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.

Best hatch of the year

Flytimes Poly Wing Baetis

hook: #18-#20 TMC 101
tail: brown antron
body: Superfine dubbing, gray olive
wing: ~1/3 to 1/4 strand of polypro yarn
thorax: same as body

Here at the Flytimes Ranch we call it the working man's hatch because it lasts long enough that nobody has to take time off to fish it.

Olive Biot Parachute

Flytimes Olive Biot Parachute

hook: TMC 100 #14
post: white turkey flats
tail: light dun micro-fibetts
body: olive turkey biot quill (long side)
parachute: brown saddle hackle
thorax: olive antron dubbing

Summer is over and the PMDs and PED's are still emerging while mahogany duns and various baetis species are just getting started. This time of year I'll fish this pattern all day. If the blue winged olives start to hatch I'll tie a tiny BWO pattern on the dropper.

The grass is high and the water's low; it's hopper time!

Jimmy Legs Hoppers

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.

Yargghhh!

Close personal friend and lights out photographer, Dave Perry, seeks beer and trout in the Treasure State.
When Dave's not gaining private access to little known and isolated trout streams in Montana he's in his garden; planting, weeding and blogging.

Carp '07

Banks Lake Mirror Carp
Gas up the rig and head out to the Grand Coulee Country, the capr are waiting.

Strange Mays

Big Mayfly

Weird bug, whatever it is. As soon as one of 'em would hatch it would attack and eat the first next one that hatched. Then, if it didn't fly off quickly enough, it too would be eaten by one of its own. It just goes to show you how cheap life is up there at Brown Trout Lake.

Damsel Nymph

Marabou Damsel Nymph

Hook: TMC 2312, #12
Tail & Body: blood quill marabou
Eyes: plastic or x-small bead chain

Good for trout, bass, sunfish, carp and who knows what else.

Clear Water

Today I went fishing and all I have to show for it is this lousy picture of a river that is bereft of steelhead.

Boyd Aigner's Chopaka May

Chopaka May

Hook: #14 Dry Fly
Tail: moose body
Abdomen: Olive Grey Superfine dubbing
Wing: single clump of deer hair, tied upright
Hackle: Dun, clipped across the bottom

This classic Northwest stillwater pattern was created by Boyd Aigner. Clipping the bottom of the hackle even with the hook point allows the fly to land upright on a calm lake surface. According to the 1986 edition of Flies of the Northwest the Chopaka May "provides a very natural silhouette. The take is slow and unhurried."
Flytimes has fished Chopaka Lake at least once a year but is going to skip this North Central Washington lake this year. Chopaka suffered a severe winter kill last year and encroachment from illegally stocked smallmouth bass has also taken its toll on the quality of this fishery. Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) has scheduled the lake for rotenone treatment this coming fall. Flytimes is an advocate of the plan to rehabilitate Chopaka Lake but would like to see it executed sooner rather than later.
Flytimes Logic: The fishing was bad last season and will be bad again this season. Ergo, WDFW might as well treat the lake this spring, giving the newly planted trout a full summer to grow, providing a quality fishery no later than springtime in '08.

Edit: This just in from Bob Jateff, District Six Fish Biologist, WDFW.
"Our plans are to do the rehab in the fall of 2007, but I do agree with you that spring would be better. Unfortunately, it takes approximately one year from the time that you decide to do a rehab until the time you actually complete the treatment. This is due to the Department of Ecology's regulations that we must follow very closely. That still doesn't mean that I can't try to move it up a bit, it's just that I doubt if it would be much before September before we get the okay."

The Lamar River Elk

Lamar Valley Elk Shed

When he no longer ranges the Lamar River Valley the elk who wore these antlers will still be of this earth.

52 Days And A Wake-up.

Dusty Lake

Just 52 more days until the Columbia Basin's finest stillwaters open for the '07 season. Woot! Woot!