The Quinault was still ripe with glacial silt last June. The runoff was the worst in recent memory and the fishing was suffering. Steelhead where near impossible to raise and with the amount of kelts normally in the river this time of year I had no intentions of trying. This particular evening I had in hand my five weight lined with a simple floating line. I stood on the gravel bar facing one of my favorite cutthroat lies in the upper river. I had fished this run over and over again with conventional tackle, this however, would be my first time swinging a fly through it. The run is typical of the Quinault. It’s head was formed by two sections of a braid coming together in a shallow riffle. The riffle quickly dropped off and the opposite shore was constructed of several large boulders. In summer the run is around ten feet at it’s deepest, with the slot against the far boulders the deepest section. The river ran straight in this fashion for roughly forty yards, then was interrupted by a house sized boulder in the perfect middle of the river. The run tailed out in a gravelly riffle shortly after.
I took position at the head of the run and cast a size six muddler minnow quartering down stream. I let the line lead the rod, keeping it under tension and swinging it all the way across the current. I repeated this several times, slowly moving downstream and covering the water slowly.
I soon reached the boulder and as my fly slowly swung past the side eddy I felt a sharp tug on the end of the line. I made a short strip set expecting a cutthroat, when the rod doubled over in a threatening bend. The obviously large fish turned downstream, and using the current to its advantage, fully earned the name “bull” trout. I palmed the reel and nervously shuffled down the gravel bar, attempting to keep as much line on the spool as possible.
The fish ran down through the riffle at the tailout of the pool and into a slow back slough downstream. I chased after it, soon reaching the end of the gravel bar. In desperation I clamped down hard on the spool and bent the rod into a drastic arc, the fish reluctantly turned and began a breakneck sprint back up the riffle. I reeled furiously trying to regain line lost and followed the fish back up the run. It tired soon after, as char often do, and a few minutes later I was holding the most underrated fish that swims in our waters.
It’s glacier green back was highlighted by bright red spots circled with blue and yellow halos. It’s fins where tipped burnt orange and it’s mossy sides gave way to an opaque white belly. It’s head was larger in proportion with its body than a steeheads or cutthroats, and it’s gums where colored a pale white highlighting a mouth that obviously belonged to a voracious predator. In his book Alaska Fishing, The Ultimate Angler’s Guide Rene Limeres titles his chapter on Native Char “Char: fish of the rainbow” I can think of not better description. It’s girth did not fit in my hand, and I estimated its weight to be about seven pounds. As it faded into the river bottom after release, the experience was marred only by the unfortunate reputation this magnificent fish carries.
The term “trash fish” has been used to describe a wide variety of fish over almost every imaginable fishery. It’s applied to black rockfish on the Alaskan Saltwater, to northern pike minnow in the columbia basin. To carp and catfish, panfish and perch. Usually they inhabit waters also occupied by more glamourous species. Usually they are a lot easier to catch. It’s often the appearance that earns them their name, the uninviting lips of a carp, the comely appearance of a catfish. Oftentimes it’s their extreme over eagerness to take even the most improperly presented offering, yellow perch and black rockfish come to mind. Whatever the traits that ordain certain fish noble and others common and unwanted, certain fish just don’t have the enough allure to warrant dedication. Not many people wake up before sunrise on a frigid winter day to brave sleeting rain and heavy river flows for the chance at maybe catching one bluegill in a week of fishing, but that is the reality of winter steelheading.
Why then is the Char, wether it be bull trout or dolly varden, who is as beautiful as the most well marked brown trout, with similar shyness as the cutthroat, size that compares with a steelhead, and a bulldog fighting style that would impress a chum salmon, considered a rotten trash fish by most northwest anglers? The answer is one of blame. When early western anglers first saw declines int he populations of salmon and steelhead, they ignored the widespread logging activity, over eager gillnetters, on going development of stream side wilderness, and their own angling and they used the chars penchant for feeding on small fish as a scapegoat. Never mind the wide spread and heavy handed influence of man, it must be the voracious char that is thinning out the salmon. The slaughter that ensued as a result of this misguided mindset is the reason the bull trout in almost all of Washington’s rivers are listed as ESU. Though Dolly Varden still thrive in the rainforest rivers they too closely resemble their sister fish to risk a fishery. The regulations on Lake Quinault still reflect this mindset, as the tribally ordained regulations allow you to keep seven dolly varden a day. This is in spite of the fact that the state and park do not allow you to keep char in the Quinault. All because the tribe still operates with the thought that char are a detriment to salmon and steelhead populations.
I never target char on the Quinault, as doing so would be highly unethical particularly in June which is the time of year they spawn, however, every opportunity I get to admire the beautiful colors of this fishes palette, and every opportunity I get to admire it’s tenacious gaminess, I absolutely relish. In a time when hatchery steelhead and damn removals dominate our conservation headlines, this “fish of the rainbow” deserve our attention and dedication just as much as their more popular cousins.
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