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