Doug Rose Flyfishing

Well, I had a fish on for a while the other day. It was on one of the rain forest rivers, a little bit higher than most people fish this time of year. I used my new TFO 8-weight Deer Creek switch rod, an AFS line with a 10 foot 7 ips tip, and an orange GP. I fished a run that has always been good for me in December, and hooked the fish about a half hour after I got there. It was about 12 pounds, and already had a blush of pink on its flanks. It threw the hook on the second jump. I didn’t get another bite.

Most of the larger rivers that have hatchery runs have some steelhead in them.

If you plan on heading this way for the weekend, the Quillayute rivers are in excellent shape right now. In fact, they are all significantly lower than normal for this time of year. We have had no major rain lately, and the nights have been cold and clear. I drove by the Hoh this afternoon, and it was beginning to get some good color, although I didn’t have time to get out and look at the visibility. 

We’re supposed to get some moderate rain later in the week. Depending on how much we get, the glacial rivers could go out, at least for fly fishing. It doesn’t look there will be enough rain to knock out the Quillayute rivers, but forecasts seem to be pretty inaccurate lately, so you never know.

The Winter Newsletter will be out early next week. It will feature guest essays and flies from some of western Washington’s finest fly fishers. You definitely don’t want to miss the wonderful original essay by Les Johnson. 

Have a warm and safe and festive Holiday.

                     ALMOST NEWSLETTER TIME

I am working on the newsletter this week. It will have the usual features, as well as “year in review” guest essays by  some of the region’s best fly fishers. It will also describe my winter guiding, clinics and a new half-day trip that I am offering. I have been scouting out some new water this week that I plan to take clients to this winter. I haven’t gotten a fish on a fly yet, haven’t fished much frankly, but I hope to before Thanksgiving. The rivers were in great shape until yesterday, then we got a lot of rain. I’ll have a post next Wednesday, telling you how I did and how the rivers look for the Holiday weekend.

                      The Downside of Old Growth

The creek I mentioned yesterday was in really good shape today–a vivid but clear ice-tea shade–but blowdown that drifted downstream on the last high water kept me from the slots I wanted to fish. These were really big trees, lodged perpendicular to the creek, and there were steep, soggy slopes on both banks. I tried three of four approaches, but I just couldn’t get where I wanted to go.

Naturally, I thought of a possible alternate way into the drift on my way home. I think I’ll try it Sunday.

The best part of the day was that I found a little cluster of evergreen huckleberries as I bushwhacked. Despite a lot of birds in the area, they, unaccountably, still had a lot of berries. If you aren’t familiar with evergreen huckleberries, they taste best after a frost or two. They are really good, reduced down to syrup, on pancakes. And my wife just found a buckwheat crepe recipe in a French cookbook. 

Well, my daily salmon journal didn’t get very far, did it? My last post was a week ago, and there hasn’t really been a day when you could reasonably fly fish since then. I drove out to Leyendecker yesterday, and there were standing waves and a large whirlpool at the confluence of the Sol Duc and Bogachiel. The Calawah is still a mess. I went down south today, and the upper Bogachiel, Hoh, Queets and Quinault are all still way, way out, even though they are dropping quickly on the USGS charts.

That is a perfect example of why I think the water gauge readings need to be taken with a very large grain of salt. Last winter, people from out of town kept calling me and telling me that the charts showed the rivers were ”normal” when they were the color of chocolate milk and had just about zero visibility. The cfs readings don’t tell you when slides effect the turbidity of the water or when the river is off-color  after washing over a leaf-strewn  alder bottom.

Anyway, I imagine the best of the salmon run is probably over by now, so I’m going to switch my focus to steelhead. To that end, I’m going out tomorrow. Yes, I have found a little creek that is, believe it or not, in very nice shape. It’s a little early, but I’ll let you how I do.

Remember, Syd Glasso used to say that you weren’t a real steelhead fly fisherman if you didn’t have one by Thanksgiving.

That doesn’t give me much time!

                             November 6 Salmon Log

As predicted, it has been raining, more or less continuously, since last night. The Sol Duc is one long stretch of whitewater, and the Calawah is a deep, ugly brown. All the canals in town are nearly bank full. We won’t be fishing for quite a few days. Don’t even think about the weekend. I’ll write about historic November salmon and steelhead run timing tomorrow.  

                             Salmon Log November 5, 2008

I had one on for a while today. It was a nice coho, probably 12 pounds or better. I was on the lower Sol Duc. I hooked it on a size 6 Comet with a purple Body Braid body. It broke me off on a snag after three or four minutes. I had just gotten to that point when I was thinking I would get it and was thinking about how I would cook it. That’s when it found the one of the fingers of an old, submerged Sitka spruce snag.

It’s supposed to rain like crazy the next couple of days, at least that was what the last NOAA map I looked at showed. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

By the way, it’s fun targeting salmon for a change, but I am already beginning to have an urge to get away from the crowds on the lower rivers. In the next week or so, I may begin to wander away from the salmon pools from time to time and put my energy back into steelhead. That’s how I make my money in winter, after all, and I know lots of places to get away from other people when it comes to steelhead.

                        November Salmon Log, November 4

I fished the Dickey today. I didn’t get a bump. It was still one of the best days of my life.

                    November Salmon Log, November 3

Well, I don’t know if you got much rain where you live, but we got a lot over the weekend in Forks. I wanted to fish for coho on a slough I know on the lower Hoh this morning, but it was high, olive brown and definitely out. The Bogachiel wasn’t in good shape for fly fishing either, although I saw some boats that weren’t fishing gear and bait. The Calawah had a lot of the wrong kind of color, the kind that comes from too many leaves in the water, so I decided to try a couple of pools on the lower Sol Duc. However, a boat was in the pool where I wanted to begin, and there were two guys with gear at the next one. I drove came home and worked on an article and tied Comets. It’s supposed to rain rain tomorrow, but if it doesn’t begin too early, I am going to try to get on the Sol Duc before everyone else.

Normally, I normally don’t fish for salmon much in November. This is the time of year that I usually spend every day I can hunting ducks. But my yellow Lab, Lily, is now officially retired. It makes me sad not to spend the time with her in the field, but it gives me a chance to return to the November rivers.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, I didn’t have a dog, and I used to fish for coho in rivers regularly. But it’s been a while, and it felt good heading out into the November fog again this morning. Not as good as with an eager dog and a heavy bag of decoys. But good, nonetheless.

The last few weeks, as I’ve been waiting to begin my month-long salmon quest, I’ve been re-reading Russell Chatham’s superb, The Angler’s Coast, and Les Johnson and Bruce Ferguson’s fantastic new edition of Fly-Fishing for Pacific Salmon II.

I am always inspired by supple, crisp, evocative writing and good story-telling. They make me want to get out on the water more than the best photographs in the world. Here is a favorite passage from each book.

“During fall in California–Oregon, too, for that matter–all the short coastal stream are at their lowest. In creeks like Paper Mill little freshwater is present in the lagoons. The same could be said of rivers such as the Gualala, Garcia, Navarro and lower Eel below the Snag Hole. On several occasions, I’ve caught silvers in the lagoon at Navarro on the high incoming tide, when waves from the nearby ocean were rolling far up the river. Once I had an excellent time just inside the bar of Redbwood Creek at Orick. A run of small king salmon (chubs) had just entered the lagoon. WhenI saw them rolling I launched an eight-foot boat and, with only the gulls and crashing sea for company, caught a number. One fall I caught silvers in Tomales Bay, fly casting from my pram. I was out for stripers but when the salmon kept jumping near the boat I tied on a Comet and caught three in about two hours.” The Angler’s Coast, Russell Chatham

“The most determined of the fly-fishers will stake out spots on the tide pools and lower reaches of rivers, that host late-run Chinook, coho and chum salmon. Facing one wet, cold squall after another pushing in from the Pacific they bundle up in wool sweaters, fleece pants and rain gear, hoping to connect with even one dawdler as wind-driven sleet rips across their cheeks and numbs gloved fingers. When the last of these hard-core fly-fishers eventually abandon the tide pools and lower river, salmon fishing is over for the year.” Les Johnson, Fly-Fishing for Pacific Salmon II