Snow day Coho

For the past couple weeks, western Washington has gotten slammed by a winter storm. This has resulted in me getting plenty of fly tying done, but no fishing.  Blake and I decided that we both needed to get out to change this. The evening tide looked good so I met Blake and his friend Sam at the the top of my icy road and we made our way to a local beach.

A cold start - ice on the sound

When we arrived at the beach there was ice on the calmer water, but we were dressed plenty warm enough so we got to fishing. I didn't take us long to find a school of jumping resident Coho and we all started getting into fish. Fishing for jumping Coho is always a blast as the fish give away their location and it is simply a matter of putting a fly in front of their nose. When these fish decide that they want a fly it seems to be their goal to destroy it. I was using a new pink and red color variation of the Snot Dart that I came up with during my recent fly tying and it drove the fish crazy.

 

There were plenty of fish around

Sam got some too

Unfortunately, the amazing fishing could not last and as several seals moved in the school of Coho broke up, slowing the fishing way down. Although there would be an occasional jumper it became more of game of blindly casting and hoping that a fish would cross the path of one of our flies. Each of us picked up a couple more Coho, but Blake got the best fish of the day, a fat 16" male Cutthroat that was beginning to show its spawning colors. Unfortunately, this fish did not want to have its picture taken and slipped out of Blake's grasp as I was getting my camera ready.

Blake working the beach

By the time that the sun went down the fishing had completely died off and we all had numb fingers, so it was time to call it quits and make the icy drive home.