Central Washington Redbands and Westslopes

This past Monday I had a free day to head over to the east slope of the Cascades in Washington to check out a few of my favorite streams. The only problem was that while the 4th of July weekend had shown Washington some of our nicest weather yet this year, by Monday another marine layer had found its way inland yet again. My friend Zach had been bugging me to show him this spot for a couple of years now, so I finally invited him to join me this year.

By the time that we reached the mountains the weather had broken down bit it was raining in earnest. However, as I had hoped when we arrived at the creek the Cascade Mountain rain-shadow was in effect and while we still had overcast skies it looked like we had left the rain behind. Upon laying eyes on the stream I was a little surprised to see how low the water was. Last year when I had fished it at this time of the year, it had been a raging torrent that was tough to cross in all but a few select places. This year it was a full foot lower, no doubt a direct effect of low snowpack and an unusually dry June. While I typically like fishing a dry and dropper combo, I have fished this creek enough to know that when its native Westslope Cutthroat are feeding, they are looking for food on the surface making the dropper more of a hassle then it is worth. As such I strung up my rod, tied on a size 12 Royal PMX and hit the water.

A grey day at the creek

The action started out fast and furious and my first cast rewarded me with a nice 8" Westslope Cutthroat that attacked my Royal PMX with reckless abandon. The next few hundred yards of the stream continued to yield good numbers of Cutthroat in the 5-9" range, which confidently rose to take our dries. After this stretch, things slowed down a bit and we had to search for the fish a little harder. Even so most likely looking spots yielded a riser or two.

A typical Westslope Cutthroat from the stream.

Zach with a native Westslope Cutthroat

Over the years I have found that the higher upstream that I go on this creek, the better the fishing gets. However, this year that was not the case and instead the fishing remained slow while the weather began to deteriorate even more. In fact this was the first time in three years that my favorite run on the upper creek didn't yield a single fish. On top of this Zach managed to find a stick that was sharp enough to punch a hole in the leg of his waders, making for rough going with the frigid water. I did hook one truly note-worthy fish in the upper part of the creek, that was at least 12" but shook loose shortly after engulfing my dry fly.

Looking downstream on an especially high gradient stretch of creek

After finding the upper part of the creek less productive than normal, Zach and I made the call to head back to the car and try out another stream that was a little further to the east. We did fish a few of the more prime lies on the way back downstream and managed to catch a few more beautiful little Westslopes before reaching the car and hitting the road again. 

We traveled down the Yakima River Valley for another half hour before turning up the creek valley and searching out a productive piece of water. Although it was rather windy, the weather was sunny and 70 and the water looked to be in perfect shape. The last time the I had fished this stream the trout were quite eager to take attractor flies, so I left the Royal PMX on but added a gold size 16 Lightning Bug as a dropper. As I was rigging up I started eyeballing a little pool behind a log jam and noticed a decent looking trout finning in the tailout. Definitely a good sign!! 

I wanted to plan my approach on this fish so instead of proceeding to the log jam I first checked out run downstream where I managed to rise, but missed a decent sized trout. After this it was on to the log jam where the fish was still hanging out right underneath some overhanging branches. I made my cast to the trout and line flew perfectly between the branches and the water landing just a few feet upstream of the fish, which confidently rose to meet it. I set the hook and the fish launched itself out of water and made a few small runs before I brought a beautiful Columbia Basin Redband to hand.

A beautiful Redband

I

 managed to get one more small trout out of this pool on my dropper, before I continued upstream to where Zach was fishing. When I found him he was just releasing a fish, which turned out to be his third. As we worked our way upstream, the fishing continued to be productive, with just about every pocket and likely looking spot producing one or two Redbands. In a particularly good pocket behind rock, I managed to catch five trout, with one taking my dry and the rest falling for the Lightning Bug dropper.

Zach working his fly along an especially fishy looking log jam.

The fishing continued to be consistent for Redbands averaging 6" to 8"as we continued upstream, until we came to a pool with a basalt cliff running along it. Zach took point on this spot and one his first cast a nice fish rose for his dry fly. He missed the riser, but got lucky and another trout had grabbed his Copper John dropper at the same time and he got a solid hook up. This ended up being the larger of the two fish and after a few seconds he managed to bring it to the net. Whether this fish was a Redband or Cut-bow was hard to say, as it had a vivid Cutthroat slash but the colors were distinctly those of a Redband. No matter what it was it was a fine trout at just short of 11". After Zach released his fish I got a try at the pool and hooked up with one trout for brief moment before it came loose.

The basalt cliff pool

Upstream of the pool the stream was much less productive for the next quarter mile and we only managed to rise and handful of fish. The reason for this became clear and as well rounded a bend we ran into a crew of WDFW fisheries biologists that had been electroshocking the creek to do a study on the diet of the trout. From what they had to say, Coho Salmon had been reintroduced back into the creek during the previous year and they were looking into the importance of Coho fry in the diet of the Redbands and Cutthroat that call this stretch of stream home. Some of the larger Redbands did have Coho fry in their diets, suggesting that a streamer might not be a bad idea next time.

After our brief conversation with the crew Zach and I headed back downstream, and I got another shot at the basalt cliff pool and this time managed to catch a 10" Redband on my dropper. We also fished a few of the other prime lies on the way to the car and picked up a couple more trout. However, at this point were more keen on getting back to the car so we could explore one more nearby stream.

A post release Redband

The next stream that we decided to fish was a headwater tributary of the last one and we were hoping that we might find a few Westslope Cutthroat up there. This stream took a little bit of hiking to get to, but after about 3/4 of a mile we reach the water and started fishing. We found tight condition small stream fishing at its finest and there were numerous deadfalls overhanging bushes waiting to intercept our flies. However, there were a few decent pools a here and there and as we moved upstream I caught a few Cutthroat and a Redband or two as well.

Stream #3

A Westslope Cutthroat on the Royal PMX

In a deep slot Zach caught a fish that he was pretty happy about, but really has no business in the creek, a Brook Trout. Outside of their native range, Brookies have been been problematic for native Cutthroat across the Western US, as they typically out compete Cutthroat in cooler headwater streams. My worries were put to ease a bit, as for the remaining half mile of the stream that we covered, we only encountered the native Cutthroat and Redbands, suggesting that the Brook Trout population may not be too well established.

Zach's Brook Trout

After fishing this stream we headed to one last stream to quickly it out. However, after driving to the end of the road and tromping around a mosquito infested meadow and not seeing the stream anywhere close by we decided that we had done enough fishing for one day.

A view of the meadows

After a few more mosquito bites and little more trudging across the meadows, we hopped back in the car and made drive back down the valley and across the mountains to Gig Harbor. For Zach, this was an especially successful outing as he managed to catch three new species of trout. For me it was just nice to be out on the water looking for native trout in some beautiful country.