Casade River Coho in October

Cascade River near Marblemount

In the summer time, many mornings the alarm is set for 3:45 a.m. so that you can be standing in the river for a 5:00 a.m. sunrise. One advantage to fall fishing is that sunrise isn’t until 7:45. So after burning up half the day and sleeping in until 5:00 a.m. last weekend we decided to head up to the Cascade River.

The Cascade River is a tributary of the mighty Skagit that dumps into the main river near Marblemount. This small river is home a decent return of hatchery Coho in the fall and a nice run of hatchery steelhead in the winter. This is a long haul for these fish and many of the fish caught this far up river will have some serious color to them. These fire engine red Coho may not make the best table fare, but they fight hard and are less lock jaw than many silvers around the local rivers.

The Cascade is very accessible river. Park at the hatchery and walk down the trail to see all the fish in the side stream that were able to make the long journey all the way back to the place where they were created. Cross a small side stream, and from here you can either go up or down river. Just like fishing at any hatchery in Washington State, this spot is no secret. You will not be alone.  The gravel bars are large enough that people can spread out, and there is some room to move around. Not a highly recommended fly fishing destination however.  Today we were fishing with a group, and being that not everyone in the group fly fishes, we decided to join the dark side and gear fish today. We could go off the tangent that gear fishing is not real fishing and that true fisherman only fish with bamboo and dry flies, but I will save that for another post.

We arrived to the hatchery about 7:30 a.m. and were fishing by 7:40. Second cast with my freshly cured to perfection humpy eggs, Katie reels in about a 6 pound red silver. The water was very low and clear, so short leaders and good bobber stops were the ticket to keep from losing gear. The fishing was not lights out, but it was fairly consistent. We spent the two hours or so fishing the same spot and by now there were enough people around that every decent hole had a few fisherman standing in it. I had gone all morning without hooking  a silver, but about half way through the morning I got surprised with a VERY late summer run hatchery steelhead. She had been in the river a while, but its always fun to be surprised with a fish you weren’t expecting. Due to the low and clear conditions, dark jigs and eggs worked well for us this day. Between the humpies and the silvers over the past few months, I have had my fill of salmon and am ready to commit to chasing winter steel. But overall, this was a very enjoyable trip out with friends.