Doug Rose Flyfishing

There will be no blog this week or next because I’m working on the fall newsletter. I think you will really like it. It’ll have a remembrance of Syd Glasso on the 25th anniversary of his death, a piece on habitat protection work on northern Hood Canal by the Northwest Watershed Institute, a review of Les Johnson’s new book, and the usual overview of the seasonal fly fishing opportunities on the Olympic Peninsula. It will also list all of my clinics, seminars and guiding for the next couple of months. So enjoy the holiday weekend and be careful. The West End rivers are carrying a lot of water right now, way more than normal for this time of year.

Last weekend, the Quillayute rivers and independent creeks were low and bordering on too warm, but now there’s plenty of water. It’s rained off and on, sometimes very hard, for the last three days. The question is will the cooler, higher water stir up the fish and bring new pulses into the rivers? 

The Hoh wasn’t in great shape before the rain, and it’s running at 3,000 cfs now, so I wouldn’t plan on fishing it this weekend. The Queets is more than 4,000 and the Quinault is still rising.

I was on the upper Bogachiel yesterday, and it had come up but was still clear and in good shape. It rained again last night, and off and on while I fished the upper Calawah and Sol Duc this morning. The Calawah had quite a bit of color, more than I expected, and there was a lot of junk floating by–alder leaves, pretty subtantial branches, and little rafts of hemlock needles. I didn’t catch anything there, but the middle Sol Duc was still in good shape, though higher, and I got a few small cutts.

I did finally break my slump on landing steelhead earlier in the week, taking two hatchery fish from the Calawah about 10 minutes apart. They both hit a size 6 Royal Coachman Bucktail. I haven’t caught two summer-runs that close together in, well, years. It felt good. Tasted good too. (more…)

I have two spots left for my West End Weekend, August 22-24. You can read details of the seminar in my Summer 2008 Newsletter in the blog. 

I had a great couple of hours with sea-run cutthroat on a local creek last Friday. It is called a river but is really more of a cedar creek this time of year. I don’t want to give away its name, but it is tea-colored, with lots of snags and sweepers and ledgerock, long shin-deep riffles and flats, and dark pools. I got a 14-inch fish on about my fourth cast. It hit a yellow-bodied Knutson Spider. I caught a 12-incher from the same pool a few minutes later. That’s one of the things I love about sea-runs–you can often take several nice fish, even more, from a small pool before they turn off. Both fish jumped like crazy, something coastal cutts frequently do unlike most interior subspecies. My next fish was only about 8 inches, so I moved downstream. I got a 10 inch fish from the next deep slot, a little hiding space up against a fallen Sitka spruce trunk. Below that, the creek shallowed up for about 100 yards. I took my time wading back and forth between the banks to a really sweet pool beneath a canopy of spruce and alder. I still had my spider on and cast it into the head of the pool, where the brown water spilled over ledgerock. I got a little cutt right away. My next cast was into the soft, dark, deep part of the pool. I had only stripped my fly a couple of times when I felt a substantial tug. Suddenly, a very big fish broke the surface. It was as nice of a sea-run as I have had on in freshwater in a long time. I was very careful with it. I had it up close a couple times before I could finally cradle it in my palms. It was at least 16 inches, probably more like 17, and solid as a Labrador retriever. Like all of the fish I had caught earlier, it had a long head, or more precisely, long mouth and jaws. This creek is noted for fish-eating cutthroat, ones that prey on sculpins and smelt and crayfish, and they characteristically have elongated mouths. I lost my fly on my next cast and decided it was time to go home and get some work done.

The next day we had more than two-thirds of an inch of rain. Les Johnson and his wife, Carol, were coming out to fish on Monday, and the rain worried me. I had located good numbers of cutthroat on several Forks-area streams earlier in the week, but I was concerned the big rain might scatter them and pull them upstream. Sure enough, we had lackluster fishing at best on Monday. I had a great time with Les and Carol, though, and it was a great priveledge to fish with one of the Pacific Northwest’s most knowledgeable and respected writers and fly fishers. I just wish they could have been here on Friday. 

I fished a favorite hike-in drift on the upper Sol Duc on Wednesday. I didn’t have a bite for a long time, not even a juvenile fish or small cutthroat, but just before I called it quits I hooked a nice summer steelhead. I had it on for several minutes. It jumped several times and it was a nice bright fish. Just at the point when I was pretty sure that I was going to land it–I was already thinking of how I would cook it if it was a hatchery fish–it shook the hook. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t lose the fly. I guess it simply fell out of the fish’s mouth. That’s the second steelhead I have lost in two weeks. It’s funny. Sometimes you land every fish you hook for a long stretch. Then you can’t keep anything on the hook. Oh well, I’m going out to the Calawah and Sol Duc tomorrow morning.

I drove down to the Hoh this morning with Lily, our Lab, to check out the water. It was still running pretty good and visibility is only about a foot. With the hot weather we had today and that is forecast for tomorrow and Saturday, it will be a mess for a while.

I said I would do an update on saltwater salmon and the Elwha this week. But to be honest I have been having too much fun fishing the West End rivers to pay much attention to what is happening elsewhere. I’ll try to get something for you next week.

This is going to be a short entry, because I’m sort of taking it easy this week, fishing for myself and reading instead of doing much writing. It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve done that. I’ve been having a good time with sea-runs on several rivers and had a really nice steelhead on for a few second the other morning on the Calawah. It was hot early in the week here, and I spent an hour or so on the water every morning before the sun got on the river. The steelhead hit a black Grease Liner about midway down the frothy head of a good pool. That’s the kind of place I like to look for steelhead in hot weather. I felt a very solid rap, then it turned and began running. My leader and knot were fresh, but I was thinking more about cutts that day and my tippet was 3x. Not anywhere near enough for this fish. I replaced the dry fly with a Sand Rock, one of Don Kaas’s originals, thinking the steelhead might hit a sparse, drab wet fly as a follow-up. No soap. I got several nice sea-runs with it, though, including the 14-incher. I’ve also caught cutts on the Sol Duc and Bogachiel this week, all downstream of Highway 101.

A friend of mine has caught some summer-runs on the Hoh. I know everyone thinks it’s always out all summer, but if you are around and it has been coool, as it was the week before, it can be worth a look It has been in shape for flies a few times this summer. The hot weather colored it up again, but not as much as I would have expected. It was 58 degrees this afternoon, and there was about a foot of visibility. If it cools off as predicted, it could be in relatively decent shape in a few days. The reach above the highway and into the park is where you have the best chance of finding clear water this time of year.

I have two slots left for my West End Weekend August 22-24. My next $50 Wednesday will focus on the Hoh and will take place on August 20. Check out my summer 2008 newsletter for descriptions and details.  

I’ll have detailed reports on the Elwha and coho and cutthroat in saltwater next Thursday.