The Pacific coast is generous to anglers, perhaps too generous, but at least this generosity demands of them that they see and know the waters in all their moods and all their months… -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

October can be great.  Or it can be terrible…  There are plenty of different objectives for the late-fall fly fisherman in the Pacific Northwest.  Unfortunately, they are all very weather-dependent and the weather in October seemingly cannot be predicted by professional meteorologists much less me so I try to be flexible and have just a bit of blind faith optimism that opportune conditions will present.

This year, the double-dip la Nina weather pattern seems to have materialized after all and we’ve transitioned into the cool, cloudy weather for which Seattle is so famous.  The small streams where I most enjoy chasing trout are all rising and cooling.  As you’d expect, the fish are less eager to take flies other than the warmest hours of late afternoon.

Hoping to get one last day of dry fly trout fishing in this season, I took co-worker/friend/fishing partner, MK, to my favorite little stream that I never mention by name, especially on the interwebs.

The fishing started rather slow.  The cool night had likely lowered the water temperature enough that the trouts were sleeping late, not particular interested in the bits of feather and thread that we were putting in front of them.  Working our way downstream, we fished traditional softhackles on a wet fly swing.  A few smaller fish were landed over several hours as we hiked & fished to our terminal point.

At a spot where the new river channel takes a hard left into very dense forest, we turned back upstream, clipped off the wet flies and replaced them with a dry fly pattern that I developed to be an impressionistic representation of larger caddis found in our rivers this time of year.  The warming day (but still cool at about 60F), energized the trout and the fishing was steady for the hike back up river.  Quite a few pretty small stream trout were landed including several that were decent sized for this little river.

Late in the day, I managed to hook a very large trout for this stream.  It was big enough that I played it from the reel and needed to be careful of the light tippet I was using.  After the cuthroat rolled and showed his size, the line suddenly went slack and I watched him glide away into the pool…  Earlier in the day, I had hooked another large trout with exactly the same results and given the failing light, I reconciled myself to a pretty nice last day of small stream trout fishing in 2011.

As I was reeling in, I noticed a small dink rise near the far side of the pool where I had just hooked the big cutt.  On the third cast, there was a gentle sipping rise to my fly.  Setting the hook, I shouted to MK that it was “just another average trout” but then the fish cleared the water and landed with a splash that sounded like someone threw a cantaloupe in the river.  The ‘kerploosh’ was followed by the wonderful scream of my little 90yr old Farlow gear/pawl reel.  My ‘dink’ was actually Hog Johnson or his brother and I sure as hell didn’t want to lose another big trout.  After several more nice jumps and runs, I led a very nice coastal cutthroat to shore, definitely outsized for this little river.  It was a great way to end the day and the season and gave me a memory I’ll need to carry close at hand during the many winter steelhead skunkings to come…

…probably the millions of rotting pink salmon in the coastal rivers.  I was out on Saturday fishing for non-existent steelhead amidst a horde of dead and dying pinks.  Even worse than the rotting humpies slowly rolling in the shallows were the dead but still swimming zombie slimers moving around in the river, pinto patterned with fungus and rot but still energetic enough to roll and splash a bit. All that death…

…creating life.  The thing is, the Puget Sound coastal rivers would be a lot more dead without the death of the pink and other pacific salmon.  The steep gradients and perennial winter spate combined with low alkalinity equal a sterile river environment.  The dying salmon carcasses provide much needed organic matter to feed microorganisms and everything else on up the food chain.  What’s really frightening is that the pinks are the only thing left in any numbers.  The wild Chinook and Coho are pretty much gone.  With the good stuff fished out, the target became the lowly Chums.  Now even the Chums are scarce, decimated for their roe, being shipped to the far east.  It’s only a matter of time for the pinks to become the next target and our coastal rivers and their anadromous fisheries even in their current sorry state will be a thing of the past.

While getting fired up for fall steelhead on the Columbia tributaries, I can’t help but feel the pull to get in one or two last days of trout fishing.  Seemingly over a few days, we went from high Summer to Fall.  Even the trees haven’t caught up -  many of the aspens, willows and other bankside trees going straight from green to brown, altogether skipping the colorful transition that guides us through the season of change.  A few early storms have the rivers on the rise and cold nights are lowering water temperatures signaling sleepy time for the coastal cutthroats.  It’s hard to pass up the few last sunny days of easy trout fishing for the steelheading work of Winter.

A taste of days to come…

September has a touch of the year’s death in it – one notices that a little more sadly and fearfully as one grows older. Even five years ago I welcomed September, hoped for early frosts, accepted gladly its promise of the strong demands of winter days. The softness of summer was over and done with; ahead, I felt, was a time for doing. Now I shrink a little from the implication of the first cool nights…

September is as good a fishing month as one could hope for, and if the fall frosts come early they can do no more than clear away the heavy heat of summer and color the leaves of maple and willow and poplar to make the river banks more beautiful…  A September evening with a cool dusk descending can be a busy time on one of the mountain streams where the sedges hatch thickly, and an exciting time too because the big trout will be stirring from the deep pools… -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

I’ve been procrastinating over this post, hesitant to face the feelings evoked with the writing.  I’ve also known what passage I would pull from Haig-Brown’s book for September since I first started with the monthly posts from A River Never Sleeps.  I think the September chapter hits me so hard because in my mid-40′s,  I’m entering the fall season of my own life.  Yes, there is a touch of my death in it, the aches and odd pains, more frequent visits to the doctor and the sight of my mother well into her winter.  But as H-B notes, there is much beauty in September as life’s summer work comes to fruition: children growing rapidly in their own spring season preparing for adulthood, life’s decisions to be reflected upon, experiences and accomplishments to be savored.

And the fishing…  September is my favorite month for small stream dry fly fishing.  I’ve had to set aside my pursuit of steelhead (mostly) because September is the one month of the year when trout fishing conditions are just about perfect in Western Washington.  Days are still long and generally clear.  The temperatures are comfortable and the fish are feeding heavily preparing for the the long winter.  Careful presentations to good lies with a caddis-imitating pattern will usually bring a rise, occasionally from a bigger trout than expected.  Regardless of size, they are all beautiful…

I’ve been fishing a lot this month, mostly small streams with a few days out with the two hander.  A favorite routine is to swing flies for steelhead with a spey rod at dawn then after lunch make my way far upriver to the small tributaries to fish for trout in mountain pools with a 3wt.

Last week I was surprised by a pair of spawning salmon very far up a small stream above many steep sections of rapids.  There was a chill in the air and the leaves were turning but where there was a touch of death, in those two fish and the spawning gravel there was also the promise of spring, of life renewed.

I took the weekend off from fishing which is the exact opposite of my normal weekend warrior flyfisherman condition.  I’ve been on a much needed vacation from work and had been fishing or driving to go fishing every day for a week.  I decided on a weekend hiatus but fishing begins again tomorrow…

After successful trips to the Olympic Peninsula for Steelhead and camping/hiking & fishing for Westslope Cutthroat in Idaho (trip report forthcoming), I had planned on relaxing last Friday.  However, I made the mistake of checking the river flows and when I saw they were finally dropping a bit, I just couldn’t keep from making an afternoon run to the little river I consider my ‘home water’.  It’s still a 45min drive but it’s the closest place I can count on fishing completely by myself almost all the time with a bit of hiking.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Gierach has an essay in his latest book No Shortage Of Good Days on the subject of a flyfisherman’s home water where he says:  “Your home water eventually gets under your skin and begins to define you as a fisherman…”

I don’t know if my home water defines me as I really like to swing flies with a 13′ two-handed spey rod, but this little stream despite its small fish and other flaws does get under my skin.  I don’t even need to fish it that much anymore, just being there is good for me as  I wander to boulder strewn runs looking for an interesting slot or eddy to hit.  Seeing how far away I can control my drift or hit a dinner plate sized lie has become the game.  Friday, it was just cool to sit and watch the water at this pool for 30min before I ever bothered to cast.  Due to the flows, this was the first time I had been to this stream since the low water scouting trips of pre-runoff spring a few month back.  It was great to be back home…

I fished into the early evening, exploring a few spots that I had scouted but where I hadn’t actually tossed a fly.  Even though the river flows are still significantly (about 30%) higher than what I consider optimal, the fish were looking up and readily took dry flies.  I caught one memorable fish, fairly large for this river.  I usually only catch a couple in this size each season to go along with a couple hundred of the little guys.

I was using a very interesting rod that I acquired this winter.  It is a Thomas & Thomas Whisper-Lite 7′ 2wt.  This rod is not the currently marketed Whisper-Lite.  It’s is one of the original graphite rods from the mid-late 80′s.  It is featured in a 1988 catalog I have so it’s at least that old.  It has the same appointments and grip shape as many of their classic bamboo rods but with the old style translucent gray blank.  It it crazy light at only 1 3/8 oz.  The handle is barely big enough to accommodate my hand.  I was very surprised at the sweetness of the action.  It was a little gusty but when I had a break in the wind, there was no problem reaching out to 40′.  However, due to the light line and medium action, it was really hard to get a solid hookset at those distances.  I’m trying to get away from a rod ‘collection’ and get to the point where I don’t have multiple rods for single uses so this will likely need to go.  It fits the same spot as the Critchfield 3wt bamboo.  I think the T&T might actually fish a little better but the Critchfield is more fun to fish, plus it smells good…

Sometime in July, when the last of the winter’s snow has melted out of the mountains, a clear river comes down to summer level. This is not the extreme low water of a late, dry fall, when waterworn rocks are high and dry on either side of the narrow channel, but a good normal sweeping flow of water against which the bars show clearly and the known rocks stand out with the current folding gently on their shoulders. -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

I spent yesterday over on the Olympic Peninsula fishing for steelhead.  It’s been a couple years since I’ve been there which is a damn shame because it is without a doubt, my favorite place on Earth.  I grew up in the Deep South and haven’t traveled that much, but I’ve seen a bit of the world outside and inside the US.  Even so, I have never felt as much like I’m in the right spot as when I’m on the OP.  Every time I go back and cross Hood Canal bridge, I feel it starting.  Once I get past Port Angeles and pass the turn that splits the path to the interior and Forks or up the Strait of Juan De Fuca to Neah Bay, it’s like a veil has lifted and I’m where I need to be.  Not sure if it’ll ever happen given the pure pragmatics of life, but I’d really like to lay down some roots over there, even if it’s just a little cabin to escape from Seattle.

Yesterday was just plain amazing.  I fished one of the smaller rivers with well known guide Jim Kerr owner of Raincoast Guides.  I don’t fish with guides very often due to the expense but in this case it was well worth the investment.  I hooked and caught more steelhead in one day than I have in the past two years on my own.  More importantly, through his comments/subtle instruction while I was fishing and his demonstrating techniques, I learned more about fishing than I have in any book or video.  I hope to fish with him again as soon as I can make it happen.  He’s the kind of guide you’d recommend to your closest friends and secretly hope they’ll ask you to come along…

We started early and although the flows are still high for this time of year, they were just about perfect for wading and swinging flies with a lightweight spey rod.  The fly of the day was a small, sparse black fly that Jim tied.   I’m not a good spey caster at all (really, no false modesty here) but other than the occasional flubbed anchor, at 60-70′, distances weren’t a problem on this river with a light spey rod.  However, the brushy banks were high and tight to the river which would have made fishing the far bank impossible with a standard fly rod for most people.

The first fish came on the first or second real cast.  The fly was nearing the end of the swing and I was shooting the shit with Jim when all of a sudden I had a “WTF!” moment as something tried to pull the rod out of my hands…  My heart was lodged right behind my tongue as I fought the fish waiting for that dreaded sudden loss of tension on the line signaling a ‘long-distance release’.  With maybe a bit of luck, I got the fish to a some soft water by the bank downstream.  It was a buck showing a little color due to having spent some time in the river.  There were other fish rolling in the flat water below us so we stayed put for a bit chatting and casting to the fishy looking seam across the river.  Not much later I got what steelheaders crave for, the solid pull right when the fly begins it’s swing.  Skunk-pressure having been relieved by the first fish, I was a little less nervous fighting this fish, a brighter hen, and was able to make use of Jim’s instruction on how to handle the control & tire the fish.

After checking the fly, I moved back up the run and continued fishing.  Working down a ways, we spotted a roll slightly downriver in line with the far side of my swing.  A few casts later, lightning struck for the third time.  This time a bright hen got up to some craziness and really made the Hardy Bougle sing with some nice runs and jumps.

Jim was kind enough not to mock my clumsy efforts at holding the first two fish and took pity on me by showing me the proper way to tail the third, this chrome hen.  A slippery trout is one thing.  A slippery-ass still steelhead, even a smaller summer fish is tough to hold onto if you haven’t done it a lot and are naturally fumble-fingered to boot…

We did a good bit of hiking to get to some less pressured runs and I had four more solid grabs during the day but wasn’t quite skilled enough to make them stick.  When walking through a meadowed area we came up on two beautiful cow elk.  Jim called to one of them and got a pause and maybe a dirty look(?) from one before she called bullshit and turned tail.

Great weather, wonderful scenery, fantastic guide, and steelhead!  I think I must have made a big withdrawal from my karma-bank.

Next up – a ‘no set plan’ road trip with Angus to Idaho to hunt Westslope Cutthroat Trout!

Number one son hasn’t been fishing yet this season due to our crazy weather and abnormally high flows but since we’re headed out on an extended road trip soon, he went with me to a small stream this weekend to get in some practice. Let’s just say that he was ‘strongly encouraged’ him to come fishing. I usually just let him do his own thing and if he’d rather blow up shit and kill people on the X-Box, well I guess that’s OK. He gets plenty of exercise between training for wrestling and tennis so if he doesn’t want to hump all over creation chasing little trout, that’s cool.

However… We do have a big fishing/camping road trip starting next week so this time I compelled him to get out and get himself sorted before we leave. Of course, it pissed rain all day and didn’t clear until late in the evening. And… it ended up being an 12-hour fishing and hiking ironman sort of affair going 9AM to 9PM car-to-car. I probably cured him of any desire to go fishing ever again. I’m sure 20 year from now he’ll have plenty of stories about the insane shite his crazy Dad pulled in the name of ‘fun’…

Despite the rain, the river was in fine shape, low enough for easy wading but still cool from the persistent snowmelt runoff. The fishing was steady throughout the day. We both caught plenty of small cutthroats and I tagged a few bigger fish. Late in the evening, a lot of mayflies started popping off and the fishing got hot. One beautiful eddy in particular had been an unsolvable puzzle for me in previous trips. I knew that it looked just too fishy not to hold a bunch of nice cutthroats. As I suspected, when the hatch came on, there were trout slashing all over the place along the eddy-line. Very unusual for Coastal Cutthroat, they were selective feeders due to the hatch. They completely ignored a the caddis imitation we’d been using and amazingly dissed a swung softhackle too! After a good bit of frustration, I solved the puzzle with a small Quigley Cripple and a downstream slack line presentation.

Maybe the funniest thing was when he decided to pick up this cool green rock and it croaked and hopped away from him.

Next up, a week or so wandering Idaho with no set plan other than catching Westslope Cutthroats and not getting trampled by moose…

June is the midsummer month, yet in the temperate latitude of southern England and the British Columbia coast it is not full summer; growth is still fresh and young, and the rivers still have the flow of stored up winter snow or rain.  All the summer months are trout fisher’s months, I suppose, wherever trout swim and feed. -Roderick Haig-Brown, A River Never Sleeps

Maybe a little selfish (?) but I spent Father’s Day by myself fishing.  I hiked into a new area that I had researched last fall but had been waiting for the flows to drop a bit before making the trip.   It was a long drive followed by a long walk but pretty soon, after breaking through a bunch of this:

I came out to find this:

I was very happy with the new water.  I didn’t see another boot print all day, only the marks left from the passage of many black-tailed dear.

It was cool, barely above 60deg and every so often a wave of dark clouds bearing a very fine mist would pass through.  Never enough to affect my fishing, just enough to add to the feeling of solitude in this little out of the way stream.  I worked my way downstream with a softhackle through a series of riffles & runs and a few deep pools.  Fishing was slower than it had been the last couple weeks in that I wasn’t catching little 8″ wigglers every second cast.  I still caught a fair number of fish, 3 pretty nice cutthroats in the 14″ range and several more around 10-12″.

The fish seemed healthy and happy, all were pretty fat which is understandable as there was abundant insect activity.  Mayflies were hatching throughout the day; BWO’s, Red Quills and a few Pale Morning Duns.  There were the normal cased caddis crawling everywhere but I didn’t see any adults as usual which has me a bit stumped.  Where the hell are the adult caddis coming out of all those cases…?  Lots of these big guys in the stream-side grass but not many were flying, probably due to the cool weather:

Turning back upstream, I started picking up some small ones with dry flies.  Began with a traditional Adams.  I love the way they look with the upright wings but after a couple fish, they are so waterlogged and bedraggled you have to change them out.  That was too tedious so I switched to a new pattern, a mayfly hairwing dun by Rene Harrop.  After catching a few with that and proving to myself it worked, I switch to my small stream stalwart, the CDC & Elk.  Of course it caught them too – managed a couple more bigger fish on the dry fly by the time I got back to the entry point.  On these small freestone cutthroat streams, I could easily get by with 2 or 3 patterns.  I just like tying flies so I feel compelled to experiment…

When I got home, my daughter had made orange-flavored biscotti for me, my favorite thing to go with espresso.  What a kid!  Her name, translated literally from Japanese is ‘Purple-Flower’.  The actual purple is really the dark purple-blue of the small Japanese Iris, one of my favorite flowers.  A different shade of purple, but while hiking back to the car, I came across these wild irises.

No complaints from me – it was a great Father’s Day.