Small stream scouting

This past spring, my wife and I did a short hike on a nature trail along a small stream, that immediately caught my attention as a place that needed to revisit once the season opened up. After my last small stream outing wetted my appetite, I was was able to pull away for few hours to finally check it out. Just like last time, Dyllon was free to join me and after a quick drive and short hike we found ourselves on the water. When we arrived, the creek looked beautiful, with slightly tannic water flowing through a lush forest of Red Alder, Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar. 

The stream flowing through a tunnel of Red Alder

As with my last outing, I came with two rods, my 1WT with a dry/ dropper and my 2WT with a small streamer. The first pocket that I came across looked like perfect dry fly water and sure enough after just a couple casts, I was rewarded with a rise and a beautiful little native Coastal Cutthroat.

A small native Coastal Cutthroat from the first hole

After that first fish, we started covering the water and working our upstream picking up a few smallish Cutthroat. However, despite some great looking water for the next 1/2 mile the stream seemed relatively devoid of life and signs of other anglers including night crawler containers and empty eagle claw hook packs seemed to indicate why. It wasn't until the trail along the stream started fading away that the fishing picked up and the creek seemed to come alive. 

From this point on each riffle would produce numerous parr Cutthroat in the 4" to 6" range and we started seeing signs of larger fish with Dyllon finally hooking into a solid Cutthroat that he guessed was 14" in a deeper corner hole. Unfortunately, with the tight conditions, the fish was able to shake loose before he managed to bring it in.

After we had spent way too much time exploring the unproductive lower reaches, we were now starting to run out of time, but as I was suffering from a serious case of "next bend" syndrome we pushed on to check out one or two more corners. Finally, while Dyllon was working a log jam downstream, I came across the fishiest looking hole we had seen so far, a deep corner hole along a steep bank with some nice slower holding water on the inside edge. I grabbed my streamer rod for this spot and after a couple casts in the back section, I placed a cast in the slower inside water and after a couple strips got a savage take. 

This wasn’t a small Cutthroat and while it didn’t have much room to run my 2WT was really put to the test. Luckily the fish came downstream out of the key holding water and I was able to keep it out of the one snag in the hole. The real risk was if it went down into the next hole which was way more snaggy. However, luck was on my side and I was able to keep the fish the tailout and was able to net it before it could make a run for it. The Cutthroat was every bit of 16” and was a heavily spotted female that showed clear signs of having just recently spawned.

The fish of the day, a beautiful post spawn Coastal Cutthroat

Another shot of the streamer eating Cutthroat

After I released my fish, Dyllon took over and sure enough, within just a few casts he got a solid take and hooked into a fish. Dyllon was fishing a 5WT and as such the 12” Cutthroat was out classed and after a short fight we brought it to the net.

Dyllon fishing the corner

Dyllon's Cutthroat a 12” male

It was my turn again next and this spot wasn’t done producing yet, so when I got a good cast along the seam and started retrieving it I got a solid grab and hooked into another Cutthroat. This one turned out to be about 10” but had a beautiful spotting pattern and coloration and after admiring it for a brief moment I turned it loose again.

Another beautiful native Coastal Cutthroat

After releasing the third Cutthroat, we were starting to run out of time, but I decided to take a peek upstream while Dyllon took over. The next good holding water looked to be further upstream then we had time for and Dyllon reported that he had gotten a few more grabs, but no hook ups so we decided I was time to head back downstream stream and call it a successful day on the new stream.

The creek on the way out