Another Olympic Peninsula Adventure

This week I decided to give the whole steelhead on a fly thing another whirl, so it was off to the Olympic Peninsula again. Earlier in the week Clint and his dad Tim invited me out to float a couple of different rivers, which was an offer that I absolutely couldn't refuse. Beyond that I had been asked to help out at a restoration project in Sequim later in the week so figured that I might as well do some fishing while I was up that way. 

Sunday: February 15th 2009: The first river that we fished has its origins in Olympic National Park, and as such the habitat and water quality remain in great shape throughout much of the system. We started our float early in the morning, with air temperatures sitting at a balmy 27 degrees when I dropped my car off at the take out. Lately there really hasn't been much rain, which is very unusual for this time of the year in Washington and needless to say the river was running very low and clear. Clint and I each rigged up with nymph and swinging step-ups, while Tim worked a jig.

A small tributary entering the river

We quickly fell into a routine of fishing nymphs while we floated through the abundant pocket water, then getting out at productive runs and side channels to cover the water better. At one such side channel, I was working my way downstream, switching off between nymphing and swinging when Clint yelled from down river that he had a fish on. Seeing the bend in this rod I naturally headed down to see what he had hooked into. However, I was a little surprised to see a Whitefish on the end of this line when I got there. Apparently a whole school was sitting in this small riffle and within a few seconds of me arriving, Clint managed to get another one on his egg imitation. At this point the school was pretty spooked from the thrashing of two of their companions. However, after putting in some effort I was still able to hook into one on my nymph rig, which I LDR'd before the school decided that they didn't want to have anything more to do with us.

Clint with a Mountain Whitefish caught on a bead

High stick nymphing a riffle on a braided section of the river

A little ways down the river we saw a huge Coho (~15lb) holding in a pool along with a school of smaller fish, but none of them seemed to be too interested in our offerings. This would be the last sign of fish for a while and for the next couple of hours we didn't hook anything and it was just us a few eagles on the river.

A big Bald Eagle

A small side channel of the river (there is a Bald Eagle in one of the trees)

After a long stretch of 'dead' water, we finally came to a pool where we could see several fish holding. I made a couple of casts with my swinging rig and just as I was about to bring it in to change over to a nymph I got a solid tug and had a fish on the end of the line. I can't say that the fish put up the best fight, but when I got it in I was shocked to see that it was a Sockeye Salmon. Although Sockeye are a rare possibility on the Olympic Peninsula, I never expected to catch one, let alone on a fly. The Sockeye in this part of their range are known for having an unusual spawning coloration and don't generally exhibit the red color that people associate with this species of fish. What made this fish so special for me was that with it I have now caught all five species of Pacific Salmon in their native waters on a fly in Washington State!

The surprise of the day for me; a hen sockeye caught on "GMOAL" fly

After catching the Sockeye, I had a couple more takes in the pool, but did not land anything else. The rest of the river from that point on showed no sign of fish and the remaining part of the float was completely fishless, but was indeed a great day on the water.

Monday: February 16th 2009: We headed to a different river for the day and were off to another icy start. In fact until the sun got on the water, icy guides were quite the annoyance and had to be cleared after every couple of casts. Again, the river was way lower than it should be for this time of the year, but this time we at least knew that there were a few fish around as we spooked a decent Steelhead in the first pool.

Early morning on the river

Clint swinging a fly through a great looking run.

However, after seeing that first Steelhead for the next five hours there was no sign of any fish. This was about to change though, as a couple miles above the take out, Tim got a solid grab and ended up landing a nice six pound hatchery Steelhead.

Tim with a hatchery steelhead caught on a black jig

The water below this showed promise, as we saw another couple Steelhead, but were unable to get any more bites and were at the take-out before we knew it.

Wednesday: February 18th 2009: I started the day out helping Dave Shreffler (Dave was one of the other anglers at the winter Steelhead clinic) planting some dune grass at a restoration project along the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Sequim. Dave runs an ecological restoration and consulting firm and when he said that he could use some help, I jumped at the opportunity. This project had been to create a natural berm in place of a concrete bulkhead to protect several homes from being damaged or experiencing erosion due to wave activity. Unlike with a bulkhead, the more natural berm restores natural processes and allows sand and gravel allowed to exchange along the beach. This process is essential for supporting healthy habitat needed for species such as sea-run Cutthroat, juvenile Salmon, Surf Smelt and Pacific Sand Lance.

Planting dune grass along the berm

The planting project went much faster than expected, so it was straight out to the coast for a little fishing on a small cedar-stained stream. Blake and I had fished this stream on a steelheading trip earlier this winter and while I hooked a nice steelhead, we didn't end up catching anything. I was hoping to change that this time. However, when I got to the stream and saw how low it was (about 1/3 of the flow of the previous trip), I knew that it was going to be a tough outing. Like usual I brought two rods, one for swinging and another one for nymphing. I started off by working my way through about 3/4 mile of river without a sign of fish before stopping to take a break for lunch at the edge of a deep pool.

Just as I was about to finish up with my lunch a saw a boil on the other side of the pool that I thought was most likely from a Cutthroat. I switched to a black Strip Tease fly, which I thought might get a Cutthroat's attention and made a few casts with nothing. On the next cast though I landed my fly right next to a log that had slid into the water and it was fish on! It was evident right when I hooked into this fish that it was not the same little Cutthroat that I had seen boil, as this fish was putting a serious bend in my 8 WT. I managed to pull the fish around a big snag that was laying right across the middle of the pool and finally got a good look at it. This was not a Cutthroat at all, but about a 4lb Steelhead, although the way it was fighting suggested it was most likely a spawned out hatchery fish. I thought that I had the fish, but when it was only about ten feet away, the hook popped out and the line went slack leaving me in defeat.

 

The pool where I almost caught my first steelhead on a fly... Oh well maybe next time...

After hooking the Steelhead, I fished my way downstream covering a solid mile and a half of river, which had lots of great looking holding water, but just needed a bit more water. Once I got into the upper reaches of a canyon stretch, the river started to take on a different look and had some nice deep pools.

The river at the head of the canyon

One such pool I came across absolutely screamed steelhead, it was a long deep piece of water with submerged undercut ledges on each side and a large downed tree laying in the tail out. To make things better it sat right above a section of fast water making it ideal spot for a steelhead to rest. I started at the head of the pool and began swinging a GMOAL fly through, taking a couple of steps downstream after each cast and repeating the process. I was just about down to the tree in the water when I heard a big splash from just below the tree. I looked in the water right in front of me and saw a big Steelhead of at least 12lbs darting upstream. At this point I was thinking to myself - how in the world did I spook that fish when the tree was blocking the view between me and where it had been holding. That was until I saw something else swimming up the pool. At first I thought fish, but this thing is a whole lot bigger and not swimming like a fish at all. I took me a second to put two and two together, but I was looking at a Beaver, which had been the one responsible for spooking the fish. After a few seconds underwater the Beaver surfaced for about a minute until it noticed me. This caused the beaver to slap its tail on the surface of the water before diving down to the depths again, officially spooking whatever other fish may have been holding in the pool.

The Steelhead spooking Beaver

After my run in with the beaver I worked my way downstream to a nice piece of pocket water, which I fished for a bit with no luck before heading up to swing a fly though the pool a few more times. However, after a few casts I could see the beaver swimming across the bottom of the pool again and figured that the steelhead was either spooked or had moved on. This was as good of a sign as any for me to start heading back upstream, as the sun was already starting to get low in the sky. 

I made a few casts in each decent looking spot for the first 1/4 mile or so just in case if the Steelhead had moved upstream, but no dice. After this I put it into high gear until I got back to the pool where I had hooked the Steelhead earlier in the day. Right as I got the the pool, the Steelhead that I had hooked earlier (or its twin) broke the surface of the water causing me to make a few more casts. I ended up throwing about ten different patterns and a hundred casts at this fish, but it didn't seem to have any interest in any of them. It was pretty dark at this point, so I had no choice but to call it quits and make my way back the car the remaining 3/4 mile by headlamp.

Out and about on the Sound

I have been fishing the Puget Sound a fair amount over the last few weeks, mainly in search of Coastal Cutthroat, but these elusive fish have been few and far between lately. The same thing can't be said about the resident Coho Salmon, which can still be found in strong numbers throughout the south Sound. The problem with resident Coho right now, is that fishing for them is closed in much of the Puget Sound right now. Beyond this, regulations for the three marine areas that I have been concentrating my fishing efforts on have been alternating from being opened to closed for salmon, so much that it is getting a bit maddening trying to remember which one is open at any given time. A little over a week ago me and Luke headed out to a couple of different beaches to try our luck. At the first beach I put a large sculpin pattern on to see if I could entice any Cutthroat to bite, but only ended up finding a few resident Coho. As the tide began to go slack, the fishing slowed as the Coho moved on so Luke and I decided to do the same thing.

A sculpin eating Coho

The next beach that we headed to was a little further south and was open for Coho, so I switched out my sculpin pattern for Clouser Minnow. It didn't take long for us to find the fish, but they were on the move and we were forced into playing a game of cat and mouse with them if we wanted to have any chance of catching anything. These fish were keying in on a school anchovies that was following the current along the beach and we ended up chasing the fish for about a mile and a half, catching a few each time we stopped, before the school moved on again.

 

Luke with a nice Coho

After following the Coho up and down the beach, the school finally disappeared and the fishing drastically slowed down so we called it quits.

 

A juvenile Bald Eagle at the beach

In my search for the elusive Coastal Cutthroat, I have also been hitting a beach that is a mere three minute drive from my house lately. This beach usually starts fishing well around this time of the year, but as with my trip with Luke, the Cutthroat haven't been around. Oddly enough, the resident Coho haven't even been hanging out at this spot either. The fishing may be dead at this beach right now, but the nice weather that we have been having has made for some great sunsets and peaceful evenings on the water.

A couple of different sunset photos: Different days, different conditions, same slow fishing...

It is still early for sea-run Cutthroat right now and with the chum fry migration right around the corner it is only a matter of time before things pick up again.

Winter Steelhead Clinic with Doug Rose

On January 27th, Blake, Mark, Clayton and I all headed out to the Olympic Peninsula to take part in a winter steelhead clinic with Doug Rose. Doug has been fishing and guiding on the peninsula for years and has written several books on the subject, so I figured that this was a great chance to learn some more techniques for chasing these elusive fish. We all decided that rather than having to make the four hour drive out to Forks at O'Dark 30, it would be better to come out the night before and grab a hotel room, so we headed out one Monday evening instead. We woke up to 2 inches of snow on the ground and headed to a local restaurant to grab some breakfast before meeting up with Doug and the two other anglers that were taking part in the clinic. The first part of the clinic was held indoors and covered some of the basics about the Olympic streams, flies, lines, rods, tradition, etc. For the second part we headed out to the Bogachiel River to work on wet fly swing techniques.

 

Doug giving Mark some pointers on swinging a fly for steelhead

I put a pattern of my own design on and had a tug from something, but didn't hook up. We worked out way through the run two steps at a time and Blake got a hit but there were no hook ups.

 

Blake fishing the Bogi

After covering the run on the Bogachiel, Doug took us over to the Sol Duc River for the rest of the day. The Sol Duc is an amazingly beautiful river and was running a perfect blue-green color.

The Sol Duc

I worked the run swinging a prawn pattern for a while with no luck, then Blake and I had Doug show us a few spey casts on his switch rod. We spent the remainder of the day taking turns practicing with the switch rod and were getting some pretty decent casts off by the time we got off the water. I have to say that a switch rod would be a great way to fish the Puget Sound too, as high tide would be no problem anymore. The clinic was great and Doug definitely had a lot to teach.

South Sound salmon day

On Friday, there was a great outgoing tide, so me and one of my fishing buddies Bob decided to head out to a local beach to try for some resident Coho Salmon. When we arrived at the beach the wind was up a bit, but definitely at a fishable albeit challenging level and there was no initial sign of fish. However, this did not last to long and within the first five casts Bob was into his first resident Coho, which took a white baitfish pattern on a fast retrieve.

The beach

For the next half hour the fishing continued to be quite good, with me and Bob picking up a couple decent of sized residents a piece. After this the school seemed to move out and the fishing died. With the pace slowing a bit we decided to work our way down the beach to a point that gets a good current ripping past it when the tide is flowing. As we approached the point, sea gulls could be seen dive bombing a school of baitfish just offshore (definitely a good sign!!), so we positioned ourselves in front of the bait ball and started casting. The fish appeared to be well aware of the baitfish and after a few minutes I got a solid hook up. However, this fish did not react as would be expected for a resident Coho and instead charged straight at me only to head for deeper water once it spotted me. This type of fight is typical of Chinook Salmon and sure enough when I brought the fish in it turned out to be a small Chinook Salmon. These fish have an aversion to day light and as such are not often caught during the day, but the low light conditions from the cloud cover seemed to be enough to bring this one up to the surface to feed.

The Chinook salmon

A couple casts after catching the Chinook salmon I caught a decent resident Coho which put on a nice show of aerial acrobatics. Before long Bob was into another Coho as well, but after this the fish moved down the beach a little bit. Luckily a couple jumpers gave away their location and after getting in front of them I was able to bring one more Coho to hand.

Another Chinook salmon or "blackmouth" as they a commonly called for the coloration along their lower jaw.

By this time we were losing day light so we headed back to where the trail comes down to the beach to try our luck there for a few minutes. Before for I could even set foot in the water Bob spotted a jumper and sure enough on my first cast I caught another Chinook Salmon. On Bob's first cast he LDR'd a nice Coho and the fishing continued to stay decent for the next fifteen minutes or so. I ended up landing one more resident Coho and two more Chinook before things slowed down. Once the fishing finally slowed down again we decided it was time to call it a day and headed back to the car.

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.

Olympic Peninsula again

After recent trip in search steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula, Blake and I decided to make another go at it today. We picked a river that we had fished a couple of weeks ago and seen some fish in, and planned on leaving bright and early. Blake was at my house by 4:45AM and we were at the river about the time the sun was up. We stopped at the lower part of the river, where a local gear fisherman tried to tell us that there were no steelhead in the river and the Chum never showed up this year. As we had just fished this river and knew from the last outing that there were indeed steelhead in the river and that there were a good number of Chum we didn't buy this story and knew it was just an attempt to drive the "new guys" away. However, it looked like the lower parts of the river were going to be busy so we decided that we would hike upstream above where we had fished on our last outing and check out some new water. The upper river was similar to the water that we had sampled downstream in November, but with a little more gradient. Once again we each brought a swinging and nymphing rig and while Blake started out tossing his nymph rig, I went for the swing.

Blake working his nymph rig through a good looking run

The first couple holes and runs were unproductive, but a run little downstream was full of Chum Salmon. It was here that Blake caught a nice fairly bright female Chum that grabbed his pink and purple stonefly nymph. We were hoping that there would be some Steelhead or Cutthroat behind these fish looking for eggs, but had no such luck.

Blake with a female Chum caught on a Hotwire Stonefly Nymph

Chum vs. Otter... I Guess the otter won..

Below the Chum hole, we found a large pool in front of a logjam that had a handful of Coho holding in it. We worked through this hole hard and I had a small Cutthroat come up to the surface and attack my indicator, while Blake a had a take from one of the Coho but we didn't hookup. Unfortunately, things did not improve after this and instead got worse. While we had hiked a good distance upstream, apparently the gear fisherman from earlier had abandoned the lower river and hiked in just below us effectively cutting us off. The rest of the time on the river ended up being a fruitless search for water that we could have to ourselves and by mid-day we found ourselves out of good water and decided to call it a day at this spot. 

After leaving the river we decided to scout out the tidewater of a nearby creek, which was said to have a run of Steelhead and some decent sea-run Cutthroat fishing. We hadn't had a chance to check the tides before leaving home, and when we got to this spot the water was down a couple of feet below what would have been ideal for fishing.

Blake working the tidewater on the creek

The Olympic Coast at low tide

We tried a few casts, but the water was shallow and there was no sign of any fish. This creek definitely looked promising, especially for Cutthroat in the fall, so we added it to our "Spots to fish" list for another outing under more ideal conditions. After leaving the creek, we made the long trek back to Gig Harbor.

Searching for Olympic Steel

Blake and I decided to make a trip out to the Olympic Peninsula on Friday and Saturday to search for some early winter Steelhead. During the previous week, the pineapple express came through western Washington and put just about every river to flood stage. In the aftermath, the rivers began to drop and clear a bit so conditions for the trip looked promising. Most years, the winter steelheading gets kicking around Thanksgiving, so we were jumping the gun on things a little, but we figured that a few less fish and a lot less people was better the battling the Thanksgiving crowds. 

Day 1: Friday November 21st 2008: Blake met me at my house well before the sun was up and we hit the road. We arrived at the first stream a little after day light and scrambled down the bank to the river. The river was still a little high and off color, but looked very fishy, with some great looking holes and pocket water. We worked our way upstream, stopping to nymph and swing flies through every likely looking spot, but only ran into a few smolts. About a 1/2 mile upstream, we came upon a nice pool and it was here that the river showed a little bit of life.

Me nymphing the first stream

Blake was fishing downstream of me when he yelled for me to come down to check out a fish that was holding in a riffle in front of him. The fish ended up being a nearly spent Coho, but as Blake was pointing at it with his rod tip, a chrome bright steelhead darted upstream between us and the Coho in less than a foot of water and into the hole that I had just been fishing. I raced back upstream to the hole and started working it with my nymph set up and within five casts watched as my line stopped and my indicator shot below the surface. Right away I thought Steelhead!! Only when the fish on the end of my line started careening downstream like a bat out of hell, it wasn't the grey ghost silhouette of the steelhead that I had been hoping for, but instead the unmistakable green back of a Chum Salmon. The Chum had grabbed my Glo Bug and darted past a root wad, then turned back upstream and headed straight into the tangled mess of the root wad. For the moment luck was on my side, as the fish decided to go though the largest opening in the snag and the only spot where my line wouldn't get caught. Unfortunately, my luck didn't hold and the fish made a jump along the far bank and threw my fly.

Blake swinging a fly through the Chum hole

After the hook up, and with the knowledge that somewhere in the depths in front of us there was a chrome bright steelhead, we worked every inch of the hole both swinging and nymphing. However, the other only fish that the pool would give up was an 8" smolt that once again went for my Glo Bug. With us being pretty certain that the fish in this pool were not going to bite, we decided to work our way back downstream to another nice run that we had skipped over. Blake started out swinging at the head of the run, while I nymphed the mid section. Downstream of where I fishing, and in about a foot and a half of water I saw a flash. I put my next cast in this spot, and a 15" Coastal Cutthroat grabbed my fly but popped off after a few seconds. When Blake got down to this stretch, he too had a hit from a Cutthroat but didn't hook up. After covering this pool, we worked our way back to the car and got on the road to try out another piece of water.

The second river

The next river was even smaller than the first one and I had couple of nice strikes and Blake hooked into a nice Cutthroat in the frog water along the bank, but the fish shook loose. We waded downstream to a pool that we couldn't past without some significant bushwhacking, so headed back to the car just as it started to rain. 

After this we headed to one more river that we wanted to check out to fish for a couple of hours before dark. This river would end up being our favorite for trip and was full of classic runs, pools and pockets. It was raining when we got to the river, and we began swinging our flies through every piece of likely looking water. A few runs downstream from the car we saw a couple steelhead jump on their way upstream, but these fish were on a mission to spawn and didn't touch our flies. By the time that we got off the river, us and all of our gear were soaked and were very thankful that we had gotten a hotel run instead of camping.

Day 2: Saturday November 22nd 2008: It rained all night, but with the first light of morning the showers began to dissipate. We decided to head back to the third river and even though we got there early it wasn't early enough as the weekend warriors were out in force. Even with the extra people though, once were got a couple runs down to where we had seen the fish jump the night before we had the place to ourselves. With the rains overnight the river was up about four inches from the day before and the visibility was a little low, but conditions looked good enough. Blake and I covered this pool several times before we decided to move downstream to the next stretch. I was working a deep slot behind a log jam at the head of the next pool with my nymph rig, when my indicator shot under the surface and slightly upstream. I set the hook, and the steelhead that had grabbed my fly took off upstream as fast as it could. The whole ordeal only lasted a matter of ten seconds before the steelhead swam into the log jam and broke me off leaving me completely speechless at what had just happened.

Blake working a run on the third river

We spent the better part of the morning working this area, but as the day wore on the anglers from upstream began crowding us, so we decided to go check out another section of the river further downstream. A few miles below where we had been fishing the river cuts itself into a deep canyon and we figured that we would probably be the only ones crazy enough to fish this stretch so we scrambled down the hill to the river. We started out covering the water downstream, but after a few fishless hours decided to check out the area upstream of where we had come down.

Me covering some water in the canyon

A waterfall in the canyon

The upper part of the canyon consisted of shear cliffs, deep pools and boulder gardens and was breath takingly beautiful. We scrambled along the cliffs as far upstream as we could go but still couldn't find any fish.

Blake working a nice looking pocket

Some pocket water in the canyon

The upper part of the canyon

After feeling confident that we had covered the water well enough and that there were either no fish or no fish that were going to bite, it was time to hike out. We decided to take a different route out of the canyon, which ended up being one of the most punishing exercises that I think either of us has ever done. Things never seem to look as steep from down below, and this end up being a near vertical hands and knees climb where we were looking for anything to grab onto; ferns, branches, roots, etc... After 45 long minutes, we finally made our way back to the truck and made the long drive back home.

The trip ended with no fish landed, but Blake and I both agreed that this was the most fun that we had ever had getting skunked!