Stream #130!

It is getting harder to find new streams in the areas I normally frequent, but I managed another one today while out pre-hiking trails for the Church girls camp that I will be helping with in a couple of weeks. It was a beautiful day to be out hiking, and since there was a chance fishing could be involved, I stopped by McDs for a #8 on the way out of town. I had two trails to hike, about 8 miles total, and since I was by myself, I could stop and take as much time as I wanted for pictures.

American Twinflower

Small-flowered nemophila

Pipsissewa

Goat Rocks from Round Mountain

Tieton valley (Clear Lake and Rimrock Lake) from Round Mountain

But as fun as hiking and photography is, it still can't beat fishing. While looking at the maps the night before, I noticed a little blue line that crossed the back road back from Camp Zarahemla, with a FS road that crossed it a couple more times upstream. So after finishing my hiking for the day, I took the back road home and found this. Tied on a small Goddard caddis and started dipping. There was no casting on this stream, and generally there was no more than a few feet of leader out from the rod tip.

Small, Tieton tributary

It didn't take long to find a cutthroat about 3" long, then a few more in that size range. Finally, the monster of the stream came from where else, inside the culvert. I should have gone there first!

Pretty cutthroat from Stream #130

After having too much fun at this little creek trying to get the fly on the water and the fish that could barely fit the fly in their mouth on the hook, it was time to head for home. Of course I had the obligatory stop on the Tieton, which was running quite milky and still a little fast. I found one small rainbow and another one flashed (unique in milky water, since the "flash" was a dark movement against the light water rather than the normal silvery flash against the darker water. One more stop on the Naches down below the town of Naches, where I found nothing more than a few small rainbows (they liked the psycho). There must be bigger fish in there, but I have yet to find them. Maybe next time.

Small Naches rainbow