simultaneously--a double!!  Great way to start.  Both got them in.  (Floating lines--black bugger and green wooly worm with red tail).

Not long after and I had my chance and boated a 16" rainbow.  (Intermediate line with green damselfly nymph)  Another one a short time later.  (trailing prince nymph).

Down the back shore and Don found another (pictured).

Smiling Dr. Don with a smiling rainbow

Then we kept trolling and he caught a nice 18" rainbow that we measured in the net.  Action was pretty consistent all morning.  We fished from 9:00-noon.  Wind was blowing a bit so it was a little adventure there.

Then came the rain.  If it was a shower it was more like the kind of shower you take when you have to get up for an early flight and you are standing under the showerhead for  10 . . . 15 . . . 20 minutes? Don & Dad had their thinking caps on this morning and actually brought coats, me--not so thinking this morning and more anxious to get fishing so only had flannel shirt with sweatshirt over it. When you're catching fish, who's counting time anyway?  (Finally dried out and warmed up about the time we hit Wenatchee.)

As we were trolling up the far end there was lots of action.  At one point I had hooked a small bluegill on my prince dropper and was hauling it in when a Tiger Trout came up and swatted it.  I quickly let it back down and he swatted again and missed.  And again.  And again.  Finally he got it and made one quick run and was off.  I think he got the bluegill, but the hook tore from the bluegill's soft mouth so the tiger had a tasty treat.  I guess that lets us know that at least one tiger survives to feast yet another year on the bluegill.  (I was the only one who caught bluegill--I know Tom & Rick, each bluegill I catch counts as a deduction on trout so I was probably negative today in fish count, but it was worth it to have the brief tiger encounter!)

Liking the FRC this year!

Rainbows and Bluegill and Leroy--Oh My!

Ready to go

Today was Leroy's inauguration into the art of flyfishing.  As Wilford Woodruff said, "“the artificial fly is far the best thing now known to fish trout with.”  Michelle met me at the FRC and within about the first 2 minutes we landed our first rainbow.  Due to technical difficulties we didn't get a photo, but Leroy got interested.

Michelle with a feisty rainbow

We were able to get a photo of the next one, but couldn't get Leroy to look at the camera with that big fish there.

Bluegill are scary!

Imagine our surprise when he reacted strongly to the bluegill I brought in later.  Not sure if he was upset that we'd caught the wrong species or it somehow looked ferocious to an almost two-year old.

Throwing rocks is fun!

Best success was on a prince nymph fished on an intermediate line.  We fished from 3:30 to 5:00 on a bright sunny day.  We were pleasantly surprised to have action fairly consistently during that time.