Doug Rose Flyfishing

It sure was great finally getting back on the water yesterday. I wasted part of the day messing around with trying to have a tire repaired, then buying a new one, but I managed a few hours in the afternoon. I didn’t catch a fish, but I got a good, frankly savage, yank. It was very brief and I don’t have any real idea how big the fish was, but it felt like the kind of tug you get from a large aggressive wild male. I avoided both the Sol Duc and Bogachiel, where the overwhelming bulk of the pressure has been this week, and enjoyed complete solitude. I didn’t have any other bites, and the river was still a little higher than I like for swinging and wading.

The best part of my brief encounter with the steelhead  was that it hit a Syd Glasso dressing, an Orange Heron with a gadwall flank throat, tied on a size 1/0 hook. In fact, I fished Glasso Speys exclusively yesterday. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, there hasn’t been a lot to do in Forks during the recent high water except work on my duck hunting book and tie flies. I’ve filled several new fly boxes, one of them entirely with Glasso patterns–Sol Ducs, Sol Duc Speys, Sol Duc Darks and Glasso- style (feather wing) Polar Shrimp. My Spey flies are pretty sorry compared to artists like Dick Wentworth, John Shewey and Dave McNeese, but they have the right proportions and colors and don’t fall apart. I really love fishing for steelhead with flies that were created on West End rivers, especially Glasso Speys.

                                   Starting Over

Okay, we’ve got a little more rain coming in tonight and tomorrow, but after that it looks like we’re entering a fairly dry stretch. The rivers, which have been coming down all week and now have good color, may bump up a bit but should be in great shape for wading and swinging by midweek. After an unusually long stretch of terrible river conditions, it looks like we may finally have an extended period when we’ll be able to fly fish. 

It’s almost feels like a second beginning of the winter steelhead season. And the timing is fantastic, because late January and February are when we begin to see more big wild fish and the hatchery runs dwindle. I have already heard of three 20-plus-pound wild fish on the Quillayute rivers.

As recently as 10 years ago, the conclusion of the hatchery run also signaled the end of the big crowds on West End rivers. Unfortunately, the days when it was mostly locals on these rivers in February, March and April are now a faint memory. Indeed, we now get the bulk of the winter steelhead effort–at least from fly fishers–in late winter and early spring. And the closure of the Skagit/Sauk late season this year will only exacerbate the crowding. Fly fishing for winter steelhead on these beautiful rivers has become, I fear, an industry.

Oh well, as I said in my winter newsletter, I know how to get away from the armadas. I even have a bunch of new runs to concentrate on this season.   

Depending on what happens tonight, I’ll hit either a creek or one of the Quillayute rivers tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes. And from now on, I’ll post something every day or two. That is, as long as we don’t get very many more days with 5 inches of rain.

I know it’s a mistake to assume that everyone who reads this blog has at least a vague idea of the current weather on the West End. It’s also probably a mistake to assume that folks understand that when I don’t post for a while it is because the rivers haven’t been fishable. 

Nonetheless, I make both of these mistakes on a regular basis during the winter.

So let me be precise: I haven’t fished for two weeks because every time I have had a chance to the rivers have been badly out of shape, at least for the type of wading and swinging that I prefer.

Here are the rainfall numbers for between Friday the 8th of January and last Thursday, the 14th: 1/8–1.34 inches; 1/9–1.14; 1/10–.08; 1/11–5.38; 1/12–2.98; 1/13–1.68; 1/14–4.36. 

So far, we have had a total of 23.67 inches in January. That compares to an average of 9.69 for the period. We only had 8.25 inches in December.

We got another big pulse of rain and wind last night, as well. However, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as early weather forecasts suggested it could have been.

Eliana and I took Lily, our yellow Lab, out to Rialto Beach this morning to look at the surf. It was pretty impressive. I bet some of the waves were 20 feet.

From the looks of the Bogachiel and Sol Duc at Leyendeckers, I wouldn’t count on fly fishing for a few days, at least. At least the long term forecast looks good.

As a result of the bad river conditions, I’ve been tying more flies. I’ve tied so many since the holidays, in fact, I had to buy two new fly boxes. Well, actually they’re old Perrine boxes, which I like and are becoming increasingly hard to get. I got them from Bob Gooding, at Olympic Sporting Goods in Forks.

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.