On Entomology and Salmonflies

Earlier today I read a post on The Caddis Fly blog talking about Deschutes redsides and Salmonflies. This made me chuckle. While the rest of the world is scrambling over itself to imitate the big summer hatches and pouring over hatch charts while planning their trips I am casting nondescript streamers and nymphs to fish who are put off the rise with the slightest wind chop.

On memorial day me and Shayna, my Photographer/significant other, went fishing on the south shore of Lake Quinault. One of the spots we fished was the mouth of Falls Creek. Upon arrival Shayna picked something up and said “Look at the size of this bug.” I looked over to see that she had picked up a Salmonfly, the first I’ve seen this year, that was nearly three inches long. I raised my eyebrows replied “yeah, those are suppose to be an important food source for trout.” and promptly tied on a streamer. 

It’s kind of funny to watch huge hatches of Caddis and see large spent Salmonflies and move rocks to see giant stonefly nymphs, only to imitate the small fish that are a much more important food source around here. The independent drainages of the North Pacific are like that. Not even the richest chalk streams can compete with the fertility of the marine realm, and our streams are far poorer insect wise. It just makes more sense for the fish to go to the ocean. 

Thats not to say that bugs are completely unimportant, October Caddis hatches are a blast fish in the fall, and chironomids catch trout when nothing else will induce a strike, but even when you have huge hatches with residual trout, like I see every year on Matheny Creek in the Queets basin, the adult trout will still take a swung spruce fly before they will rise to the most perfectly tied Adams or Comparadun, and you hook far less parr on the former.

Despite all this, my fly-fisherman’s blood won’t allow me to let something like salmonfly hatches go untested, and I have a few adapted Dee flies, tied with turkey feathers and a pale orange aft, ready to tease the June run of steelhead that are always in the Quinault when it opens in June. 

This is one of those ghost runs Doug Rose talk about in “The Color of Winter”, its not a large run, I would speculate no more than 500 fish, but it is an unmistakably specific run. These fish aren’t the kelts of spring, silver a virile, they are little power packed footballs fresh from the sea, and they are the mark of a summer that will inevitably be filled with steelhead and trout till September brings the first fresh push of coho, and another season wanes.  

Thursday Tidbits

Great Post ont he possible affects of Pebble Mine

Fake Fly-Fishing Magazines?

whats wrong with Hat Creek?

Fish humor provided by The Chum and Mr. Bellows

Interesting Fly Box Contest

Super fiery and well written piece on hatcheries over at The Drake

Also on The Drake, read about Lionfish and learn a little about Otoliths

Also Also on the Drake, check out Will Rice's Running from the Man articles

And we'll finish up with a video on tying Carrie Stevens' Grey Ghost

Fry Patterns

As I’ve said in earlier postings, one of the most important hatches to imitate in our waters is the fry outmigration. In Puget Sound the Pink and Chum fry provide an important food source for Sea-Run cutthroat, and the King and Coho outmigrations can make for some excellent fishing in our coastal waters.

No where is this hatch as important as on Lake Quinault in spring. Always spawning in systems with a large lake, Sockeye Salmon are plankton feeders, and their plankton feeding, lake dwelling young are an important food source for adfluvial cutthroat and charr. When writing about Lake Quinault this past week it occurred to me the five things I value most in a fishery. Firstly my favorite fisheries all produce larger than average fish, that one is kind of a given. Secondly I like them to be wild fish, preferably trout or salmon. Thirdly I like to connect with some part of fly-fishing history, whether that means casting Cotton’s Green Drake on a spring creek or swinging a Glasso Spey on the Sol Duc, I just like to relive the fishing and flies of the masters and legends of our sport. In addition to these I like the fishery to be secluded, and lastly I like that fishery to provide a good deal of challenge. 

Fishing the fry hatch on Lake Quinault really hits on all five of these. There are days when I troll a grey ghost in an old row boat just like they used to in Maine. I catch wild trout, some of the charr reach 10 pounds, and some days I see more fish in hand than I do other anglers. However, it isn’t all peaches and cream. The early season on Lake Quinault often sees the lake high and dirty, and fish can be scattered, also, it takes a truly skilled oarsman to work the fly right in a 40 mile per hour headwind, which we see often on the Lake. 

Wednesday Tidbits

Midcurrent has a great video on how to tie a Moto Minnow

Take a break from all those fishing videos and check out This surfing vid

I do love a Classic Wet Fly

Sign the Petition to stop gillnetting Hawaiian Bonefish

A list of fishing movie's in which A River Runs Through It should have won and Finding Nemo is horribly disrespected.

Heres a video on my favorite stillwater fly The Zug Bug

Good film trailer on possible Patagonia Dam Projects

Sage wins Small Manufacturer of the Year

Really been working on adapting These for the fry outmigration in Lake Quinault and Ozette.

Interesting Read about Belize

Tuesday Tidbits

Tom Chandler has just written the Story of my Small Stream Life, except the being 51 part, of course.

We're gonna take a break from the Pebble Mine chatter and talk about Oregon Mining

Big Irish Brown caught in Lough Corrib

Radioactive Tuna?

Guess what, Marine Fish Preserves are a good thing. Go figure.

River Test rainbow

SwittersB has another great post up. I do love that blog.

Cool Flatwing Video

I wanna get This Film

I'm pretty much crazy about catching any fish int he east pacific and its basin. Here's an old Post about Redtails

Monday Tidbits

Little word on the Klamath Dam Removal

EPA is having a meeting to hear public omments on Pebble Mine in Seattle on the 31st. We need to show up in force.

Orvis has a new video series on thier site which is free and looks VERY interesting.

the IHN Virus has made its way to a Washington Fish Farm. Also more cropping up in Canadian Waters

Congrats to the Osprey

Peninsula local John Mcmillian is currently being showcased in a Leaping Frog Film

Its been interesting and terrifying to follow the IHN Controversy

A great article from the Seattle Times reminds us to pay attention to The Little Things

Metalheads on vacation

A piece on Landing Trout

The Troublesome Goose

“Birds share a fisherman’s world and are a part of his scene. Many are themselves fisherman. They are beauty and interests and associations, and they grow richer in meaning with every recognition, every added observation. It is possible, I suppose, to disregard them and still be a fisherman. But to do so is to miss the sport’s most brilliant counterpoint.” ---Roderick Haig-Brown from Fisherman’s Spring

I think Haig-Brown captures a prevailing opinion in the fly fishing world with this quote. Birds are an ever present entity beside streams and in wooded areas, and they are without a doubt the most often observed form of wildlife. Orvis, perhaps the biggest name in fly-fishing, also sells wingshooting supplies and the two sports have long been considered synonymous. I have been interested in fly-fishing’s sister sport for a while now, but have yet to make the leap. Perhaps I will once Doug Rose releases his duck hunting book. 

Besides the plumage with which we construct our flies, we fisherman borrow many techniques from our avian peers. I remember when I was first instructed on the art of fly-fishing, a man named Roger did the honors, telling me to “act like a heron.” If I lacked anything yesterday morning it was the stealth of a heron. 

I had gotten used to the murky early season waters of the Lake, and yesterday morning the water was fairly clear, with at least 20 feet of visibility. I nonetheless waded in with little resembling caution, and no doubt spooked most of my prospective quarry. The result was two hours of flailing the water in frustration. My now dependable fry patterns turned up next to nothing, a fact explained by the occasional 3 inch fry that followed my 1 inch pattern. I read recently that sockeye fry grow quickly in spring, averaging 1 inch in march and nearly 3 by june. Maybe my pattern is simply to small now. Or maybe the clear water has exposed my shoddy imitation, or maybe the fish just weren’t around and I am over thinking everything. 

In any case, the wind was not helping my frustration, and in an attempt to remedy that I tied on a size 12 Hares Ear nymph for a change of pace. That resulted in the by catch of several fry, but little else. I was just about at my wits end. I began making casts and letting them drift in the slow beginnings of the river current. Letting myself become distracted by my surroundings. 

I heard a sound and shortly after a flock of honking, clumsy canadian geese flew overhead. I watched them, deciding to myself that spring was officially giving way to summer, and plotting their demise at the hands of my twelve gauge this coming autumn. I began to wonder at the merits of goose feathers in steelhead flies when a sharp, strong pull almost wrenched the rod from my hands. I had little excess line so the fish was immediately on the reel, and taking line. I palmed the reel and began pumping the fish back to me. It occurred to me that this felt like it could be my biggest fish of the year. 

The fish made no leaps, and indeed it seemed reluctant to leave the bottom, behavior indicative of a charr. I continued to work the fish, and eventually I could see the silvery flash through the glacial murk. Less than ten feet from me, the fish made a run to the surface, porpoised, and after briefly displaying his spotless orange tipped tail that must have measured 6 inches across,  rolled on my 4x tippet and was gone. 

The geese made a return lap, mere feet above my rod tip, as if in jest. I smiled, Haig-Brown is right. Fishing could not be what it is if not for the birds that provide it’s most interesting counterpoint.

Friday Tidbits

GMO's are making thier way into Fish as responsible anglers we need o be emailing senators about this. If this pops up in our foods, this hormone to make fish bigger, you can bet hatcheries will eb the next to adopt it.

I came across a VERY refreshing film, that is a huge departure from the where-to/How-to fishing flicks you see these days. Buy it Here and help save a precious fish and a down trodden people.

Help Protect Hawaii's Bonefish\

Here's and article in the Bellingham Herald that could have a real impac on our watersheds.

"On one end the memories are coming in and on the other end, there is a leak of sorts. " GREAT literarty post over at SwittersB

Cool report from Issac's Lake over on the eastside

Here is an old link from Caddis Fly about soft hackle feathers. A pretty good read. I've been tinkering with the idea of using Ruffed and Blue Grouse feathers.

Speaking of Ruffed Grouse, here's a good little Nymph pattern using said feathers.

And a good Page on processing materials from home. Wow. alotta stuff about grouse considering grouse season isn't for three months. Alot of stuff about Wisconsin too.

So go my browsing habits.

Thursday Tidbits

Nice trout and a cool camera angle courtesy of Orvis

Pay a little homage to Conservationists

More IHN

Pretty Brown Trout

Probably going to try This old Irish fly on Irely lake this weekend. Minus the Uv, I'm more of a traditional guy.

This looks interesting. I definitely want to build a fly testing station.

The Columbia is always Depressing

I think Patagonia and it's bastard trout compromise my wild trout morales. Oh wells, I still wanna go. Kinda like what German Chocolate cake does to my diet.

Oh my Tiger Trout

A Follow Up on yesterday's post

Flies for Chinook

With the strong history of of fly patterns tied for aesthetic value for steelhead and atlantic salmon, with long standing traditions for both, it has always confused me why there is a relative lack of such flies for chinook. My first fish was a king salmon, and most of my serious angling adventures have been centered around finding these fish in Alaskan waters. I think the beauty of these fish rivals all others, and I’d put a big King Salmon against any other game fish for pound for pound fighting quality. These purple backed and black spotted salmon are quite a sight to behold, and with large runs from the Sacramento River to Alaska’s Bristol Bay, they are very widespread. 

Lake Quinault

There isn’t a whole lot of open water in my area right now. All the rivers and creeks are closed still and that is the primary show here in Quinault. Of the few places that are open, Lake Quinault is definitely the premier fishery. This glacially carved lake, the largest in Grays Harbor, plays host to good populations of native charr and cutthroat trout. There are also murmurings of rainbow trout now and then, but I am pretty convinced these are just baby steelhead, and any rainbows over 20 inches have to be released. 

Tidbits

Good news on the Mackenzie

Those are some Pretty Fish they are talking about

I like This Guy's Style

Bristol Bay, as you should know, is in big trouble with the pebble mine thing Take Action

I wanna catch a freakin Carp

Really, I really wanna catch One

Sweet Art

Insightful stuff about The Columbia, Heres something You can do about it

An Elwah video

A Boring Couple of Days

The trail to Irely Lake is mud to you waist in a lot of places, and Lake Quinault is still high and cloudy, although you can still take a few fish if your persistent and have a boat. Between those to facts and work, I have found very little time to get on the water, and my time off has mostly consisted of writing for money, fly tying, and reading Haig-Brown books. I plan on getting a line wet tonight in Lake Quinault. I'll post  a report sometime tomorrow.

Checking In

I haven't been able to get on the water lately, my job at the lake quinault lodge kept me busy all weekend as we hosted a wine dinner. Having a seasonally effected job like I do is great when winter steelhead are in the river, but come summer time I'm going to spend more time with a pen in my hand than a fly rod. The weather here has been spectacular for lawn mowing and barbequeing but the sun has sent Lake Quinault's fish deep, and early morning is the only time to be on the water. I plan on paying a visit to Irely lake this weekend, and should have a report up and ready by weeks end.

I owe you guys an apology for the lack of photography on this blog lately, when it was first started I wanted that to be a big part of it, however, my partner in life and this blog, Shayna Wilson, is the one with the camera and photography background, she has been responsible for all the pictures on here to date, and college is really keeping her busy lately. As the summer progresses and she gets more and mroe time off, expect to see some more photos.

I've been concentrating on actually getting something published, and am finding out how hard that can be when your first starting out. I'll keep plugging away though, and in the meantime you guys reading this blog are a big motivation.

One Man's Trash

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.