On the Water Log, February 12, 2009
When I opened up my blog this morning, I was amaazed to see how long it’s been since I last posted anything. This is a busy time of year on the West End, and I’ve been fishing or guiding or scouting water most days. I’ve also been working on my duck hunting book. It hasn’t been hard to avoid the website.
Actually, although the rivers have been in good shape the last week or so, the fly fishing hasn’t been that great. The Quillayute rivers got very low and that, coupled with the sunny days we had earlier in the week, made things tough. I spent most of my time on the Hoh, and it was perfect, but I didn’t touch a fish. Nor did I hear of very many other steelhead taken on flies, especially on swung flies.
According to many of the old timers out here, in the days before hatchery fish were planted, there was always a lull during the first two weeks of February. It seems there were two separate components of wild fish–an early December pulse, followed by the late run.
I may have intercepted a vanguard of the late wild fish the day before yesterday. I was back on the Hoh. I knew it was supposed to rain pretty hard on Thursday, so I figured I’d enjoy it while I still could. I hiked into a long rippling green run about a half-hour from the road. I fished my TFO switch rod, with an AFS line and Type 7 tip. My fly was a Polar Shrimp, tied Spey-style, with a white hackle tip wing.
The fish hit about half way down the run, at the tail of the swing, just before the fly began to hang. It was a jolting strike, and the fish was in the air a moment later. It was chalice-bright, and I could tell from 60 feet away that it was a hen. It jumped three times, then peeled line.
It took me about five minutes to land. I got it up into knee-deep water twice before I got a hand on it. It was about 12 pounds and had a perfect adipose fin. I was all alone and glad I had an 11-foot rod rather than my longer two-handers. I have never mastered landing large hot fish on long rods by myself.
It was rainy and very windy yesterday (Thursday), and it’s raining hard again this morning. The Hoh and Queets are gone, at least from the looks of the charts, and the Calawah and Bogachiel and Sol Duc have come up a lot. If you’re planning on fishing out here over the three day weekend, you’ll probably want to concentrate on the Quillayute System–along with everyone else.
By the way, I saw my first new oxalis leaves on the upper Hoh two weeks ago, and there were more of them and they were larger this week. Yesterday, while I was hiking the hill by the natural resource center in Forks–I’m trying to get my legs back for a final trip up the Elwha this summer–I actually saw salmonberry blossoms. That seemed odd, because I usually see skunk cabbage and red-flowering currant long before I see salmonberry flowers.
It looks like spring is trying to make an early show this year. Don’t hold me to that, though. Last year, I guided a lot of snowy mornings in March, and the year before I remember driving along the lower Hoh in driving snow in April.