Doug Rose Flyfishing

I’ve managed to get out briefly a couple times since my last post, but haven’t touched a steelhead. The high water on the Quillayute rivers, which are in the best shape, has made it difficult to fish the way I like–wading and swinging. However, anglers who nymph from boats have gotten into steelhead when they have been able to get to the rivers.  

I don’t know really what to tell those of you who want to hit the West End rivers this weekend.  Eliana and I drove down to Queets yesterday afternoon, and the Queets itself was  high and dirty, the Hoh was fairly low but far from clear, and the Bogachiel didn’t look particularly inviting. The upper Sol Duc was in pretty good shape earlier in the week, high but green, and the Calawah has been fishable off and on.

The trouble is that we keep getting these spurts of rain and snow–there was a new skiff in our yard this morning. That keeps the major rivers rising and falling, which isn’t particularly conducive to good fly fishing. Moreover, we’re supposed to have fairly significant rain Saturday and Sunday, and the temperature is predicted to get into the 40s both days. There is still a fair amount of snow, especially on the higher elevation areas like Dead Dog Flats and the stretch between Fairholm and Bear Creek, and that will eventually also find its way into the rivers.

I have always done best for saltwater cutts in winter when the weather is cold and dry. If the rainshadow beaches–which are often spared coastal precipitation–don’t pick up rain for a few days, they may be a better idea than driving all the way out here.  

My new book–Fly-Fishing Guide to the Olympic Peninsula–is finally available. I received my contract copies yesterday and it looks nice. You can get it online and from Amato Books. I’ve also got a few openings left from some of my winter clinics, which you can read about in my Winter Newsletter.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas! It snowed a few more inches overnight, after a weird mixture of rain and snow off and on all day yesterday. It’s pretty outside, but I am glad I don’t have to go anywhere.

I still have slots left for my winter steelhead clinics and seminars that I described in the Winter Newsletter. If you haven’t seen the newsletter yet, either scroll down to it or click the newsletter link on this page. The best parts of this edition are the essays and flies contributed by my friends, Les Johnson, Ron Hirschi, Leland Miyawaki, Marianne Mitchell and Preston Singletary. I also wrote a couple new essays–”Bergman Reconsidered,” about Ray Bergman’s classic Trout, and on how to find your own steelhead water. 

As for a current fishing report, this post would more appropriately be called “not-on-the-water-log.” I haven’t been fishing much the last couple of weeks and haven’t caught a steelhead since early December.

I was out of town part of the time. Among other things, I did a slide show in Salem for the Santiam Fly Casters. They are a great group, and I got to meet Chip O’Brian, a fellow fly fishing writer, and fly tying legend Dave McNeese. I have talked to Dave on the phone and through emails, and he sent me a gorgeous fly, a Brown Heron, for an article I was working on about Syd Glasso a while back. But I had never met him before. It was a good trip, but I barely made it home. I was driving up the coast on the night of the 70 mph winds, and I had to thread my way through about 30 downed tree between Kalaloch and Ruby Beach.

The main reason I haven’t been fishing, of course, is the weather. The rivers are certainly low and clear enough for fly fishing. Indeed, I went to Aberdeen the other day, and you can see gravel bars on the Hoh and Queets and Humptulips that you rarely see in December. But it’s been really tough to get out to the rivers, with the snow and ice, and before that it was too cold for good fishing. All of the clients I had booked the last 10 days or so have, reasonably, cancelled.

The best illustration of what it’s been like out here lately is that last Saturday, during the traditional peak of the hatchery steelhead run, I ran into both J.D. Love and Jim Kerr in the Thriftway in the middle of the day.

There haven’t been all that many fish around either. Some gear guys did well on the Hoh earlier in the week, and a few fish have been taken on all the rivers, especially the Bogachiel. The Salmon has been red hot at times, although it isn’t exactly a fly fishing scene there and definitely not for those with genteel sensibilities. Basically, fishing has been tough for fly fishers just about everywhere. 

It’s supposed to warm up tomorrow. That will melt the snow and knock the rivers out for time, but I expect by early next week we will be back in business on a Quillayute river or two and some creeks. 

I’ll begin blogging every Thursday from now through the end of the steelhead season.

Meanwhile, the snow hasn’t started melting yet. I’m thinking about hitting the Calawah or Sol Duc later today for a while. The color of the water right now makes me think an Orange Heron might be a good choice. It’s too long since I’ve had a rod in my hands.

Once again, Merry Christmas.

There is something reassuringly straightforward about winter fly fishing on the Olympic Peninsula. Unlike in summer, when each day requires you to choose from a number of fisheries and destinations–subalpine lakes, coho in the salt, Elwha rainbows, beaver ponds, summer steelhead, red-tailed surfperch–the options in winter are clear.
If you want to fish in saltwater, you fish for sea-run cutthroat on the  peninsula’s northeast “rainshadow” beaches. If you want to fish in freshwater, you fish for winter steelhead on the rivers that drain the western slopes of the Olympic Mountains. A few anglers play around with other fish and other waters, but for the most part saltwater cutthroat and West End steelhead are the only shows in town during  winter.
           
WINTER GUIDE AND CLINIC SPECIALS
 
My regular winter trips are described in depth in the “fishing” page of the web site.
Half Day Steelhead–In addition to my complete trips, I am offering a half-day option for steelhead this winter. They run 5 hours, either from 8 am to 1 pm or 11:30 am to 4:30 pm. The cost is $225. The price is for one or two people.
Winter Steelhead Clinic–This is an intensive all day clinic on fly fishing for winter steelhead. It is designed for intermediate level anglers who have had trouble connecting with winter fish or have never tried it before. We will discuss lines, flies, presentation, the behavior of the fish, and reading water. After lunch, we will visit several different rivers, where we will practice the wet fly swing, nymphing and mending. December 30 and January 27. $60. Each clinic is limited to 6.
Winter Steelhead Weekend–This is a comprehensive introduction to fly fishing for winter steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula. We will meet Saturday morning for a discussion and slide show, then move to the rivers in the afternoon and practice different presentations and work on reading the water. We will have dinner together Saturday evening, followed by a discussion on flies. We will meet on a different river on Sunday morning and continue to work on presentation and mending until around 1 pm. February 21 & 22. $400. Cost includes hand-outs and Saturday dinner. Limited to 4.
As regular readers of the newsletter know, I always include an essay in the winter issue that summarizes my experiences in the field over the past year. This year, I thought it would be fun to ask some of my friends to contribute pieces. I asked them to write about anything they wanted and said that it didn’t have to be about the Olympic Peninsula.
The generosity and richness of their responses has been incredible. I am deeply grateful for having people like them for friends.

The centerpiece of the essays is an original piece, “The Christmas Coho,” by Les Johnson. I don’t have to introduce Les to anyone. He is the dean of Pacific Northwest fly fishing writers. His two most recent books, Fly-Fishing Coastal  Cutthroat Trout and Fly-Fishing for Pacific Salmon II, are masterpieces and will be read as long as anglers wander our beaches and rivers. Les also sent me a great picture of him with a Thorne River coho that he used as a Christmas coho, but I haven’t been able to upload it onto the blog yet. As soon as I can, I’ll insert it into the text. I’m also going to put Les’s piece and photo into the “essay” section of the blog, so you can find them easily in the future.

I organized the other writer’s pieces by drawing their names out of a hat. Ron Hirschi, my cutthroat clinic partner and  long time Olympic Peninsula fisheries biologist, described his experiences on the peninsula and in Wyoming and Montana. Leland Miyawaki, manager of the Bellevue Orvis store and creater of the renowned Beach Popper, wrote  about a steelhead dressing he came up with this summer. Marianne Mitchell, a member of the Wild Steelhead Coalition and chair of the Steelhead Summit Alliance, discussed the wild fish advocacy community’s achievements this year and the challenges that lie ahead. Preston Singletary, who writes the book, video and product review columns for Fly Fishing and Tying Journal, wrote on autumn and Haig-Brown flies.
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When I was a kid, I lived about a mile from a cluster of ponds and small lakes. Most of them contained  warm water fish–large-mouthed bass, bluegill and sunfish, carp and alligator gar. But the two smallest were feed by springs and remained cold and clear throughout the summer. We called them ”The Trout Ponds.” 

I caught my first trout in the larger pond. It was a rainbow, about a foot long. I was with my brother, Scott, and a friend. We had hiked from our house, across a pasture and  marsh, and then clambered over a railroad grade to the pond. With our cane poles and Irish Setter, we probably looked like the cover of a Norman Rockwell painting. We fished off a short dock, with golfball-sized gobs of nightcrawlers. 
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I wrote this sentence in the first chapter of my steelhead book, The Color of Winter–Steelhead Fly Fishing on the Olympic Peninsula.

“I fished the upper portion of one of the peninsula’s most popular rivers once a week a few years ago, and I only ran into one other person, and I knew him.”

That book came out in 2003. I probably wrote the lines in 2000 or 2001, and the year I recalled was in the mid-1990s.

That wasn’t really that long ago, but I don’t have to tell you that the West End rivers have become a lot more crowded since then.  A couple years ago, I spent a weekday morning on that same stretch of water. I saw seven other fisherman, all carrying fly rods.
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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.