FRC May 14, 2010

Rob and I met at the FRC for an afternoon of fishing before his scouts showed up for an overnight campout. Most of the action was from about 2 pm to 3:30 pm, when I landed 4 'bows, two about 20" and the other two newbies (about 12" to 14"). I didn't keep a tally on Rob. Mine all came on a conehead olive bugger/sculpin type fly and a green damsel nymph, fished on a floating line. Then things went cold. After an hour break, I spent another 2 1/2 hours kicking around, floating line, sinking line, different flies, waiting for an evening bite that never materialized. I landed one more small guy and a few mini-bluegill. I probably had at least another dozen or more hit the fly without getting the hook into them. Thanks for the trip, Rob!

Any Takers?

Since I've only been on the river once this year, I decided to share this little gem. Have any of you Merrill boys seen this before?

About Time An Anderton Posted

Visit this link for a brief account of my first fish landing since my lone steelhead out of the Jon Bon Jovi hole at Bella Coola. Fished with some sparkly lures in the morning then moved to long plastic worms and different sparkly lures in the afternoon (I know, I can't match the fishing lingo that litters this blog). Lunch consisted of salami sandwiches, beef jerky and bottled water. Water temp was very warm, as Fayette County Lake is fed by a neighboring coal plant. I didn't find out until after the trip that it's best to long-arm the fish in pictures, creating the illusion that the fish is bigger than it really is. FYI, this was a 2-3 pounder.

Good Week of Steelheading in One Morning

I went up to the mighty Met this morning to try and get a last steelheading trip in before the river closes. It ended up being an EPIC day!

The day began with a 5 am #7 from the East Wenatchee McDonalds. (Remember, Rick... Orange Juice!!) Drove up the Methow valley a ways and began to get ready to fish. As the waders were going on, I got an urge.

After visiting the local gas station to drop off a package, I returned to find two guys in the hole I wanted to access. They were on oppposite sides of the river from each other, so I dropped way down in the hole and fished the tail out. As I was walking in, the spey guy just finished landing a steelie and as I settled into the run, the gear guy above me landed another. It was looking good!

I proceeded to hook four fish in the tail out and land two of them. Casting was a pain with trees behind me, so when the spey guy left, I got out, crossed the bridge and took his spot opposite the gear guy. There was a nice flat rock about knee deep that I stood on. From that rock I hooked 10 more steelies in the next 3 hours. Landed seven of them. The landing was much better on the far side of the river as was the casting.

The fish further upriver were much larger than the lower river fish (at least from my randomized sampling). Four of the fish were over 30" with the largest going about 32". All natives, no hatcheries, so I couldn't convince Elisabeth that this was just a long trip to the store for fish.

All in all, went 9 for 14 on a half day. Finished fishing at about noon and called it a day!

Fighting Rainbow Club

Ninety minutes on the water yesterday afternoon for seven nice rainbows. Water temp 46 degrees. Purple egg sucking leech, 6mm peach colored bead pegged with a toothpick 1-inch above hook (thanks Heath and Nancy!), and prince nymph were successful. Wind came up strong the last half hour I was there (5:30-6:00)

A great reward for attending the cleft palate team meeting in Yakima!

Methow Magic!

Rick, Tom and Brian Anantatmula (sp?) went up to fish the Met today. The morning started with the traditional #7 Breakfast at McDonalds. Orange juice was the morning beverage of choice for those who would hook fish today.

Fortunately for me, the day was to belong to Tom. Six fish were hooked and three were landed. Tom managed to hook 5 and land all 3! 2 Natives were landed (see pic below) as well as one fish for dinner in the smoker tomorrow.


I will say that there is nothing quite as exhilarating as an indicator dive that is followed by a rod tip raise that meets with resistance, a head shake and a run.

Interestingly, it was the hatchery brat that put up the best fight going airborne over 5 times!

2009-2010 has been an outstanding steelhead year in NCW.

Mayflies in February?

We found a silver lining in the down economy: Since business has been slow and there weren't as many people to be seen we followed the motto we once heard--when the going gets tough, the tough go fishing!

Tom & Rob went to the Methow February 11 and found a few metalheads. Rob got a hatchery one on a bead (thanks Heath and Nancy!) that was required to be bonked (note the photo that looks like it was taken among the icebergs in Antarctica) and Tom got a native that had to be released on one of his white bunny leeches ("Feed them fur," says he).

Rob got another one upstream a ways at the bridge after wading deeply to get to an abandoned concrete bridge pier, fought it for 5-10 minutes and then decided to go farming instead of wade with it back across the deep water to the shore. No sense of adventure!

The surprise of the day came when we were returning home and decided to try the Columbia. To our surprise there were fish rising and sipping mayflies that had hatched and were floating on the surface. Tom tied on a small mayfly pattern and started casting to the rises. He took three cutthroats, a rainbow, and a mountain whitefish. Dry fly fishing in February? Who'd have thought it? We had no idea there were cutts in the Columbia. Kind of cool!

Sorry the photos are in reverse order. I haven't gotten this whole blog thing quite figured out, but Rick should be happy we at least posted. Rob