Fly of the Week #15- October Caddis

It is not too early to be thinking and preparing for the arrival of one of my favorite hatches on E. WA rivers- the October Caddis.  I was doing just that, thinking about them and cruising the internet looking for pictures and I found the Iowa State University Entomological site called Bug Guide.  The pictures are great and the site has lots of good reference photos ( many from the Yakima and other Washington State rivers).

Photo by Brian Henning

 

Photo by Brian Henning

Photo by Dick Palmer

I like the October Caddis because they are huge, make lots of surface commotion, fish respond to the the pupae, adult as well as larva, they are easy to see, hatch in my favorite season and are easy to tie.  A person could use a large 6-8 Elk Hair Caddis, but there are plenty of really big, large flies that float better (Think Foam) have more wing structure and present better.  The adults are not always the most available of insects as they literally shoot from the slower water below the riffles.  You can hear them take off.   This fly of the week will concentrate on the last truly large dry fly the angler will have the opportunity to present to the fish for the season.   My only critique of this fly is how long the extended body is, it seems a tad long to accurately match the caddis, as seen above.  However, an extended body floats better and the fly still catches plenty of fish.  After all, it's more an opinion concerning look, more so than function.   Tying wise, it is a very easy to make fly. 

October Caddis Foam

Body sized 6-9, but hook is 10-12

Recipe
Hook: Dai-Riki #300 size 10-12
Thread: Color to match body- 6/0 Preferably burnt orange veevus or brown Uni.
Body: Orange foam made extended.  J:son detached body pin type
Hackle: Brown
Wing:Stacked deer hair
Fore body: Tan or grey foam, cut to make head.

FLY OF THE WEEK	PRICE	ADD TO CART
October Caddis Foam Sz10	$2.50 PER FLY

Thanks for reading,
WBFC Pro-Staff,
Joe

Yakima Dropping

I think everyone has a boat launching horror story, at least everyone who has launched a boat that is. A person forgets to put the plug in, the boat is broken somehow, the emergency brake breaks, and the list goes on. Well,yesterday, Guide Nathan and I fished the upper portion of the Cle Elum Canyon of the Yakima River.  The "State" or E. Cle Elum Boat launch is not bad as far as launches go.  It has some big, loose gravel, some tricky water at first but overall pretty benign.  Precisely the perfect spot to have a mishap, however my mishap was leaning towards more lucky than unlucky.  So it goes a bit like this:  My Nissan does not have a lot of weight in the rear bed and when I backed down the launch, set the e brake, got out and pushed the boat, I thought, looks good!  As I shoved the boat however, the clay ground and way loose gravel did not do any favors.  My truck started to slide, slide, slide back into the large, swirling eddy that makes for the tricky launch.  I could only try to push against thousands of pounds of metal and fiberglass with little effect.  My saving grace was a large, old, rotting log that sat right next to the launch.  My trailer caught the log and stopped my rig from doing who knows what.  So, lesson learned, either carry chock blocks or sacrifice a bit of the boat bottom and launch at a steeper angle.

Droppin'

Fishing?  Well, the entire blue ribbon section of the Yakima River is dropping on schedule to meet the irrigation "flip-flop".  Soon, the Tieton/Naches system will take over water duties.   The top flies were red or purple ice dubbed Chernobyl, Purple Haze, red humpies, or some x-caddis.  We also threw some streamers, but only attracted the attention of one fish.   We saw tons of insects however: Crane Fly adults and larva, Caddis, PMD's, Summer Stones, more Caddis and a lot of small juvenile fish jumping in the eddies.  Our float was distance was short and only about 5 hours so we covered as much water as possible, anchoring and exploring as much of the braided water as time allowed.   Every nook and cranny of that water can and will hold fish.  As the water drops, the fish will start to find new and "normal" places to hide and feed in, so be prepared to fish a normal stream once flip flop is complete.  Good luck and safe rowing.

Safe Wading Chart for the Yakima River

Fly of the Week #14- Campbell's Popping Bugger - PLUS Yakima River Update

Heat and Wind. With the exception of today, it's cool and cloudy for some reason, we have been inundated with 90's and above.  I have not personally seen 100, but I am sure someone has.  Yesterday was one of the windiest days of this summer, and the reason we have cloudy and cool today.  Not the best day to be on the water.  When the temperatures get really hot, and the sun beats down on the river, well, the trout go crepuscular mostly.  Crepuscular being a diurnal active period at dawn and/or dusk.  You can still land fish mid day, but there are certainly slow periods.   It's really fun fishing at dusk and last week we had a great evening float on the river.  However, change is always good, especially when it puts the angling family onto boat loads of fun!

Enter Banks Lake bass.  This weekend I had the opportunity to travel over to Banks and get into some truly epic Smallmouth Bass and Walleye fishing.  The Walleye fishing was slow and they are not very good fly fishing targets, as trolling crank baits is the norm.  However, top water bass with poppers was just unreal, stellar even.  Again, mornings and evenings, casting up into rocks, rip rap, any structure of the rocky type.  We fished in 30 feet of water, casting up into 5 to 6 feet of water with the poppers.   As soon as the poppers hit the water, fish would engulf them.  Very seldom was the popper on the water for more than 30 seconds before the fish took interest.


Campbell's Popping Bugger
Brown/Yellow, Chartreuse, White/Red


Hook: Dai-Riki #810 size 2-6
Thread: Color to match body- 3/0
Tail: marabou and some flash
Body: Rubber legs out of top, with Krystal Pearl Chinelle
Hackle: Hen to match color you are tying
Front body: Round foam discs in various colors as seen in pictures- I believe they are two connected round discs that are lashed on and then glued together.
Legs: Optional- round rubber legs inserted thru body to add more movement

FLY OF THE WEEK	PRICE	ADD TO CART
Popping Bugger- Chart. #4	$6.50 PER FLY
Popping Bugger- White #4	$6.50 PER FLY
Popping Bugger- Brown/Ylw #4	$6.50 PER FLY

Yakima River Report

The headline should be- Cooler Weather Ahead, Great Fishing in Store.  However, the fishing has been consistently good and last week Steve, Nathan, a friend of Nathan's and I (Joe) fished the upper farmlands and it was quite productive.  One of the best ways to burn off that post work day stress is an evening float on the Yakima.  We had good numbers of Rainbow and Cutthroat during our 2 hour float and a lot of missed strikes, refusals and otherwise aggressive fish. Orange and purple flies worked best, but I don't think the evening bite is really a color game, but more silhouette biased.   Having big, busy flies that have tempting silhouettes will produce more fish and better fish.  I tried some smaller Gypsy Kings, but the fish wanted big.  The flies we fished were in the 8 range and maybe some 6's.  

The nice thing about the Yakima is that it is mostly insulated from the temperature swings that a lot of rivers are effected by.  Our flows are stable, albeit unnaturally high in summer, due to the three reservoirs that control the watershed and provide for irrigation in the lower system.  The "Flip-Flop" is not a political term here, but a Bureau of Reclamation event that switches the high irrigation flows from the upper Yakima System to the Naches/Tieton System to feed the farm lands of the lower Yakima valley.  Please stop by the shop to get the latest news and updates and check out the expansion!

WBFC Pro-Staff
Joe

Fly of the Week #13- Army Ant (AKA Amy's Ant)

Fly of the week this week is the Army Ant.  The Jack Dennis created Amy's Ant is very similar and tied almost exactly the same.  The only difference I can see is the name and the color choices.  Last week the WBFC Team all got out and fished the Yakima River.  It was close to 95 when we got on the river and the fishing started slower than we wanted.  The fly that saved my bacon was the Army Ant in Purple, but few companies make these and I think that the red version would work just as well mid-day and then the olive version towards evening.  We did see a lot of caddis activity and then we saw a few Short Winged Stoneflies.

Not to beat up on a well worn subject, but mending is vital to getting your fly into the fish and their limited sight plane, WITHOUT drag.  Drag is a strike killer and not tolerated by the educated fish of the Yakima system.  The easiest mend for the drift boat fisherman/woman is simply the lift mend:  Lift the rod, move the line and continue a drag free drift.  The next mend is what I call the flick mend:  The angler casts, and as soon as the line hits the water, the angler "flicks" the tip of the rod to do a mini-roll cast and add feet to your drift.  This allows the person fishing to remain in the feeding lane longer, hence more hookups.

The fish will pounce a fly like this and I think it's because the fly looks like so many insects rolled into one fly.  I can see it as hopper, a stone, an October Caddis, an attractor and even a gob of worms... OK, I am joking on that one, but you all get the point.  Try this great fly on technical waters too. My reasoning is simple, I doubt very few have, amounting to a "new" bug that triggers a strike.




Amy's Ant/Army Ant


Hook: Dai-Riki #270 size 6-12
Thread: Color to match body- 6/0
Under foam: Tan 2mm
Top Foam: Brown 2mm
Body: Olive, red or purple ice chenille
Hackle: Brown saddle
Under wing: Rainbow krystal flash
Upper wing: Elk body hair
Front body: Various colors to match- Ice dub
Legs: Black or Brown round rubber legs

FLY OF THE WEEK	PRICE	ADD TO CART
Army Ant- Olive #10	$2.50 PER FLY
Army Ant- Red #10	$2.50 PER FLY

WBFC Summer Trips and Reports (Thus Far!)

I love to camp and travel year round.  99% of my trips are to either fish, hunt or mountain bike and usually it's a mix of two or more.  With family, it's my way of instilling in our children, a respect for our resources and to get them outside and away from the drone of technology.  I love to hear my 3 year old daughter say, " This so fun!  I love camping Daddy!".    The WBFC Blog is going to be adding reports to the entries, as well as all the other fun stuff we have to offer.  The first one should be good, in my opinion, so it's actually a mish-mash of several trips and a couple I don't have pictures for but found some online.

Teanaway River

 

Photo from web

Yesterday my wife and I took the kids to the Teanaway to get out of the heat and into the water.  We went exactly where this picture by Jason G was taken.  I was very low and we managed to land a 10" fish.  The swimming was OK to good, since about 70 other people decided it was also a good idea to go swimming.  We were the only other people as far as I could see that had fly rods.   Fish took Chernobyl Ants,  Dark Adams and Wulff style flies, sizes 10-12.

Upper Yakima

Photo courtesy USFS

The shop guys all got together and fished the upper Yakima the other day.  We floated about 7 hours, taking time to fish a lot of good water, as well as let the tube floating people pass by.  It was slow since we started around 12, but there were fish to be had and all on dries.  We fished hoppers, Amy's Ant in Purple, Purple Haze, Orange Chubby Chernobyl and even swung some streamers.  The Fish liked purple the best, all in sizes 12-8.   I guess I did get a couple on a dropper that I used for a while. We saw a few salmon in the deeper holes.

Naches River

I fished the Naches one evening last week.  It's an ok river with a lot of wade access and a surprising amount of people fishing it.  My grandparents have had land on the Naches since the 60's so I have fished it a fair bit.  I only really like to fish it in the fall, since the October Caddis is a hot hatch there and the crowds are gone.  I used to fish it on my lunch breaks, but no longer work in Naches.  Those fish will really key in on large, size 8 or 10, caddis dries fished in the faster water.  I lost a good 20" cutty there 2 falls ago, just above the Hwy 20 bridge.   Other than that, there are a few decent fish, but it's just not a "super" fishery- good but not super.  At least not yet, and we can let time tell if it will fish better now that it's catch and release.  Try indicator flies and hoppers.

Mt. Adams

Mt. Adams

I got a chance to do a several day road trip to Oregon and back to Washington- almost all on Forest Service roads.  Before we report, let me say that a paved FS road can be a real bargain, but it can also get super annoying.  At least dirt is easy to fix and they keep those up, the paved roads around Mt. Saint Helens, not so much. 

Anyway, we fished some of the lakes near the area we camped around Mt. Adams.  I have to admit to not doing well.  The fish were active in the middle of the lakes, but fitting a pontoon in the truck while camping is not an option.  Maybe next year.  I saw a lot of fly fishing happening, but only talked to gear guys who had a grudge against fly rods.  They landed and presumably kept, a lot of large 15" or larger fish.  I saw one jump that would have pushed 20".  My contact for that area said that he believes there was a sizable winter kill in the high basins these lakes sit in.  He should know, he stocks them.   The lakes are cool since it's one of the few places you can catch a Rainbow, Brook Trout or Brown Trout in one lake.  If you real lucky, you can also land a Cutthroat or a Tiger trout. I saw a lot of chironomids, and pulling a leach or bugger should work.

The Lewis fished decent in one of the places I stopped.  It was a really nice river and the fish were eager to take a dry.  They ranged from 6-8 inches and held in any likely spot.  Nice day too!  The water was in the "Catch and Release" stretch, located in the fishing regulations.

One of the forks of the Lewis- Catch and release water. 

Winthrop, WA

Boulder Creek

Back in July I camped in the Winthrop area. Neat place to visit.  I was within sight of Boulder creek and that fished marginal.  It was very cold water, but also looked pretty sparse on aquatic life.  I saw no stonefly husks on the shore. One hole had about a dozen eager cutthroat.


 I also fished the Chewuch.  There was several good mayfly hatches and the fish were responding to emergers. I saw one 15" fish rise, but mostly landed 8" fish.  I fished a dry/wet fly dropper and swung wet flies as well as threw some big bugs.  The big bugs didn't do much, the wetfly accounted for 90% of my catch.  I explored as much as I could before I had to go. It's an area worth exploring more because that quality water, with little pressure, should produce decent fish.

We also stopped by the old Blewett mill site.  It was pretty cool and when I got home I looked up the old town of Blewett and it's history.  Very cool area to explore.

Lastly- Saltwater Kings

I hesitate putting this post up since I was fishing herring on heavy salmon rods and not fly rods... gasp!  But I like fishing and not getting religious about how I fish.  Fishing was good, we thought it was slow, but one old salt told us we did better than most.  We landed 3, releasing 2 of them as they were native Kings, and then we lost at least 4 more.  It was an awesome day in the salt.  I saw a whale come fully out of the water and crash down with massive force!  It sounded like a distant gunshot when it reentered the water, about a 3/4 of a mile away.  We also saw seals, sea lions and some sort of porpoise    The anchovies were thick and our rods would start dancing every time we entered a massive school of bait fish.  The bait fish were literally bouncing off our line! 

Saltwater!! 

Thanks for looking and we will have more to share as the weeks go by!  Fish on- WBFC Pro Staff

Fly of the Week #12- CLODHOPPER

Great summer time hopper!

Clodhopper in Sz- 12 - 8

I am going with a modified cliché on this one- Too many Flies, too little time!   Every time I look into the massive collection of flies we offer, I am just amazed, and dismayed, that I probably won't be able to fish them all.  The practical side of me says I only need about 6 flies to cover most of the fishing I do, the fly tier in my says I need 4000 flies because I want to tie all the cool, interesting and potentially knock-out flies created for every niche and situation imaginable.

The Clodhopper meets a lot of my tying/fishing criteria, those mostly being: ease of tie, color, profile, easy to get materials and movement.   I augment them as seasons and conditions change but essentially that is it.  This hopper meets all of the criteria.  Like most western states, here in Central WA we have a yearly hopper explosion and the fish are keyed into the large insects dropping from the grassy shores, being tossed by the gusty wind, or haphazardly flying into the water.   Fishing a stout 7.5 foot 3x or bigger leader, close to shore, with slight twitching of the rod tip usually produces some great summer fish.  Add to that a size 14-16 dropper about 12" behind the fly, and you have the quintessential western "hopper/dropper" rig.

FLY OF THE WEEK	PRICE	ADD TO CART
CLODHOPPER- TAN #10	$2.50 PER FLY
CLODHOPPER- PEACH #10	$2.50 PER FLY
CLODHOPPER- PINK #10	$2.50 PER FLY

Clodhopper Recipe

Hook:  Dai-Riki 710- 3X LONG, 1X STRONG- It's a nymph hook but works great for hoppers. 

Thread: Any 6/0 to match color

Body/head: Various colors of foam- tan, purple, pink, red, olive, yellow, black, etc. Doubled to on body (4mm), head is single 2mm foam.  

Legs: Any barred rubber or  silicone leg would work.  4-6 strands.  knotted if you like. 

Cut Wing: Etha Wing or substitute
Top Wing: Yellowstone Fly Goods Widows's Web
Head: See body notes- but head is single 2mm foam

Sallies

It's the time of year that we see Yellow Sally stoneflies in the evenings along the western rivers.  I was seeing them in Montana back in June, I saw one last week on the catch and release water of the upper Lewis River in Western Washington.  They are quite a neat bug to imitate and the tying fisherman can have a good selection of flies covering this hatch.

Below are my ties of the popular Headlight Sally pattern.   I had made these to cover this great regional hatch.  They work very well on the Yakima River and are easy to tie!  As you can see, I experimented with several types of posts.  What is the "red dot" you ask?  An egg sac imitation made of dollar store fingernail polish!  Just predip your precut bodies and let dry.  It holds up well and is easy to use on foam.

Fly of the Week #11- Flu Shot Streamer

 Flu Shot Sizes 4-8

Olive/Black, Yellow/Black, Orange/Black

This fly is either the "Flu Shot" or the " Phillipe's Flu Shot" depending on how you want to go about recognizing it.  Either way works here at the shop.  The Flu Shot is a good, all around and buggy looking streamer.  I guess buggy is not really an appropriate description since it looks more fishy than buggy, but now we're splitting hairs.  If you show up at a lake or river and the first thing you do is pull out your streamer box, I sure hope you have a few of these in various colors.  It's a heavy fly, tied in the round and offers a good jiggy motion that entices fish.   The hook is short shanked, so it has good fish retention properties and it has loads of movement with the various materials it's tied with.  

The thing we like about this fly is its versatility.  You can throw it into structure for smallies, dredge deep for browns, kick around the lake for big rainbows, or even twitch it for carp.  In the larger sizes you might be able to entice a coho or steelhead.  You just never know with this fly- it's awesome! 

FLY OF THE WEEK	PRICE	ADD TO CART
FLU SHOT OLIVE-SIZE #4	$3.50 PER FLY
FLU SHOT YELLOW-SIZE #4	$3.50 PER FLY
FLU SHOT ORANGE-SIZE #4	$3.50 PER FLY

Flu Shot Recipe

Hook: 2-3xl, sizes  2-12.  I like the Dai-Riki 710

Thread: Any 3/0 to match

Weight: Lead Wire

Tail: Marabou with some Flashabou accent- colored to contrast.  Red, copper or pearl look great.

Body: Rabbit hide strip in contrasting colors.  Yellow/Black looks cool.  Olive/Black is nice too.

Legs: Any spandex type leg or silicone leg would work.  4-6 strands.  

Cone: Hairline Dubbin Makes some great cones- gold or brass.  You can also try adding a Bug Collar to give it a hotspot.
Hackle: Bugger type rooster