Bull!

3/13/08
Sauk River: two bull trout, zero steelhead.

3/15/08
Yakima River: Three li'l pigs, all 'bows, each of 'em on a stimmy.

Hold Still For Your Picture Dammit!

October Caddis

Burning Pram V

Less than two weeks until Burning Pram V. Start thinking about your alibi.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
Exhibit D

The Fishes In My Head

Flytimes Foam Damsel
hook: TMC 200R
body: thin (THIN!) strip of 2mm foam, tan
post: tag end of foam body
hackle: grizzly cape, oversized
thorax: antron, hare's ear brown
note: hackle is tied as a parachute, post is then drawn forward over thorax and tied down over the eye.

Its late summer and the days are just now starting to get shorter. Nights are longer and cooler. Trout cruise the shallows of my favorite stillwater. The fish have a sense of the changing season. They feed mostly on unseen nymphs and scuds, occasionally rising to a bug on the surface.
Mid afternoon and the sun is high. There is no hatch to speak of and the wind is starting to blow. Through the clear water I can see well enough to tell the rainbows apart from the browns. There aren't many of them but if I'm patient and range quietly around the bay I find them.
I'm casting through the wind. The fly splats down above a fish. Without hesitation the trout rises to take the adult damsel imitation. I wait for the fish to turn down before I strike but it happens fast and I don't remember when I struck. I land this one and many more. I also break a few off.
The wind blows harder, the trouts continue to rise to my fly as it bobs along in the whitecaps. Sight fishing to big browns and rainbows almost as good today as it was the day I was out there five years ago.

Native Trout Files: Westslope Cutthroat

Westslope Cutthroat

Discovered near the Great Falls by Silas Goodrich and named by his superior officers, Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi was once the widest ranging of all the cutthroats. Since the Corps of Discovery Westslope cutthroat populations have retreated back to the tributaires and headwaters of its ancestral watersheds; the Columbia and the Missouri.

Is it over?

Colleen Riche: Fish Enemy

Definitely a lull in the action. We need a squirt of fresh fish for sure.

It's never too late.

From today's PI

The pink salmon finally showed up in their usual north Sound spots, with large catches now in the Mukilteo-Edmonds area and good catches being reported along the beaches on the west side of Whidbey Island. They're also still thick off Sekiu in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and scattered from there inside all the way to the mouth of the Puyallup River

Load the Slough Buggy, warm up the FTL and program the following coordinates into the launcher...

The Launcher

Pink Salmon On The Run

Pink In The Net

The Flats Buggy Sails Again

Banks Lake Carp Flats


Nothing more than a glorified barge the Flats Buggy performs its duties flawlessly. When it comes to hauling my cooler, camera and a spare rod nothing beats the Buggy. As it turns out there wasn't much else to take a pic of, brutal day on the flats.

Middle Fork

Middle Fork Snoqualmie

Me and Ken hiked up the Middle Fork the other day to do some small stream fishing. The forks of the Snoqualmie, like so many other headwaters on the Western Slope of the Cascades, are small trout waters. Up there a 14 inch fish is a lunker, a 16 incher would be a trophy catch. We only managed a bunch of dinks , a few went 8 inches, cutts and rainbows. Slogging streamers on the beach for tardy salmon can be tiresome so it was nice to fish dry flies on moving water for a change.

In other news Pete over at Fishing Jones is running a writing contest. Inspired by only six words from Papa Hemingway its a simple affair and should yield some intersting, albeit short, stories. Give it a swirl.

Brown Trout Lake Redux

Big Brown Trout

'ol Sven and I rolled into camp just before sunset. Sven stayed in the truck whilst I chased all the snakes out of the campsite. Sven "don't cotton to no snakes." While drivin the last snake out of camp, an especially tenacious bull rattler, I heard a flushing sound. I looked up just in time to see a bowling ball sized void in the lake's surface. The void was in the center of large swirl which was itself in the center of an expanding circle of waves. Then with a loud burp the hole quickly filled with water. Sven saw it too, then he asked me if all the snakes were gone and if it was safe to get out of the truck.
We raised camp in no time. Set the fire, opened bottles and kicked back in less time yet. Then me and Sven spent the rest of the evening pontificating life, the universe and the meaning of the flush and swirl of big fishes.
The next morning we skipped breakfast, opting for an early start. I was on the water at the crack of 0930hrs. You just wouldn't believe how crisp the air is that early in the morning. Sven got out there even earlier than I did.
I spent the next four or five hours throwing the wrong flies, losing the right flies, and spooking rising fish. In short, I fished like an asshole.
Sven had a stellar day. Even calculating for the usual BS Sven had outfished me 4 to one. Surely there is a first time for everything.
The wind came up early in the afternoon prompting both of us to take a break for the rest of the day.
Evening comes early to the bottom land of Brown Trout Valley. The entire lake was in shadow by 7:00pm. We fished the evening hatch. Sven stuck with the dry flies and caught himself another "easy dozen." I trolled a streamer around the middle of the main lake and picked up a couple of fat rainbows.
Beer, fire, food, more beer and fire and eventually retirement to the fartsack.
Then the frogs began. Its a nice sound, an organic sort of white noise that a body can fall asleep to. Thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of frogs creating a cacophony of croaks.
At midnight a full moon rose over the eastern hills. The cliffs on the west side of the valley were awash in the proverbial pale moon light. Venus rose too. The whole scene was astronomical to say the least.
I lay in my cot with the bright moon shining through the tent door listening to the song of a million horned up toads. Seemingly an idyllic setting that one would like to find himself in at the end of every day.
At some very precise point in time every bird in the forest thought that the full moon was the rising sun. They sung their little hearts out accordingly, all at once, nonstop until morning. All those birds must have been real confused when the real sun rose over the mountain.
More fish, beer, fire, etc.
Packing up camp, return of the bull rattler. Little snakes will try to bite you in the leg, BIG snakes go for the tail swipe/leg sweep. BIG snakes want to bring you down to their level, then bite you in the nose. This was a BIG snake and he took me down quick. Thankfully Sven, who had posted himself on top of his truck cold beer and Ruger 10/22 in hand sniped that snake mid strike. "I don't cotton to no snakes!" said Sven as the now dead viper fell two inches from my nose. Buisness as usual for outdoorsman of our caliber.

Native Trout Files: Coastal Cutthroat

Sea Run Cutthroat

Patrolling the beaches and estuaries of the Puget Sound Oncorhynchus clarki clarki exists at the fringes of the ecosystem. Competing directly with Pacific salmon and steelhead the sea run cutt lives on the edge of what is considered suitable habitat for salmonids. Spawning occurs in the smallest streams and thinnest headwaters. Once hatched the young cutthroat are forced into marginally productive nursery waters by its larger cousins. Coastal cutthroat fill what must be the smallest and least fertile niche in the coldwater ecosystem. Not just enduring but thriving, benefiting from mandatory catch & release regulations and providing a great fishery for Puget Sound area fly fishers.

A Bad Pink Habit

Pink Salmon From The Beach

Humble, gracious, saintly; the pink salmon is truly the Mother Theresa of the salmons.

Your 4 seconds of fame are up.

This was supposed to be a snapshot but our friend Snapdad was having technical difficulties. Crank the volume and you'll completely understand.
Anyhoo... here's Asshooked with a salmon from the beach.

PINKA PINKA PINKA PINK!

Two pinks and a cutthroat! First pinks of the '07 run for yours truly.

They're there...

It's official, as per Jon Aqui the pink salmon are in. It looks as if Browns Point is the place to be to intercept a large portion of the
3.3 million Puget Sound humpies that are vectoring in on the Puyallup River.
Don't forget that there's coho out there too! Get to your local beach and drown some flies. Let us know how you do.

Getting Close

Looks like the humpies are starting to trickle in down around Browns Point. Those fish had to swim by Seattle to get there so there should be some pink action around here. Right?

Stay tuned to this fly fishing blog for the latest in pink salmon action.

Doug Rose, one of my favorite writers, has put his own website up on the internets. The best part is his fly fishing blog, lots of current info on the beaches, rivers and lakes of the Olympic Peninsula. RAH!

"Woot"

Rain, outgoing tide, bait present; decent conditions for some mid-day salmon action on the neighborhood beach. A good way to kill time before we hit the pub.
Thee Trouthole and myself hit the water at about 1:30. By 1:45 I had landed the one and only fish of the day.
The resident coho squirted out of the water in low hurdling arcs, except for my fly in its mouth looking like the bait that it was chasing moments earlier. A couple of splashy tail walks thrown in for show.
First salmon of the year, Huzzah!

For the latest speculation on the incoming pink salmon run check out the Saltwater Forum over at WAFF. Watch the anticipation build over the next few weeks as lies are told, predictions are made and fly recipes are swapped. Pink salmon sightings will be reported, rumors of early fish whispered.
Then it will all stop. The local internets will be quiet re: pink salmon. And that is when you will know that the pinks are in.