Doug Rose Flyfishing

                   DOUG ROSE FLY FISHING SUMMER 2010 NEWSLETTER

My wife and I recently bought a book, Olympic Peninsula from the Air, that shows scores of fantastic aerial shots of the region’s most beautiful and interesting landscapes. It’s divided into five sections: 1) Hood Canal and the East Olympics; 2) The Rainshadow and Dungeness River; 3) The Strait of Juan de Fuca and Elwha River; 4) The North Olympic Coast and Hoh River; and 5) The South Olympic Coast and Quinault River. From the backcountry lakes to the coastal rivers and rainshadow beaches, nearly all of these photos bring back vivid memories. And, more often than not, the memories have a fly rod in them.

You don’t have to be a fly fisher to enjoy the photos, of course. The Olympic Peninsula is a staggeringly beautiful place, with an almost unbelievable variety of habitats and ecosystems. But the truly unique thing about this remote and watery outpost is that fish, usually wild fish, live in nearly every corner of it. And for many of the destinations depicted in these photos, summertime is either the best time–and often the only time–you can fish for them.

In the Hood Canal section, there is a great shot of Upper Lena Lake, the place where my wife and I took our first backpacking trip together, and where feisty rainbow hit midge and scud patterns. The shot on the opposite page shows the Mildred Lakes, one of the best places in the Olympics to have a shot at 15-plus-inch mountain trout. But there are also tantalizing photos of some of my favorite summer and early autumn cutthroat waters, the  estuaries of Hamma Hamma, Duckabush and Dosewallips and the smaller beaches between them. (more…)

Just a quick not to say how much I still dislike the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s decision a couple years ago to delay the opening of the river season unti the first Saturday in June. I would be on a beaver pond this morning if we still had the old rule. There are only so many June morning in a person’s lifetime and losing essentially the entire first week of the month this year (I don’t fish on weekends unless I’m guiding) is pretty hard to swallow. I wouldn’t have bothered writing about this, but Dick Wentworth stopped by a while ago with the Oregon regulations, and coastal anglers there have been fishing more than a week already. I’ve heard the decision defended on the basis that it allows wild smolts to migrate safely. I would find that more persuasive if the Sol Duc and Hoh weren’t already open. As Dick said, they even allow bait and smolts just love bait. I think the decision most likely had more to do with pressure from some urban fishing groups that  apparently resented the fact that anglers who live in remote areas got to fish a few days before them.    

Rose’s Lily Morgan of Suncloud, 1999-2010

gus am bris an la agus an teich na sgaitean

(till the day breaks and the shadows fall away)

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while. My computer has been down, and I just got it back today. I was also busy finishing up the steelhead season. I will begin posting again regularly next week about surf perch, cutts in the salt, lakes and my last couple days on the Calawah and Bogachiel.

Happy New Year everyone! I had planned to begin blogging regularly on steelheading after the holidays–not to mention guiding–but the big rain last Thursday and Friday knocked the rivers out yet again. We have had good numbers of fish this winter, including some nice wild steelhead, but the number of days when the conditions have been optimal for fly fishing have been fairly rare. That’s really not that unusual in Forks in early winter, of course, and we got a lot of new rain again yesterday, just as the rivers were coming down nicely. I hope to fish Friday. Maybe.

Meanwhile, I’ve been tying a lot of flies. I’m still working on my Spey flies, in particular Syd Glasso’s Sol Duc and his Spey version of the Polar Shrimp. I’m also still having my usual difficulties with the wings. I’ve also tied a few of James Garrett’s–another Olympic Peninsula fly tyer whom Trey Combs wrote about in Steelhead Fly Fishing–Red Shrimp. It’s in the vein of a G.P. but with more of a traditional steelhead upright-winged profile. I also like Waddington shanks and have tied up some Beauly Snow Flies and my own patterns. Finally, I’ve been tying a few soft hackle and traditional wet flies but substituting waterfowl flank feathers for the partridge and other upland bird feathers.

I’ll let you know when I get back on the water.

I saw my first out of state fly fishing guide’s rig–replete with all the hip tackle manufacturer’s decals– in Forks the other day. Whoopie! The bobber circus begins.

Well, this is going to be hard to believe, but I got a nice 8 or 9 pound winter steelhead on my first cast last Thursday. My fishing partner, David Christian, and I were on the Salmon River in Olympic National Park. It was the first time I had fished since the big rains knocked out the coho run in November.

So, in other words, I caught a winter steelhead on my first cast of my first trip of the season. I don’t expect that to ever happen again in this lifetime.  

I caught it swinging a pink bunny leech across the head of a tight little run. I made a roll cast to cover the water in front of me, and I actually saw the strike at the end of the swing. I was fishing a 10 foot, Type 6 tip on my TFO switch rod.

Catching the fish was great, but it was even more satisfying that it was a wild buck. Wild early-timed fish are rare on Olympic Peninsula rivers these days, especially on heavily planted winter rivers like the Salmon. But this fish had flawless fins and the big shoulders, peweter flanks, and touch of rose on its gill plates of an early wild buck. 

It’s the kind of fish I wrote about in the chapter called “Ghosts” in my book, The Color of Winter.” Dick Goin used to catch them on the upper Sol Duc in early December. And Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologist, Jeff Cederholm, described similar fish in the Clearwater in the 1970s. He observed that the early fish tended to be tributary spawners and that they came in “colored up,” while the wild mainstem spawners came in later and were bright.

We also saw a number of other anglers with bright hatchery fish that day. But I wouldn’t recommend a trip there right now. It’ll be very low and cold, and packed with gear fishermen. We went because we knew it would be low enough and clear enough to fish while we were waiting for the Hoh and Quillayute rivers to come back down. 

I imagine some of you are wondering if the West End rivers will be fishable this weekend. Forget about it–at least with a fly rod. Earlier in the week, it looked like the Sol Duc or Calawah might drop into shape after Thanksgiving. I took a trip down to Amanda Park on Tuesday, and the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault were terrible, but the Bogachiel was beginning to get some color back. It was the same story on the Sol Duc and Calawah, and my favorite creek was actually in pretty good shape. But we had about three more inches of rain on Wednesday. It’ll be early next week before any of the big rivers are worth trying with a fly rod. My creek may be fishable by Sunday.

With this colder weather, I would try for a sea-run in the salt on the East Side of the Olympic Peninsula if you want to fish. The nearshore waters clear up a day or so after the rain ends, and cutthroat fishing usually picks up. Jeffrey Delia’s Conehead Squid is a fantastic winter fly. You can see it in the blog archives under Olympic Peninsula Flies.

The newsletter will be up on Wednesday. After that, I’ll begin posting regularly about winter steelhead.  

A couple of my friends mentioned that I haven’t posted anything for a while. Sorry. But it’s not that I have been fishing a lot and not writing about it. November and December are my most productive writing months, and I have been spending most of my time at my desk. I’m trying to finish my duck hunting book before winter guiding gets going, and I’m pulling together the Winter/Christmas newsletter.

I think you’ll like the newsletter this year. It will feature original essays by Preston Singletary, Ron Hirschi, Leland Miyawaki, Bob Triggs and me. I will also post some Spey flies. And, best of all, I will reprint Les Johnson’s fantastic essay from last year’s newsletter, “The Christmas Coho.” The newsletter will be about around the first of December.  

There are some early winter steelhead and old silvers around, and a few intrepid souls took them in the windows when the rivers have been fishable. But we really got hit this weekend–a classic Pineapple Express. The Queets went from less than 6,000 Saturday morning to nearly 50,000 today. The Calawah is pushing 14,000–I like it around 1,200 in winter–and the Hoh was close to 25,000.

I’ll post later in the week, with an update on the river conditions. I’m hoping to get out to a creek or two with my switch rod by Friday. After Thanksgiving, I’ll be posting three or four times a week on winter steelhead.

Summer Steelhead and Cutthroat Journal–6/30/09:

Still no steelhead. But I got a fiesty bull trout on the Hoh yesterday. It was about three pounds and actually spulled line a couple of times. It surprised me, because I catch the bulk of my native char on the Hoh in spring or autumn, which is when, apparently, the anadromous fish are on the move. But there are also reportedly resident bull trout in the system. Besides, Olympic National Park’s Sam Brenkman has published research on Hoh char that suggests they move around a lot, from basin to basin even, and that the fish are perhaps even more individualistic than cutthroat. Anyway, it was a beautiful wild fish, and it was a real pleasure connecting with it.

The high point of my day, however, came a few minutes later. Glancing downstream, I noticed two cow elk breaking through the willows along the far bank. They were on the high side, about 50 yards below me. They looked at me very intently for several moments. I figured they probably had calves with them and were checking me out. Sure enough, they presently waded into the river, followed by three calves and two more cows. The lead cows were clearly uneasy about my presence, so I made some fake casting motions. In my experience, most wild animals don’t like you staring at them, but are usually more relaxed if it looks like you’re doing something. Whether that is the case or not, they crossed the river together, with the calves in the middle. I wondered how the calves would do, but they high- stepped straight across, purposefully and kicking up a lot of spray. It looked like they were actually having fun.

I fished for about an hour on the Calawah this morning. It was so low I spent two-thirds of my time wading between places I could set up a swing. I would then make a few casts and wade farther downstream. The Quillayute System really needs some rain.