After work outing

With things settling down a bit here in Washington after a crazy spring, I have had a bit more time to get out for some after work outings. One thing that has been nice with moving to Olympia besides being much closer to work, is that I am also much closer to a number of fishing spots ranging from beaches to mountain and coastal streams. Yesterday I had the opportunity to fish a nearby stream after work. I had a dry dropper set up to try, but there just wasn't any surface activity going on so I decided to prospect with a small streamer that has worked well for Coastal Cutthroat in the past. While I did have a few hits with the streamer while working through some likely runs, it wasn't until I got to the last hole of the day that it actually produced with a solid take. The fish has some serious power behind it, putting a good bend in my fly rod and staying deep right until the very end. Once the fish came up to the net I was pleasantly surprised to see it was a nice Bull Trout coming in at about 17". Not bad for a quick evening outing.

A nice evening Bull Trout

Fishing the New Home Stream

Last year my family moved to be closer to our jobs and after a busy first year getting settled and all of the craziness with the pandemic this spring I have finally had some time to start exploring one of my new home streams a bit more. Prior to moving I had fished this stream a few times over the years and it supports a robust native population of stream resident Coastal Cutthroat. However, now I am able to spend a bit more time exploring it and took a couple of hours in the evening to ply its waters with my 2wt and a trusty Royal PMX and Lightning Bug dropper rig.

The stream

The stream is largely rain driven, meaning that it comes into shape much sooner than most other watersheds in the area. When I arrived there were a few caddis and PMD spinners around, but based on my past experience the fish here have not been to picky and attractors usually do the job. This time was no different it didn't take long to find some nice little Cutthroat. The first one I got was a little female with a spawning scar tail and was a bit greedy taking both the dry and the dropper. 

A greedy little female Coastal Cutthroat

Not to far upstream I landed my fish of the evening a nice chunky 12" native Coastal Cutthroat on the PMX. 

This of the evening

All and all I worked about a 2/3 of mile of the stream and caught plenty of 6-8" Cutthroat the one at 12" and lost one that was slightly better than that right at the net. Definitely a great evening on the new home stream and I am looking forward to many more.

Pre-shutdown Olympic Steelhead

My buddy Greg and I had been planning an outing to the Washington Coast for Steelhead for over a year, but as we got closer to the date it seemed that problems were coming our way. First was that I heard through the grapevine that the Washington Coast south of the Olympic Peninsula was going to be closing on the day that our trip was set to start. This was likely to really limit options and increase crowds on the few rivers that were open. Also with this being the first week of March 2020, rumblings of the pandemic were also making plans uncertain.

However, when the start of our trip arrived, conditions on the Olympic Peninsula looked relatively favorable and after picking Greg up from the airport we hit the road. Our first day we would only have a few hours to fish before dark so we checked out a small stream that I had fished years ago. However, after covering a good mile or two of the stream and after seeing no sign of fish we headed into town to get ready for a full day on the river the next day.

The next morning dawned gray and drizzly and given the number of folks that were in Forks at the moment, Greg and I opted for a hike in river. Based on our desire to get away from the crowds, this proved to be a good choice as there was no one else in the parking lot when we pulled up, so it looked like we would have the river to ourselves. The spot we were heading had a few nice runs several miles upstream, so we geared up and hit the muddy trail. 

Time to hit the trail

For the most part the hike was a nice flat trip through old growth Sitka Spruce. However, part of the way up to our first run, the river had taken out the trail resulting in a tough scramble over a hill and down a salmonberry and devils club choked ravine to meet back up with the trail. After that minor set back, it wasn't long before we finally reached our spot and got to fishing. We planned on swinging flies most of the day and I started our with a purple and blue intruder. I started out at the top of the run, while Greg started just below me and we got into position and started swinging flies. Just a couple casts later, I had a good tug on the end of my line and was into a fish. After a good initial take, I could tell that this fish was not that large and when I brought it to hand it turned out to be a beautiful native Coastal Cutthroat.

A native Olympic Peninsula Coastal Cutthroat

The swinging run

We worked the run for a few hours and did have a couple more takes, with Greg having one strong take that we highly suspected was a Steelhead, but unfortunately nothing stuck. After feeling satisfied with our coverage of the run, we hiked into another one, which treated us very similarly. Again, no steelhead, but one smallish Coastal Cutthroat, this time on a bead. Throughout the day it had barely stopped raining and as we had a pretty good hike ahead of us we started our way back to the trailhead with high hopes for the next day.

Again we decided to focus on a piece of water that required a bit of leg work to get to and hopefully would have some Steelhead. The morning started out fairly clear and after a nice walk through the virgin temperate rainforest we found ourselves on a beautiful stretch of water. 

The river

The first stretch of water did not look very conducive to swinging so we opted to nymph it. As Greg still hadn't gotten a fish, he took first water. It didn't take too long for Greg to get a cast into the sweet spot of the pool and hook into a nice fish. This was definitely a Steelhead and by the look of how it was pulling a heck of a nice one. The fish really made Greg work for it, but before too long he was able to get it into the shallows were I was able to tail it for him.

Greg hooked into his first steelhead

Success!

The beautiful native Olympic Peninsula Steelhead

The fish was an absolutely beautiful native buck in its spawning colors, with a deep red band and orange belly. One heck of a fish for Greg's first steelhead! After getting his steelhead, Greg took a little break and I worked the pool for a bit and briefly had a Steelhead on but lost it.  However, in it the next pool down, I got a good take and this time connected with a Steelhead. However, this fish was not quite like Greg's which had really made him work for it and within a couple minutes I had what turned out to be a little hatchery steelhead to shore. 

My hatchery steelhead

Given that this hatchery fish had WAY overshot the hatchery and was hanging out with wild fish it was destined for the smoker. After I got my fish, Greg took a shot at the hole and had a brief hookup, but unfortunately it came off. Given our success here, we had high hopes for the rest of the day, but as it would turn out this appeared to be an isolated occurrence and after covering another mile or two of river we didn't see any other signs of fish. To add to things a front had moved in and the river started to rise and by the time we stopped fishing around dusk, we were a bit worried about flows for our final day.

On our last day we only had a half day to fish before Greg had to head south to meet up with another friend in Oregon. As such, and given that the rain had really added some extra flow and color to the rivers around Forks, I picked a river that I knew was likely to hold its color and would be somewhat on the way for us. Where the weather the rest of the trip had been gray and wet, this day was beautiful and sunny and while the river was definitely cranking, it had held its color pretty well and we set to fishing. 

Our final river

A Mountain Whitefish

With the water up and wading difficult, fishing required long casts, which really made getting good drifts difficult. I did manage to get a few take down nymph, but everyone one of them ended up being Mountain Whitefish and after covering a couple of holes the river wading proved too challenging to proceed downstream so we decided it was time to call it. Within a couple weeks of the end of our trip, the pandemic had set in and turned life upside down, making me all that much more grateful for a great outing finding a few fish on some beautiful rivers with a great friend.

Back on the Road Again: Native Redbands and Cutthroat of Eastern Oregon

With all of the changes that life has thrown my way over the last few years. For the first time in years I headed out on the road (along with my cousin Derek, who has joined me on several other past trips) with some new native trout to target as well as some old ones to revisit. This trip was all revolving around the American Fisheries Society in Reno, Nevada at which I was presenting, but I was able to add a couple of days on each side of the conference to target some native trout.  The main targets of the trip were the White River Redband, John Day Westslope Cutthroat, Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat, Quinn River Cutthroat, Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout and possibly some McCloud River Redband Trout.

Day 1: Friday September 27th 2019: Derek and I hit the road bright and early, heading south from my home in Olympia, Washington towards the White River watershed in north-central Oregon. The White River flows from the glaciers of Mt. Hood into the of the Deschutes River just downstream of Maupin, OR.  While the Deschutes River holds Columbia Basin Redband Trout, the Redband Trout found above a series of waterfalls on the White River are genetically distinct from the fish in the Deschutes and identify more closely related to Fort Rock Redbands in the Great Basin, with recent studies indicating that they likely warrant a subspecies designation. As the White River is glacially fed, it has very poor visibility so I selected a couple of tributary streams to fish for these trout. Unfortunately, when we arrived the first of these streams had no public access on the lower end and the flows on the second stream were so low that we could not find any holding water and only managed to rise one small fish. Luckily we were able to find a small irrigation impoundment on the second stream that offered some great looking holding water.

The irrigation pond

This spot called for beaver pond tactics, so Derek and I tied on some Zug Bugs and started fishing. Letting the Zug Bugs sink for several seconds and retrieving them with short twitches proved quite effective and in short order I had caught a a few beautiful Redbands including a 10" beauty.

A White River Redband Trout

While we were successful on our first fish of the day, it took much longer than planned and we still had a long drive to the upper John Day River to look for Westslope Cutthroat and it looked like with the shorter days of fall every minute of daylight was going to count.

The middle John Day River from the road

We arrived at the stream with about an hour of daylight to spare and got to fishing with a dry dropper rig right away. We were able to locate a good piece of holding water almost right away, and on one of the first cast I hooked a fish. Could it be that easy? Unfortunately not, it turned out the fish was a small Columbia Basin Redband - likely a juvenile steelhead and the next fish out of the hole also turned out to be a Redband too.

A small Redband from the stream

After the second fish, the hole shut down so we started heading downstream. Unfortunately it seemed that this stream was lacking in good holding water and while we found a couple more small Redbands and a juvenile Chinook, there was no sign of any Cutthroat nor any water that was likely to hold them. After trudging downstream close to a half mile and watching the daylight fade, I finally came across a great looking piece of holding water where a tributary entered the stream. However, while the first spot had produced fish right away, this spot which looked even better showed no sign of life. After a number of a great drifts through every inch of the hole, I crept closer for a better look. Right where I figured a trout should be holding, there was a nice summer run Steelhead, which also saw me and decided it was time to head for cover.

Steelhead holding water

At this point the daylight was fading fast and it was time to head back upstream. While it seemed that I was going to have to admit defeat on the John Day Cutthroat, I figured a couple more casts in the first spot I tried wouldn't hurt. On the second cast I was rewarded with a rise and after solid hookup and after a short fight I brought a nice little John Day Cutthroat to hand!

A John Day Westslope Cutthroat

By the time I let the Cutthroat go, it was clear that there wasn't enough light to continue fishing so we hit the road for Burns, Oregon where we were staying the night.

Day 2: Saturday September 28th 2019: Overnight a cold front had blown in an we woke to a frosty morning in Burns with the possibility or rain and snow in the forecast. Our goal for the day was to fish for Willow-Whitehorse Cutthroat in southeastern Oregon before crossing to border into Nevada and trying for Quinn River Cutthroat. I had fished for and caught Willow-Whitehorse Cutthroat in 2006 (over 13 years ago already - yikes!), but fire had ravaged the area in 2012 and I wanted to return and see how it was looking and if I could find a few trout. By the time we got to the stream it was mid-morning and the temperature had warmed to the mid 40's F although a stiff wind was blowing. Luckily the fire had missed this stretch of stream and looked almost exactly how I remembered, so it was time to look for some trout.

Desert Cutthroat water

Looking for trout didn't take too long, and the first spot that I came to, the outflow a beaver pond produced two nice Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat.

Willow-Whitehorse Basin Cutthroat

Just like the last time that I had been to this stream a dry dropper rig with a black Copper John appeared to be the ticket. We fished up and down the stream for a couple hours, running into on lethargic rattlesnake and catching a bunch more Cutthroat in the 6-10" range before the weather started to turn on us, with snow clouds visible on the hills just a few miles off and it was time to hit the road again.

The rattlesnake

Another Willow-Whitehorse Cutthroat

While we were doing to just fine on daylight this time, the weather was whole other matter was turning fast. By the time that we hit the Nevada border, it was snowing in earnest and the Quinn River Cutthroat which required some rough roads up into the mountains was going to have to wait for another trip, so we headed on for Winnemucca, NV to grab a hotel for the night.

Snowed out of for the day

Day 3: Sunday September 29th 2019: With a good coat of snow on all of the hills around Winnemucca in the morning there was no way we were going to have any luck fishing for Quinn River Cutthroat so we headed for Reno, NV for the conference.

Day 4: Monday September 30 - Day 7: Thursday: October 3rd 2019: These days were all spent at the conference. Lots of great talks and I even got myself a great new book!

Also picked up a new book at the conference

Day 8: Friday October 4th 2019: We got up in the morning and made the drive out to Eagle Lake, California to try for Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout. We were still a bit early as the trout are known to move into the shallows in mid-October as the water cools. However, I was hoping that recent cold front might have done the trick. This proved to be wishful thinking. We fished for the better part the day, trying everything we could think of, from casting into the tulles to trolling flies deep. We only saw one fish rise and may have had one soft take but other than that lots and lots of fruitless casting.

Eagle Lake, California

Fishing Eagle Lake

The Eagle Lake Rainbow had been the fish I was most keen on getting on this trip, as I have had a number of potential trips planned over the years but had never been able to make it happen. Hopefully I will be able to make another try at the Eagle Lake Rainbow next spring, but regardless it is always hard getting skunked on a trout so far from home. After trying Eagle, we headed north towards home and ended up camping on a McCloud River Redband stream near the slopes of Mount Shasta that I had fished back in 2007. We got camp set up right before dark and temperatures plummeted quickly on us dropping into the 20's F and proving to be one chilly night in a tent.

Day 9: Saturday October 5th 2019: It was quite chilly in the morning, but the sun was out and it warmed up rather quickly. Once it was warm enough to feel our fingers, we got the rods rigged up and went to check out the creek. The last time that I had been to this stream, the fishing had been great, with every likely looking spot holding a trout. However, a lot can change in 12 years, and unfortunately for this stream those changes were not good. Upon checking out the stream, it was clear that cattle had been unleashed on the watershed and had done serious damage.

Cattle caused erosion

We covered more than double the water I had fished last time, but the habitat was absolutely destroyed, with caved in banks and erosion and we saw not a single sign of trout. 

Incised stream channels

Given the habitat, it would have been a miracle if we had found a trout in this stream and as we had a long drive home still we decided that it was best to cut our losses and get on the road again. Along the way we stopped at Crater Lake National Park and had a nice quite drive back to Olympia. 

Crater Lake

All and all, it was a great trip, with us getting 3 of the 6 fish that we had hoped to catch. Hopefully next year I will be able to get out again, as it felt great to get out for another native trout road trip after such a long time.

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.