A Good Morning on the Wenatchee

Rick was up in Wenatchee to help with some wiring modifications at Carlynn's sister's house and to get Melinda's braces adjusted by Tom; it just happened that the Wenatchee River opened for steelhead the week or two before, which added even more purpose to the trip (or took over the purpose of the trip?). Rob and Tom had been out Friday morning (where is that report, guys?). Tom and Rick reprised two of the holes on Saturday. Started at the confluence hole at first light, not too crowded, but no action, so it was on to the Bishop's hole further upriver. Fishing the tailout behind a good sized area where salmon were spawning, we found lots of fat whitefish, Tom and Rick each landed a good sized bull trout, and Tom had at least one suspiciously steelhead-like take. When the willing fish all had sore mouths, we decided to head downstream to try out a large broad run we have seen before but never really fished.

 

Walking along the long run of whitewater leading down to the next hole, we drifted our beads in a narrow strip of softer water right next to the bank, just wide and deep enough that a steelhead might be holding there. About halfway down, Rick's indicator dipped under about 3 feet from shore, a frequent occurrence from catching on the rocks in the relatively shallow drift. Lifting up, he felt one head shake and knew it was no rock; just as he lifted to set more firmly, the fish took off into the fast current. With virtually no line out to absorb the shock, in an instant the line parted and came back to Rick sans hook or bead. One of the most exciting (and brief) takes and fights in some time. Definitely steel. Three seconds of ecstasy, then days of wondering what might have been.

 

Another great outing. Peachy pearl was the ticket, as usual. And the home project at Marci's got done. Great weekend!

 

Tom and his bull; mine was perhaps a little longer, definitely quite a bit fatter

Fishing Without the Priests...

I was supposed to takes the Priests Quorum from the ward fly-fishing this morning. Friday I got a text that they weren't going to be able to go. Hey, I could stay home and mow the lawn, but I spun the dial on my wall and I couldn't get it to stop anywhere but on "Go Fishing"!

Actually, Kirk Morris, a fishing fanatic in the ward who I had talked to about maybe helping with the priests called and asked what the plans were. I said the trip was off, but knowing his wife and kids were out of town, I kindly offered to keep him company for the day on the Touchet River. He gladly accepted. For you sports fans, Kirk is the nephew of Jack Morris, the famous forkball pitcher in the major leagues. And he is as wild about fishing as some of his uncle's forkballs were at the plate.

Kirk and one of his nice ones

We fished 0.9 miles of the river from 8:30 to 2:30, through wind, rain, and sun. Some stretches were familiar and some were new to me. We found plenty of fish. None in some holes that looked good, then 20 or 30 in the next good run. I started with the double psycho, Kirk mainly caught them on a gray hare's ear that he tied. Some flyers and chesters, but a lot of nice 8 to 10-inchers, and we each caught a couple honest 12-inchers, great fish in this river. About noon we switched to dries, and had some non-stop action, Kirk on a home-tied kind of stimulator and an EHC, me with a standard big stimulator. Some October caddis around. I forgot how fun dries were!





My last, and nicest fish, that exploded on the fly in a little pocket of soft water against the bank

I found a kindred spirit after the likeness of Tom, who would fish from sunup to sundown. We almost stopped fishing three times, before we finally quit, each time having to check out that next hole just upstream, which led to the next and the next, which ultimately added a couple hours to our fishing day.

 

Pretty fish

A side stream came in that was heavily overgrown, that I thought was Wolf Fork, and I dipped a little rainbow out for a new stream, but then I got thinking about it and checked on Google Earth, and my suspicions were correct, Wolf Fork is a few miles upriver. This must have been a side channel, although I didn't see where it left the main river. Oh well, I'll have to go back and pick up that stream another time.

 

Briefly thought to be stream #125, but that will have to wait

Ended the day at Ray's, of course, with the cheeseburger basket and blackberry shake. An incredibly awesome day!

Team Patrick (or Team Gould?)

I had the pleasure of fishing this afternoon at the FRC with Patrick from Ellensburg, who fished with Rick earlier this summer, and his daughter, Ella.  Sunny and warm with water surface temps now cooled to 63 degrees.  Lots of weeds made fishing a bit of a challenge, but Team Patrick was up to that challenge.

Team Rob had the hot hand for bluegill (and all of them would easily fit in the palm of a hand) and put up the numbers early on, but it was not to be enough to fend off the challenge provided by Team Patrick.

After hooking a nice rainbow early on and breaking it off in the weeds Team Patrick made a nice comeback.  Some casting to rises yielded some strikes, but eventually it was on the troll that Team Patrick made the score that put them well ahead of Team Rob.  Quality and size was the name of the game.

Team Patrick with the winning rainbow.
(Ella shown wearing green body armor to protect from errant casts.)

I had a great time fishing with this Daddy/Daughter team and will gladly do it again.  Thanks for the afternoon guys!

Fishing Song

While floating down the Klickitat in the sunny warm weather this last week, there were many salmon in the river, occasionally rippling the surface of the stream as they rolled. Which led to this song, sung to the tune of Garth Brooks' "The Thunder Rolls". The chorus was composed on the stream, the verse while driving the last couple of days. (Craig and Brian were our guides on Monday).

Verse:
Early in October on the mighty river Klick,
Out with Craig and Brian on a guided fishing trip,
Driftboats on the water, the river’s running low,
Prayin’ that the weather won’t make the fishin’ slow,
Then the salmon roll, the salmon roll.
 
Chorus:
And the salmon roll, then the steelhead strikes,
Indicator down, now we got a fight,
The line screams out, out of control,
Steelhead takes flight, while the salmon roll.

All the Boys on the Klickitat (plust streams #123 and 124 for Rick)

October 6-7, 2014

Dad, Rob, Rick, and Tom all got together for two days of guided fishing on the Klickitat River for steelhead with Red's Fly Shop. Accommodations were great, at a lodge near Glenwood Washington with an expansive view of Mt. Adams. Great hosts, guides, and food.

View from my bathroom window (and the room if I had opened the blinds)

The weather was great for a scenic float down a beautiful canyon - clear skies, cool mornings, afternoon temps near 80 degrees - but it made fishing tough with it being dry for the last couple weeks and low water without any significant fall rains yet. Cloudy weather with rain a few days before gets the fish moving, but we made-do with the weather we had and found some fish, both steelhead and king salmon. The guides were licensed this year to allow us to keep kings, so we brought a little meat home in addition to the fun.

The Klickitat made stream #123 for Rick, then on the last day we got off the river with just enough daylight for Rick to stop at a pull out on the side of the road adjacent to the Little Klickitat River and pick up a couple small trout for stream #124. Tom could have been there, but somehow he thought getting home to see his family after being a week away from them was more important than a picking up a new stream (he was in California for several days before the fishing trip). He's getting soft!

It was a fun couple of days. We'll have to try again next year and hope for better weather.

Tom and our first steelhead of the day

 

Bright steel!

Fighting the king

A nice king

Tom was the steelhead man this trip





Stream #124 for Rick in the fading light of day

To Rexburg - Year 3

Friday, September 12

Time to take Sarah to school again. Planned the route to pass by the Lemhi again. No magic this time. The river was a little higher and a little dirtier than last year, and only found a few small trout and some nice whitefish (I think what I thought were pikeminnows last year were really whitefish). There were a number of people camped at the access, so it may have been hit hard already.

Only small rainbows this time in the Lemhi

So after leaving the Lemhi behind, with the sun approaching the western horizon, I made a last second decision to run up the teeny tributary where I found a bunch of small rainbows a couple years ago, this time fishing farther up where the small creek split into two even smaller creeks (I saw a pic on Google Earth that showed water in the creeks). The fork was much smaller than it looked in Google Earth, but I was surprised by a nice 10" rainbow out of one of the few spots deep enough to hold fish. Found another one up a ways, but holes were few and far between in this very small stream.

Nice rainbow from a tiny tributary

Then to the other fork, promptly caught a nice 10" bow, then 1 or 2 in every hole in this slightly larger stream that meanders through a grassy meadow. Fun to watch them come up and grab the fly. I was glad I made this stop!

A good number of 7" to 9" rainbows out of this beautiful small creek

Saturday, September 13

Slept in the van after moving Sarah in, then with the sunrise and a McDs #8, headed to the Warm River, with some intel to access above the railroad tunnel without a really long walk. Walked in about a mile, above a deep, whitewater canyon and found some nicer water, but only a few small fish. Moved up a little further, and about 10:00 am when the sun hit the water, a bunch of brown mayflies that flew like caddis started coming off, and soon the trout were following. After rotating through a number of flies, I found one that they really liked (irresistible, size 16 or so) right when I got to a nice, long, waist-deep run with fish rising like crazy, sometimes jumping out of the water to grab a fly out of the air. For an hour I watched nice cutbows and a couple browns come up from the depths and hammer my fly. It was fun!



These guys were rising all over, easy to see coming up to the fly in the crystal clear water

 

Even found a couple browns in the mix!

Walking back down, I saw a dozen fish feeding on nymphs in a deeper hole, so I climbed down and was able to fool a couple with a golden stonefly. Nothing on the psycho caddis today (or prince or just about any other nymph - all surface action today. Another successful BYU-I drop-off.

South Fork of the Snoqualmie

Well.  Two firsts this trip.  First trip to Safeco Field to watch Felix give up six homeruns... and first time on the South Fork of the Snoqualmie.

In preparation for heading to Alaska to catch some BIG trout, I thought the 3 weight needed a little love, too.

The older boys from church and a couple leaders and I stopped on the way home to overnight at Denny Creek Campground.  This is right in between the lanes of I-90 just west of Snoqualmie Pass.  Not a quiet campground, as there is lots of road noise, but it is right along the S. Fork.

On waking up, I went to the stream and quickly added another stream to the total with a nice Westslope Cutt.  We also caught one rainbow, which may have been a cut-bow as it had some faint slashes present, but a definite rainbow spotting pattern.

After a quick breakfast we decided to brave the rain and hike to Franklin Falls.

Franklin Falls between the lanes of I-90

On hiking to the falls, we let most of those present have attempts at trout in the pocket water.  Using a size 16 yellow-bodied humpy brought easy surface action.  All rose trout, but liked to let them "take it".  Too much bait-fishing influence I guess!  Most of the trout were between 6-9 inches, but this one was the beast of the trip!

Jon Dickson was going to get a picture of this one, so he took a 1/2 step to the left from his video position.  The 1/2 step led to a full slide down the granite slab and off a small cliff onto rocks.  Fortunately, he landed well and only had a few scrapes on his hands and no damage to his phone.  If it were an iPhone, it would have been done for!!!  :)

Continued the drive home with a stop at the Roslyn Cafe.  (Highly recommend it! - Great parmesan fries!)

Now that the 3 weight has been appeased, it is time to make the 8 weight happy in Alaska!!!