In the Seeps with Tom and Rick

October 17, 2015

I stared at the tippet, lightly rippling in the slight breeze. Lightly rippling because there was no longer a fly attached. But that is a story for the end of the day...

The day started, as any good day fishing should, in the pre-dawn hours with two #8 meals from McDs with orange juice (one for Tom, one for me). Our eventual goal was a familiar seep lake we hadn't visited in some time, but on the way we visited a couple wasteway drains, hoping to find the water low at the end of the irrigation season. The first was still running high, but Tom managed to entice a small rainbow up to a swinging bugger, a new stream for him. He might make it to 100 one of the days. The next is somewhat like a spring creek, clear, cold, fairly stable flow. What isn't like the spring creek is that it runs mostly in a straight line at the bottom of a large ditch dug into the flat plain. Walls so steep it is hard to climb, a thread of a bank between the slope and the grass and rushes that line the edge of the drain. But there are fish here, and so we are here too. Tom for some unknown reason didn't have a psycho prince on. I did, and after I had four small rainbows to hand (stream #126), Tom put one on too, and promptly found his own fish. 

Nice little rainbow - Stream #126

You can't lose fishing a big ditch by a culvert

Moving up to another section, Tom spotted a larger fish from his vantage spot at the top of the bank and directed my cast right over the holding fish. First cast a little short, second cast just right, and the fish darted from the bottom to attack....my strike indicator! I saw the full back of maybe a 15" rainbow as it tried to swallow the indicator, ignoring both flies hanging underneath. That was all the action here, so on to our actual destination. 

The destination lake requires about a 3/4 mile hike in, carrying our float tubes. We have never caught large numbers here in recent years, but the fish that are caught are usually good sized. Lots of midges coming off, but no sign of fish. Tried chironomids off the basalt walls, nothing. With it getting warm, we decided to kick around a little to see if we could find anything. Pulling black and green buggers/leeches, I kicked down to one end of the small lake and back, Tom trolled around the rock walls. Nothing. As we passed, Tom tangled the fly line, allowing his intermediate line to sink. Suddenly, fish on! A mad fight as he tried to get the tangle out of the fly line before the good-sized fish made a good run. A short time later, he had a nice 19" to 20" rainbow to hand.

Tom and his nice rainbow, skillfully caught.

A little more trolling found him a couple more strikes, one fought for a short time, but that was it. Out of the lake, we wanted to explore the inlet creek, having fished it years before, but not finding any fish. This time proved to be different. After hiking another 3/4 mile or so, we worked our way down to the creek. The small creek winding through a scabland channel creates a beautiful oasis in the sagebrush-covered landscape. A great-blue heron made way for us as we approached the creek. Stretches of slow meanders lined with cattails, occasionally narrowing to short stretches where it tumbles around and over basalt boulders, the small creek looks promising. It did our last visit also, but this time would prove different.

Beautiful little creek in a scabland canyon

Tom quickly found a few small Tiger trout, while I moved upstream to search for some of my own. After a number of misses, I eventually got this small Tiger hooked and to hand. Stream #127!

Small Tiger trout and Stream #127

Heading back downstream, I moved past Tom to the next stretch of moving water. The small stream, narrowed to barely five or six feet wide, dropped over some large boulders into a frothy pool of water at the head of a nice looking run. As I approached the top of the hole, I had to first make a token toss into the white water before moving a little closer to fish the inviting run below. Unhooking the bead-head olive leech from my rod, I casually tossed it into the bubbly water without pulling out any extra line. Instantly, the water exploded in a huge splash. Not having any slack line off the reel, the rod tip bent sharply down, then bounced right back up, leaving my 4x tippet dangling in the wind. It was over in less than a second, before I could even think about doing anything. Tom had just come down in time to see the whole thing happen. Now that was a fish I wish I could at least have fought for a moment. While I tied back on, Tom moved into position, made a cast downstream into the run, and promptly hooked a monster rainbow for this tiny stream, maybe 19" long. Fought it for a time, but lost it before we could get it to the net. And that was the end of the day. Making our way up out of the small canyon and back to our float tubes, we were marveled at the fish we had lost, while making plans for a return trip to see if we could find them again...  

Scabland Creeks

October 9, 2015 Somewhere East of the Cascades...

My Hanford Friday off led me to plan a trip with Kirk Morris to a couple creeks in the scablands - Nunya and Little Nunya. With the dry weather, Nunya was little and Little Nunya was almost non-existent. But despite the low water we were able to find a few fish.

Early morning arrival at Nunya found the water really low. Hoppers gone, fishing black buggers, me with indicator, Kirk just stripping. Kirk quickly found a nice rainbow.

Kirk and his first rainbow from Nunya

Shortly thereafter, Kirk had a large rainbow, in the range of 18" to 20" explode from under the grass, then dive back into the grass and promptly come unhooked. Things were looking good if the first few holes were like this. We each caught a few, all rainbows about 12" to 16", all on black buggers, all in the first few holes and then in the moving water above the first big stretch of slack water. 

Rick with a bow from water that is normally running

Kirk and a nice 16" rainbow

After that, nothing. No fish spooked, no strikes, and barely enough water to drift. Kirk had one follow at the dirt bank corner, but after that we were ready to leave. It is hoped that the browns have taken shelter in the slack water and under the banks. You can see how low it is from this picture looking down on the corner at the dirt bank.

The dirt bank corner, normally rushing water all the way across

Second stop was Little Nunya. There was so little water, that everywhere was like fishing the still water of a beaver pond. Fish were really spooky, but we were able to get a few. 

A typical Little Nunya rainbow

The real purpose of the adventure was to hike in further to check out the water upstream. Cross country through the sagebrush for about 1.5 miles brought us to the edge of the scabland channel. Looking down we could see water, but almost nothing flowing. Enough for fish to survive, but not enough to entice us to climb down and fish. We will come back another time when more water is flowing to enjoy more than the view. 

Beautiful view of the Little Nunya coulee

With that, our day was done, and we returned home before dark, much to the surprise of our wives. Just so they don't get used to that...