I have a good excuse for not posting last week: The DSL line to our place was out off-and-on for five days. It’s working again now, so here’s a briefly summary of what I have been doing.
If I lived in another part of the country and could only visit the Olympic Peninsula for two weeks, the days between my last post and this one is the time I would choose.
I guided a few people on Hood Canal last week. We had a tough time, with only one sea-run to hand for three anglers. That was entirely different from the fishing I experienced on the same beaches two weeks earlier, when my clients were into cutthroat virtually all day. Anyone who has spent any time pursuing cutts in saltwater knows all about these wild swings.
While I was on the East Side of the peninsula, I checked out a couple of my favorite spots, both of which have fallen on hard times.
The first is the tidal reach of a small creek that drains into northern Hood Canal. I’ve fished it for 20 years, and it was as dependable for sea-runs in October as any body of water I’ve ever known. But about five years ago the salmon restoration folks got their hands on it, and now it is a complete disaster. The big flat where I routinely took saltwater-bright fish to 18 inches is now a stagnant, weedy puddle, and all the deep cuts and old beaver channels are now dry at low water.
A friend of mine who grew up a few miles from the creek–and who also happens to be a fisheries biologist–argued against the project. He told them that the system was always dominated by low head beaver dams, which held tidewater in the creek and released it slowly back toward the canal on ebb tides. This created a slow, deep and debris-filled creek. But re-establishing ”tidal prisms” is the current craze among restoration organizations today. I think it usually is a good idea, too. But no one would believe that this creek was historically different. Now it looks just like every other small stream that flows into the canal. And the fishing is just as bad as it is in the other creeks.
Two years ago was the first time I was ever skunked on the creek. The other day, I had my rod and waders in the car but I didn’t have the heart to fish.
I had a nicer time on one of my favorite beaver ponds. It, too, used to be a lot better than it is today. Indeed, I caught a three pound brookie and many 15-plus inch cutts in it in the 1980s. It blew out a couple of times about 10 years ago, though, and the beavers that usually repaired it had, apparently, abandoned the valley. A few years ago, new beavers arrived and fixed both the upper and lower dams. Since then, I’ve been keeping an eye on them. It doesn’t have as many–and certainly not as large–fish today. But I caught a couple of pan-sized brookies when I was there last week. I also found a big sack of chantarelles.
I guided on the Elwha Saturday, and it had dropped into fine shape after the rain earlier in the week. As always, there wasn’t much insect action early in the day–it was a cold morning–but Yellow Sallies showed up by mid-morning. They were followed by baetis and a few small caddis. In late afternoon, the October Caddis showed up, along with a couple species of mayflies, medium-sized caddis and small brown stones. The trout began feeding in the eddies and soft edges off the main flow. They were too far away to see what exactly they were feeding on, but a size 14 Elk Hair Caddis worked just fine. I know a lot of people like to fish the big October Caddis dries this time of year, but I really think the fish usually target smaller insects. I think Dicosmoecus patterns work best waked for migratory fish like sea-runs and summer runs, not resident rainbow.
The rain kicked coho fishing on the Sol Duc into higher gear, but the word got out quickly and there are a lot of people, most of whom are not fly fishers, trying to catch them. All of the easily accessible spots have had people on them early and late in the day. There are also quite a few boats on the Sol Duc and Bogachiel. If you want a silver and also want to enjoy yourself, I would try to find a river, or reach or river, that isn’t attracting such crowds and get on the water while it’s still dark. By the way, the Hoh has been in and out of shape lately. It looked fine Wednesday, but it has been raining today.
I spent yesterday on the upper Hoh, hoping for a last summer steelhead. I talked to Dave at Waters West and he had the same idea, although he planned to fish a different river. On Tuesday, I passed Curtis Reed, also of Waters West, on one of the roads that parallels another good summer steelhead river. We all know that these are the last days for summer fish for a long time.
I got incredibly lucky. Although I knew there were more fish in the Quillayute System and I wasn’t sure the Hoh was even in shape, I wanted to fish the Hoh. The upper river, which is my favorite place to be in October, has had very few steelhead this fall. But I still wanted to fish where I wanted to fish. I also wanted to try out my new Temple Fork 8-weight Switch Rod, and the Hoh’s big gravel bars and wide open spaces are ideal for playing around with a new rod.
I didn’t have a single bite until about a half hour before I planned to go home. Oddly, I ran into more fly fishers than I have seen all summer on the river. So, in my endless quest to get away from people, I hiked into a run in the park’s fly only water.
I wasn’t frustrated by the lack of fish. I had been having a great time with the new rod, and I had been trying a lot of different flies–Steelhead Caddis, Royal Coachman Bucktail, Silver Hilton, General Practicioner and a purple marabou spider. Then, entirely on impulse, I cinched on a Gray and Orange, Syd Glasso’s precursor to the Orange Heron. I figured I would end the day with it.
The spot I was fishing is really just a deep green seam that tails off from a choppy riffle before dropping into another long stretch of broken fast water. It doesn’t look like much, but there isn’t a lot of good holding water in that particular stretch of the upper river. It was easy to fish. I stood in water up to the insteps of my boots and roll cast down-and-across. All I had to do was mend once, and then let the line swing down the slot.
The fish hit about half way down. It was a sharp telegraphing strike, then the fish streaked downstream. It jumped twice at the edge of the choppy water. It wasn’t a big fish–I guessed about 5 pounds–but very bright. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to want to go back into the fast water, and it raced back upstream into the green water.
I wasn’t used to the thin running line behind the AFS line and I made a hash out of getting line back on the reel. I was sure I would lose the fish. But it thrashed a couple of times on top, giving me time to recover, and then it streaked back downstream, once again to the edge of the broken water. It just didn’t want to go into the chop. A few minutes later, I eased it into knee deep water.
It was a wild fish, with the deep, almost coho-like, body of Hoh native summer steelhead. It had the first blush of pink on its gill plates and lateral line, but it was still as clean and silver as the sea. It was about six pounds.
This morning, noticing that it didn’t really rain that much last night, I took my new rod down to the Clearwater. I wanted to catch a silver. I got a late start and knew that reduced the odds of connecting with a coho.
I didn’t. Back to reality.
