Washington Wanderings

 After my last native trout trip, it has been time for me to stick closer to home for a while, as well as to hunt down some local native trout with a couple friends from out of state.

My first outing after getting back was a short trip to my home river after some resident Coastal Cutthroat. As with everywhere around the west, Washington is feeling the exceptionally dry summer and the river was particularly low. On my favorite stretch of the river, the first riffle is usually extremely productive this time of the year, but barely had enough water to even hold fish. Despite this, I did manage to get one small Cutthroat and one Shiner, both on my dropper. Interestingly the Cutthroat had quite a bit more speckling than normal and appeared to have black spot disease, something I had not seen before in this stream.

A small resident Coastal Cutthroat with blackspot disease

A small shiner caught on a dropper

Fishing my way upstream, I found a deeper run and managed to pick up a few more Cutthroat around 6-8” on my dry and while I am usually able to find a few fish in the 10-12” range on most trips, it wasn’t happening this time and after a couple of hours and perhaps a dozen small Cutthroat I figured I had seen enough and called it for the day.

The river

A healthy little Coastal Cutthroat

About a week after my Cutthroat outing, my buddies from Utah, Dan and Paul flew in for three days of fishing. The first fish that they were hoping to check off was a Coastal Cutthroat and as the local river had been producing mainly small fish, we decided to start on the Puget Sound to see if wee could find some sea-runs. 

We arrived at our first beach shortly after the low tide and at a beach with a good constricted passage, prime Cutthroat water. However, after a couple hours we had only had a few short strikes and follows but no fish landed and we decided to move on. The next beach we went too was at its ideal tide, and Paul got one Coho smolt, but again the Cutthroat were nowhere to be seen, so we decided to try one last beach. Unfortunately, this one also gave us a blank. It seemed to be one of those days where the fish didn’t want to bite... As I was out of time for the day, Dan and Paul ran to the local river and found the Cutthroat right where I had found them the week before.

A beautiful day on the water, regardless of slow fishing

The next day we were headed deep into the Olympics after native Coastal Rainbows. The stream that we were heading too is one of the more unique ones in Washington. This river has a set of barrier falls in its mid-section and as a result has Rainbows with colorations that I have not seen in other local populations. These fish are and almost pure white color, with prominent part marks and a vibrant pink/red band down the lateral line. The other interesting thing about this river, is that it is one of the only places in the lower 48 states with a true native population of Dolly Varden. These Dollies fit a different niche than the Rainbows, being more of benthic feeders, but are mixed in a about a 50/50 ratio and are known to rise to dries from time to time.

The shady river

After making the drive several hours to the river, we geared up and hiked upstream another couple of miles to a stretch that has treated me well in the past. Paul took the first crack at the river and after a few casts caught a small Dolly Varden on his nymph and in the next hole he got a nice about 10” Rainbow. Not long after, Dan too caught a small Dolly this time on a dry fly. 

A small native stream resident Southern Dolly Varden

The greatest challenge with this stream is that it is very high gradient and it can be a long distance between holding water. After Dan and Paul got into their fish, spent some time working along the river before I found a decent little run wit a few nice pockets thrown in. I started out in the soft water near the top of the run and as I picked up my line to make another cast I noticed a fish holding in the soft water side of the seam. On my next cast I got the fly right where I saw the fish and it instantly grabbed my dropper and I pulled in a nice little Dolly. After few more casts, there didn’t seem to be any other takers so I worked down the run a bit. Where the water picked turned into a bit of a riffle, a decent fish rose and this time I brought in a Rainbow. After landing that fish, I cast a couple few feet further back and rose another nicer fish. This one ended up being about 10” and was beautifully colored.

A beautiful pale white native Coastal Rainbow Trout

The fast flowing stream

We worked the stream for most of the afternoon, with each of us getting in a handful of Dollies and Rainbows, before heading back towards Olympia.

For the last day with Dan and Paul, we were heading east to the crest of the Cascade Mountains to search for some Eastern Cascades-Clearwater Westslope Cutthroat. This stream was quite a bit smaller than the last one, but holds a pure population of some of the most beautiful Cutthroat I have encountered. 

Cascade Mountain Cutthroat country

Paul headed up the road to try fishing upstream a ways, while Dan and I started right by the car. Just as with previous trips to this stream, the Cutthroat were plentiful, if not all that large. Within a few minutes Dan had his first Westslope of the day and not too long after that I had mine. As we worked our way upstream and further from the car, the holding water improved and so did the size of the fish, with a few running up to 10”.

A vibrantly colored native Cutthroat

After covering about a 1/2 mile of the creek, we decided to use our last couple hours before Dan and Paul flew out to visit my one of favorite streams in Washington. This other stream is stunningly beautiful and has equally beautiful Cutthroat. I had fished this other spot a number of times of the years, a rarely ran into other anglers, although within the last few years, a Seattle area fly shop started doing guided trips and pressure has gone up significantly since. Unfortunately, this was meant that when we got to the stream, there was already someone else fishing my favorite stretch and while we got a few minutes of fishing in upstream, it took longer to get to the water and we only had time to get a few casts in, catching a single fish before it was time to head out.

Another native Cutthroat

Despite a set back on our last spot, it was a great trip and excellent to spend time on the water with Dan and Paul, touring some of Washington's unique native trout locations. I am hoping that next year, I will be able to make it out to Utah to visit with them and hopefully check the Bonneville Cutthroat off of my list as well. 

5 Years in review

For the last five years, this blog has been largely inactive due to a variety of reasons. During this period my wife and I started a family, I completed graduate school, started a new job and moved twice. Needless to say this has not left a lot of free time to pursue native trout. However, that does not mean that I have not made any outings over the last few years. As I made a one trip to the Rocky Mountains and two to Alaska, as well as a number of trips around Washington State. Given the long gap in activity, I may do some back log posts to fill in the blanks for the last few years, but a few highlights are shown below.

I Wrapped up my thesis looking at Steelhead and Rainbow Trout interactions on the Olympic Peninsula, with a particular focus on food-web dynamics in above and below barrier populations.

A Rainbow Trout diet sample from my Master's thesis work - it ate ~800 salmon eggs.

In 2015 I did a trip through the Northern Rockies to Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and was able to get a little fishing in along the way.

A Yellowstone Cutthroat from a 2015 trip Yellowstone National Park

A beaver on a lake in Teton National Park

A Snake River Fine Spotted Cutthroat from the lake

In 2015 I also managed to make a trip to the Kenai Peninsula and got some fishing for Rainbow Trout and Dolly Varden.

 A Large Dolly Varden from the Kenai River.

Fishing the Kenai Peninsula

A sea-run Dolly Varden from the Kenai Peninsula

In 2018 I did another trip to Alaska with my sister, my niece and nephew and my daughter and tried a couple lakes from Taranets Char (Salvelinus alpinus taranetzi) unsuccessfully due to not being able to get through stocked Rainbow Trout to the Char. However, I did have luck for native Rainbows and Dollies on the Kenai once again.

 A Taranets Char Lake

Fishing with my daughter

I have started to update the website once again with more up to date information on native trout and salmon species and new pictures that I have available. Additionally, I also just completed a trip through Oregon, Nevada and California for White River Redband Trout, John Day River Westslope Cutthroat, Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat, Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout and McCloud River Redbands and will be adding details about the trip in the near future.

End of Summer Alaska

After having to cancel a trip to Alaska in 2017, I was able to reschedule for late-August of 2018. This was more of a vacation than a fishing trip, as my daughter and I were joining my sister (who had a conference to attend) and her two kids. However, as much of the trip was taking place on the Kenai Peninsula I did have some time to get out fishing. The primary thing that I was hoping to do was catch my first Arctic Char as the Kenai Peninsula has several lakes with the Taranets subspecies (Salvelinus alpinus taranetzi). However, getting some fishing in for some salmon, Dollies and Rainbows with Valerie was also in the plans.

The first spot that we hit was a little stream where the Coho were running and it didn't take long to find a willing biter- one cast to be precise. However, with Valerie being just shy of her second birthday, we didn't spend to much time on the water as and instead redirected efforts to enjoying some streamside raspberries.

The Kenai River tributary

A first cast Coho Salmon and an excited Valerie

On our second day, I was able to break away for a bit and try my luck for the Arctic Char. I knew from the start that this was going to be a long shot as these Char usually hang out in the depths until early October, but as I was here I was going to try. 

The first spot I tried was Cooper Lake, which has a robust population of both Arctic Char and Rainbows. The conditions on the lake were beautiful and I did manage to get a couple of takes, but this was big water and I just couldn't connect with anything so I decided to relocate.

Cooper Lake

The second lake I fished was much smaller and is known to have a decent char population. However, it was accidently stocked with Rainbows destined for another lake a few years prior. This along with being shore bound proved to be the deal breaker with this lake. There were only a few spots along the shore where I could get a good cast in, and every cast resulted in a 8" Rainbow prior to the fly sinking deep enough to get down the to Char. However, you couldn't ask for a more beautiful spot and if I can pull an October trip in the future - and bring a float tube, I think that this lake will be a good candidate for finding an Arctic Char.

 

The Arctic Char lake

The final spot that we were able to fish before having to leave the Kenai Peninsula was on the Kenai River. I had fished this same spot a couple of years prior and found it to be lights out. This time the flows were significantly higher and the river was more crowded, however the sockeye were spawning and once I found a spot with some back cast room the fish were there just like before.

The Kenai River

Spawning sockeye salmon

A spawned out salmon

The Sockeye Salmon were in the river and starting to dig redds, so I fished beads imitating Sockeye eggs and just like my previous trip the first cast produced a nice fish.

 

A nice first cast rainbow - with a curious onlooker

After this first rainbow, the action did not slow down and I got a couple more smaller Rainbows before I started getting into a some nice Dolly Varden. These Dollies averaged 16-18" and while they didn't put on the same show of acrobatics that a Rainbow might, were scrappy fighters.

An egg eating Dolly Varden

Another Dolly Varden

A Dolly Varden starting to show its spawning colors

After couple of hours of fishing, it was time to call it quits and hopefully I will be able to schedule another trip to Alaska to check some more fish (2 subspecies of Arctic Char; Northern Dolly Varden and Lake Trout) off the native trout list in the future.

Fall on the Kenai Peninsula

During late September my wife Alexis and I had the opportunity to tag along on a business trip my sister had to make to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. Given that my sister was going to be busy with a conference, Alexis and I were able to get in a bit of fishing here and there. The first spot that we fished was on our drive out to Homer on the Kenai River. My buddy Chris had lived in Anchorage for a year and as such helped to point us to a good side channel. As Sockeye Salmon were still spawning, matching the "egg hatch" would be the ticket. Alexis had never done this type of fishing so once we found a likely spot, I did a quick cast to demonstrate how to fish a bead under an indicator. My indicator only floated about 10' feet before it dunked under the water and I had a fish on! After a quick fight, I brought a beautiful Rainbow Trout to hand.

The Kenai River side channel

A first cast Alaskan Rainbow Trout

Spawned out Sockeye Salmon

Alexis' first cast Dolly Varden

Next it was Alexis' turn and a drift through the same spot resulted in a beautiful Dolly Varden on her first cast. From here the fishing did not slow much and our only challenge was the fading daylight. However, right before we had to head out I hooked into something big, which turned out to be a beautiful 20"+ Dolly.

Hooked into a fish

My big Dolly Varden

End of the line for a for spawned out Sockeye

That Dolly was the perfect way to end a quick evening fishing outing and to start our Alaskan adventure. The next day in Homer we decided to take a boat across the bay to do a hike to the Grewingk Glacier in Kachemak Bay State Park. It was a nice calm morning, with several whale sightings on the ride over. 

A calm morning on Kachemak Bay

Once we disembarked on the boat and started along the beach, there were several sea otters hanging out along the shore. The hike was nice and mellow, traveling through a coastal forest to the lake in front of the glacier.

Sea otters

Grewingk Glacier

Alaska never ceases to amaze me as a State Park there could easily qualify as a national park anywhere else in the country. After visiting the lake we hiked over a ridge, where we were greeted with an amazing view of the bay, before descending to the dock and taking the boat back to Homer.

The bay from the ridge

The next day Alexis and my sister were spending sometime together, so I had a chance to make a solo outing to a nearby river, which has a run of Steelhead, as well as Dolly Varden. It was an absolutely flawless bluebird day and after our outing on the Kenai, I had high hopes for a good day on the water.

The river

The river was a classic freestone, with lots of great riffles and runs and within a few minutes I was hooked into a fish. By the fight, it definitely acted more like a char than trout, opting to stay deep and take a few runs, instead of showing any acrobatics. Upon landing it, my suspicions were confirmed and it was a beautify Dolly Varden, fresh in from the salt water.

A flawless Dolly Varden

Gotta love the pink spots

This proved to be one of those rare days, where the fishing exceeded my expectations. Every likely spot had several Dollies in it and the only problem was that if there were any Steelhead around I was never going to get past the Dollies to catch them. 

A Dolly starting to show its freshwater colors

I covered about a mile and a half of the river in a few hours time and while I never thought that this would happen by the end of the day I was tired of catching 16" to 18" fish, as pretty much every cast was resulting in a cookie cutter Dolly Varden. Given how great of a day on the water it had been I had no problem calling it quits on what had been an amazing trip.

A great day on the water and way to end the trip

June on the Olympic Peninsula - Part 2

The second leg of my work trip put me on the other side of the Peninsula and limited my fishing options by a fair bit. While the flows on the west-end streams had ranged from ideal to low, the stream in this part of the Peninsula were still swollen with snowmelt and some major spring run-off. However, the draw of the mountains was to great for me to ignore and even though I figured I would probably just be going on a hiking trip I made for one of my favorite streams. The flows on the stream were double what they should be this time of the year, even with run-off but sometimes nymphing the soft spots can still produce a fish or two even in these conditions.

The snow swollen river

I rigged up my rod at the trailhead with a heavy soft hackled stonefly and a sink tip and started my search for fishable water. The river was definitely higher than I had ever seen it was carrying a heavy load of silt, however I still found a couple nice pockets at the first spot that I came to. Dead drifting didn't seem to get a lot of results, but as soon as I tried swinging my fly I got some results. The fish hit hard and with the aid of the current put up a hard fight, although it seemed quite unwilling to jump. When I got it in I saw that I had a char and not trout on my fly, in fact likely the rarest of char in the lower 48 a stream resident Southern Dolly Varden.

No bull about it, a beautiful native Dolly Varden

From fisheries reports I know that this stream holds Dolly Varden and no Bull Trout due to a barrier waterfall, external differences do make it possible to discern the two similar species but require a trained eye. The Dolly's heads tend to be less predatory looking and their mouths are much smaller for instance.

Dolly water

I let my next cast drift downstream into another good pocket and my fly was nabbed by another Dolly. With the gray hew to the silty water it these little char seem perfectly adapted to this stream, the way that native trout often seem to perfectly blend into their surroundings.

Another beautiful Dolly Varden

With my early success, I decided to hit the trail and head downstream in search of some more water. However, after covering a solid mile and a half of river and fishing every slow spot I could find, there was no sign of fish anywhere. Since the fish I got right off the bat were more than I expected in the first place and the fresh mountain air and a good hike were hard to beat, I wasn't going to be complaining.

The forest of the northern Olympic Mountains

The forest in the part of the Peninsula are much less luxuriant than those of the coastal rainforests, but they are still very beautiful with moss covered slopes and giant Douglas Firs. Add the the blooming rhododendron, salmonberries and trillium and views of the mountains and it is a great place for an evening hike.

Trillium

While it was peaceful wandering the woods and searching the river for slow pockets, daylight only lasts so long and light fades fast in the forest, so I found myself racing back to the trailhead before I would have liked. Catching a few rare native char and hiking a few miles in some of the finest forest in the state after work is about as good of a way to spend an evening as I can imagine. Although I didn't manage to sneak out again during the week, the two char and the stunning views of the mountains on the drive out were enough to keep me happy until next time.

Sunset over the Olympic Mountains