Kokanee on the fly!!

Both Clint and I have been wanting to fish for Kokanee with fly gear for quite sometime and last night things finally came together. Kokanee are a lake dwelling (adfluvial) form of Sockeye Salmon and being as Sockeye are the only species of Pacific Salmon that I have yet to tempt to a fly, these fish have been on my hit list of quite a while. The lake that I chose for these fish has a healthy population of Kokanee and better yet is less than an hour away from home. Way back before I switched to primarily fishing with fly gear I used to fish this lake a lot for trout, and we would intercept a stray Kokanee or two on bait once and a while, so I knew that we should be able to find them here. I got off work and we loaded up the boat and headed out to the lake. When we got to the launch the air temps were in the 90's and getting the boat in amongst the swimmers who didn't seem to have any plans of moving was no small task.

The lake

After finally getting launched, the fish finder showed a surface temperature of 79 degrees and also began showing a few fish around 25 to 30 feet deep. As Kokanee generally hang out just below the thermocline in the summer, these had to be what we were looking for. We rigged up our rods with full sinking lines and started dredging the bottom. I had chosen to put on a small red Wooly Bugger followed by a size 14 Maggot pattern, while Clint had decided to take the attractor route opting for a bright pink streamer. After about 20 minutes of dredging the depths it finally happened, a couple taps and than a full fledged hook up. These little fish definitely have a lot of spunk and made for a lot of fun on a 5wt.

My first Kokanee on the fly

After getting him in, I saw that he took the maggot pattern, then quickly dropped my line again to get back to fishing. Shortly after this, Clint had a good take but missed the fish.

In the Kokanee zone

   

For the first hour or so it seemed that there was a school of fish hanging out off of a small point in the lake. We each got several hits in this spot but couldn't seem to get a good connection until Clint had a fish slam his fly and came up with a beautiful Kokanee.

Clint's Kokanee

After the first hour or so the hits trailed off and we just couldn't seem to consistently find the fish. However, before dark Clint got another nice Kokanee and I lost another one, but with the failing light we decided to call it a day. It was a great day on the water and a new species of salmonid on the fly for both of us made it even better!!

Back to the begining...

I ended up having a bit of free time today so of course fishing found its way into my schedule. The day started out with a fruitless trip out to the Olympic Peninsula looking for Chinook Salmon and some retribution was needed. My thoughts immediately went to the local Cutthroat pond. This place has special meaning for me, as it is where it all started. I learned how to fly fish here and gained a love for native trout species. All of the fish inhabiting this pond are native Coastal Cutthroat which generally hit flies with reckless abandon and fight like there is no tomorrow. What more can a fly fisherman ask for in a fish...

The local pond

The only problem with the pond during this time of the year is the excessive weed growth, which makes getting to and landing any fish no small task. However, it also increases the productivity of the pond and when I got there, a decent damsel hatch was in progress and fish were actively feed on the surface. I started out with a damsel dry and rose a fish on the first cast, but things slowed down after that. Leading to go subsurface and tie on a Zug Bug nymph. This was the ticket and it was game on.

My first Coastal Cutthroat of the day

The Cutthroat appeared to be averaging about 8-10" this year, and while the hatch was in progress it was some fast fishing with hits on most every cast. However, the number of fish caught to lost due to the weeds was extremely high with about 2/3 fish shaking loose.

 

Another Coastal Cutthroat

Despite the challenges with the weeds, I still managed to get about 10 Cutthroat in a couple of hours of fishing, including a couple 12" or better making for a fun on afternoon with the 2 WT.

My big fish for the day a 13" Cutthroat

Central Washington Westslope Cutthroat

This past Saturday, I found myself in need of some hiking and more importantly fly fishing for native trout. The day's weather started out in the typical Western Washington fashion with clouds and a threat of rain, making a trip to the sunny eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains sound very good. The stream that I would end up fishing, sort of choose itself. The original plan was to fish one of the rivers in the area, but on the hike in I first had to cross a crystal clear small stream with a nice deep pool and rising trout. This was to much to resist and I rigged up my 2wt rod with a Royal PMX and black Copper John dropper and started fishing. In the first pool I turned two fish, but couldn't get a solid hook-up so I headed downstream to search out some more productive water.

My first Cutthroat of the day

This section of the stream flowed through a patch of forest, and when I came up to a small but deep pool I could see two trout holding in the shade just under a log jam. I placed my short cast into the main flow and just as my fly reached the log jam I watched one of the trout cruise over and confidently grab my Copper John. I got a good hook set and the fish thrashed around spooking the other fish before finally being brought to my net.

Another trout showing the typical coloration and spotting pattern of stream resident Eastern Cascades Westslope Cutthroat.

Just below the logjam was another pool with an exposed root wad. I placed my cast in a gap between the tangle of roots and watched Cutthroat slowly rise to my Royal PMX, however I was a little trigger happy and pulled the fly away before I had him on. This scenario played out several two more times before I finally got a solid hook up and landed another beautiful Cutthroat.

The stream in the meadow section

A little ways below here, I saw another Cutthroat holding at the tail of a small pool, which readily fell for my nymph. After catching this fish the nature of the stream abruptly changed as it flowed through a meadow reminiscent of the Rocky Mountains. The stream meandered through this section and was a joy to fish even though it was suspiciously devoid of trout. I fished to the end of the meadow and not finding any more fish so I called it on another successful native trout outing.

Native Rainbows of the Olympic Mountains

This last Friday Clint and I decided to head out to the Olympic Mountains to target some native Coastal Rainbow Trout. Lately the saltwater has been heating up for salmon and Cutthroat, and as we closed in on the Hood Canal the draw was to much to resist. However, after a fruitless hour of fishing we decided it was time to get back on track and head for the mountains.

Clint stripping a surface popper on the Hood Canal for sea-run Cutthroat

We pulled up to the river at about noon and decided to park the car and hike upstream, then work our way back down to where we parked. Given how well the trout had responded to swung nymphs on out last trip to the Olympics, we rigged our rods with sinking tip lines in preparation of a day of swinging streamers and nymphs.

The river

The first stretch of river was lacking much decent holding water and it was a long distance with lots of bush whacking between pools. However, the first good pool made all of the work worth while. This pool had the looks of a classic steelhead run, only the fishing was on a much smaller scale using four and five weights for resident Rainbows. At the head of the pool, Clint got the first fish of the day which was a plump 8" trout that he took on small streamer. This was followed by a fish of the same size for me on a swung Jumbo John. The next fish to come out of this hole ended up being the largest of the day, and was a solid 14" Rainbow. This fish was taken high stick nymphing and fought like there was no tomorrow, jumping and running a putting a serious bend in my 4wt.

A fat native Olympic Mountain rainbow trout taken on a stone fly nymph.

This stretch of river was one of the most productive of the trip, with four great pools within a short distance on each other. Invariably each of these pools produced a few decent fish. However, once we finished covering the water in this stretch, it was back to bush whacking through the forest to the next hole.

The forest along the river

Clint swinging a streamer through a great hole

The next hole proved to be a great piece of water and rewarded us with three more nice Rainbows up to 12". Beyond this hole it was more battling our way through the forest back to the car after a great day of fishing for native trout.

Another native Coastal Rainbow trout taken on a swung soft hackle nymph

Washington's Native Westslope Cutthroat

The east side of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State hosts a handful of watersheds in which native Westslope Cutthroat have managed persist despite the onslaught of habitat destruction and non-native trout introductions that over occurred over the last century. Since discovering it a few years ago, I try to make annual trip to my favorite one of these streams to fish its beautiful native Cutthroat. While this is often a solo trip for me, this year I was joined by Clint. With the high snow pack and cool spring, we found the creek running about a foot higher than usual, but luckily it the water was crystal clear.

 

The creek

Generally this stream is a pocket water fisherman's dream, but due to the high water the fish were not in their usual lies, preferring the slower pools and runs. Once we found where they were holding through, the fish were quite eager to rise for a dry fly. We worked our way upstream catching several Cutthroat up to 13 inches in each likely looking spot.

 

A beautiful native Westslope Cutthroat

The little canyon on the stream

A beautiful and productive canyon stretch (photo above), Clint caught a fish, but after unhooking it his fly got tangled in the net. In the few moments that it took him to free the fly, I managed to catch 3 fish on three casts and lost a 4th one. 

A net full of Cutthroat

After we got Clint's fly free he pull two more Westslopes out of the hole before we continued upstream. We continued working our way upstream having to climb around several sets of falls to get to the best water between the last set of falls and the point where the creek forks.

The last waterfall before the best water on the creek.

Above these falls the average size of the fish drastically increased being closer to 10", instead of the 6-8" below. It was above there that Clint got his big fish of the day.

Clint's big Westslope

A dry fly caught native Cutthroat

We finished out the day by fishing up to the forks on the creek, I got a couple decent fish in my favorite riffle on the stream, before we worked our way back to the car about 1.5 miles downstream, after a very productive day of fishing.

Native Trout of the Olympic Mountains

This trip got on the books last November, when I was doing research for a paper for college and inadvertently discovered that a stream that was less than two hours from home had a healthy population of Southern Dolly Varden in it. This fish is exceedingly rare in Washington state being restricted to a few streams above barrier falls that prevented hybridization /competition with the later invading Bull Trout.

I had been wanting to fish this stream for its native Coastal Rainbow Trout for sometime as well, so I figured that I would strap on my hiking boots and head up there as soon as the flows dropped into the fishable range and I might luck into a Dolly while I was at it. After some extra research on trail and fishing conditions it looked like the flows were finally fishable and I had a free day last week so I called Clint up and we went for it. The stream flows through a virgin forest in one of the Wilderness areas surrounding Olympic National Park, and my research had indicated that fishing was best about 3.5 miles up the trail.

The trail

The 'bridge' across the river....

Due to its location this is one of the last streams in the Olympics to drop into fishable shape and with about 130% of our annual snow pack this year flows were higher than normal making wading difficult. To complicate matters the bridge over the river was out so we had to search out a decent spot to ford it the river which was easier said than done.  

The Olympics from the meadow.

We hiked up to a series of meadows along the river and started fishing using dry and dropper step ups, however the river was much more of a creek in this section and over hanging brush made casting difficult. After about an hour of fruitless fishing, we decided to move downstream and change tactics a bit. We hiked down to the lowest meadow where we found a nice pool and switched to nymphs on sink tip lines. This ended up being the ticket and we got our first of many Dolly Varden while swinging and stripping a stone fly nymph back in.

An underwater shot of a Dolly after being released...

A stream resident Southern Dolly Varden

With the flows up, the fish were pushed into the pools and slower pockets along shore and it was a good distance between decent holding water so we decided to hike downstream a fish all of the best water as we went. About 1.5 miles down from the bridge we came to a nice pool where I caught the 'big' dolly of the day at about 10".

The river on the way down

  

The 'big' dolly

As we went downstream, we also began to see a transition to more Rainbow Trout in the catch. In one particular pool that we came to, we spotted a couple of good sized fish sitting on the bottom. The pool was deep so we each put a little extra weight on to get our flies down... On my first cast the big guy darted out and attacked my rubber legged Copper John, but I missed him... I thought that I had blew it and then he hit again and shook the hook, usually the third time is the charm but in this case he threw the hook another time and a I got his smaller neighbor. After another about 15 minutes of casting to him, we thought the jig was up and were about to call it, but I threw my fly back in the water one last time anyways, and this did the trick...It ended up being a beautiful 12" native Rainbow, that must have been either extremely hungry or dumb... By this time it was getting late as we had already fished downstream about 2.5 miles, so we hit the trail again and called it a day...

A beautiful native Coastal Rainbow Trout.

Fort Rock Basin Redbands

This trip came about when I got an invite from my sister to join her on a business trip down to Sun River, Oregon. My original plan was to fish Hosmer Lake for its landlocked Atlantic Salmon, which eluded me on a previous trip. However, due to an unusually hard winter the road to the lake was still snowed in. While I had many other larger waters likely holding larger trout close by, I chose to head out into the Fort Rock Basin to try my luck for some native Redbands.

Fort Rock

 

I had visited the stream I decided to fish back in 2007 and had done fairly well , so I figured it would be a great place to kick off my small stream native trout fishing for the year. When I got to the creek it was still flush with snow melt and running 8" higher than the previous year. However, I figured that there had to be fish around still so I got to it.

A great spot for a nice back cast

I rigged up my favorite native trout set up, a size 12 Royal PMX trailed by a small Copper John and began working my way downstream. However, after covering a good stretch of water I had only managed to turn a couple of trout. As with many small streams the pool formed at the out flow of a culvert generally provides some of the best deep holding for trout in small streams and this creek was no exception. The middle of the pool consisted of a bubbling white water froth, but there was softer water on the edges and more importantly an actively feeding trout. I missed a few takes, but finally got a solid hook up a landed a beautiful little Redband on my dry fly.

A beautiful Fork Rock Redband Trout

I managed to get one more of these beautiful little fish on my nymph, and rose a couple of others before the pool turned off and the weather started to go south telling me it was time to call it a day.