Puget Sound Sea Run Cutthroat

The past few years, late February through the end of May has turned into sea run cutthroat fishing season for me. This is the part of the year when all of our local rivers here in the Snohomish/King/Whatcom county area are closed to fishing through the Endangered Species Act. Though other times of the year may offer some better sea run cutthroat fishing, this is still a very fun and easy alternative to swinging flies for steelhead. Steelhead fishing is in full swing other places, but it is just not feasible to travel somewhere every weekend to chase steel, when within 20 minutes of my couch I can be standing on several different beaches.

Sea run fishing in the Puget Sound offers easy access, great scenery, and is a fun rapidly growing fishery. The south end of Puget Sound offers some of the better beaches in the area, but the north sound offers some good beaches as well. Places like Picnic Point, Lund’s Gulch, and Mukilteo waterfront offer very easy access to cutties. Just watch your back cast, as there are often beach combing families walking these beaches, and many of them will be curious as to what you are doing and are oblivious to the fact that fly fishing requires a little space.

Sea run cutthroat will feed on whatever and whenever something is available, they are opportunistic feeders. When the water is moving, more things to eat are swirled around; hence you should fish moving tides. When tides are slack, food is not moving, so sit on the beach and drink a beer during slack tide. Big tide swings will offer the best fishing. Just like rivers, look for seams, where slower water meets faster water, this where the fish will find food. Bait fish patterns, shrimp, spiders, and poppers should be the go to flies. Most likely in the 4 – 6 size range.

When it comes to gear, I have invested next to nothing on sea run specific gear. I have an old brandless reel I found in a box at a garage sale for $2 and a cheap 6 wt. rod. No need to get fancy, spend your money on gas to get to the beach to practice your casting rather than fancy gear. Many beach anglers will use a stripping basket, but I don’t use one and haven’t really seen the need for one. Weather conditions in the Pacific Northwest this time of year feed the stereotype, it rains a lot. Be prepared for windy and rainy days. The wind can often pose a challenge on the beach. If you can, try to make to wind work in your favor. I spent a windy morning at Picnic Point yesterday, but was able start at one end of the beach and use the wind gusts to propel my casts and work my way down the beach around the point.

There is not a ton of information on sea run cutthroat in the Puget Sound. There are groups working to learn more about these fish, and to get some sort of idea as to how many fish there are out there. This is a catch and release only, open year round salt water fishery. This is an awesome fishery that is growing in popularity. It’s an easy way to break into fly fishing since there is not much required other than a rod and a few flies. So head to the beach and enjoy.

 

 

Awesome Fly Lines - Wulff Ambush

One of the greatest advances in fly fishing in recent years is the development of new fly lines. Shooting heads and running line have allowed fisherman everywhere to be able to sling 75 foot casts across rivers with spey and switch rods. But what about single handed rods? My attraction to two handed fly rods was the ability make long cast in tight quarters. In the past, weight forward, floating or sinking lines have been the norm for single handed rods. I’ve spent a lot of time attempting to learn the art of roll casting with traditional single handed fly lines. Most of the time was spent untangling the rat’s nest I turned my long leader, heavy fly, and indicator into.  It’s hard to have confidence in your fishing when you can't cast and are constantly fighting your gear. The development of new fly lines such as the Wulff Ambush Triangle Taper have changed the game for single handed fly rods.

I recently purchased the Wullf Ambush TT-7-F for my single handed 9’ 8 weight. The line has a 20’ 265 grain shooting head that transitions smoothly into the running line. Since the line is all one piece, there are no loops or knots between the head and the shooting line, creating smooth casts.  I purchased the line with hopes that it would double as a roll casting nymph line for steelhead and as a rocket launcher on the beaches for Coho.

My first outing was a trip the Skykomish River on closing day of the season in mid-February. Using a big thingamabobber, a long leader, and a heavy egg pattern I tied the night before, roll casting has never been so easy for me. The 265 grain head turned over my long leader and heavy fly extremely well. The full floating and smooth running line was very easy to mend. Line control is essential when being a dirty nympher, and the Wulff Ambush made it easy. 90 percent of my time on the river has been spent swinging, but the productivity of nymphing has encouraged me to do it more, and this was fun. The argument between nymphing vs. swinging is a whole other debate, but I like “fishing” so I’m just gonna do both.

Yesterday we hit up Picnic Point Park during high tide in hopes to find some sea run cutthroat. My normal rod of choice for sea runs is a 6 wt., but I thought I’d bring the 8 wt. and my new line along to give it a try. The Ambush line casted decently with normal overhead casting. Casting these lines is much different than standard single handed lines. I found that pulling about the first quarter of the shooting head in past my tip and making as few false casts as possible worked best. Too many false casts with too much line out and you’re going to be asking your fishing partner to use his needle nose pliers to extract a hook from your ear.

My 8 wt. is a 9’ 4 piece that I built for myself a year or so ago. I think a 10’ rod and the 235 grain line would be ideal for this. But even with the shorter rod and heavier head I think it worked pretty well. The best piece of gear to catch fish that a person can buy is gas to put in your car to go fishing with. Experience and time on the water is #1 to being successful, but some of us can’t help but be gear whores sometimes.  So overall, the Wulff Ambush line has definitely added to my fishing arsenal and I'm getting excited for salmon season from the beach.

The best/worst time of the year...

Its that gloomy time of the year when one day it's 50 degrees and rainy, the next days it's 25 degrees and snowing, and then back to 50 degrees and sunny. The worst part about this time of year is that all of the Puget Sound rivers have closed to all fishing until June 1^ST. As a fly fisherman addicted to standing in rivers, this time of year can be a little tough. Cabin fever sets in, we tie flies we cant use, gain about 15 lbs, and watch too many reruns on TV. However, even though fishing opportunities are running thin in the Seattle are, they are flourishing other places. In particular steelhead fishing on the Olympic Peninsula is in full swing. This time of year produces some of the best steelheading that we see in our state. Unfortunately, it is no secret. Every puffy jacket wearing, instagraming, bearded blogging fly fisherman around makes his or her way out to the Peninsula to chase big natives. Yes, I have a puffy jacket, I like posting pictures to instagram, and I kind of have a blog, but I have not made my way out to the peninsula yet, and likely will not this year. Too many people and too few wild steelhead that don’t need any additional pressure from me. The OP is not the only option right now. It’s a ferry ride and a four hour commute to Forks from my house, but there are also opportunities by heading a couple hours east.

  

We spent satruday exploring the Cashmere and Dryden area on the Wenatchee river in search of some remaining summer runs. We fished a couple runs with no tugs, but for us it became more of a recon mission. You wont find much information on the internet about good “spots” to fish for steelhead. The best/only way to learn is through exploration. The Wenatchee river can be a difficult place to explore since a good portion of the river is private property inhabited by apple trees. But there are many spots from Leavenworth all the way to the mouth at Confluence Park. I will just say that Google maps has become a very important fishing tool for me.

For us this was mostly a day to just get out swing flies and explore. We did run into the WDFW fish checker guy and he says fishing has been good the past few days. For us it was unfortunate that the weather dropped down the mid 20’s and was snowing when we got there. This didn’t help our fishing and exploring ambition, but it was still nice to be out. The Wenatchee is a pretty wide and shallow river, so you don’t need much weight when swinging flies. I was fishing 10’ of T-11 and unweighted flies and was still having issues getting hung up. Perhaps poly leaders or T-8 would be better suited for some of those wider runs.

Though this time of year is limited, there are still many opportunities out there. I’d recommend making the drive east in search of steel and give the coastal rivers a break. Also open now is the Methow river for steelhead. I have not made it there myself but have seen pictures and reports, and it seems fishing is good out there.  These Columbia tribs can open and close at a moments notice, so check the regs before you go. Or find a beach and go chase some sea runs, it’s almost chum fry season.

Barker Drift Boat

A drift boat has been a project that I have been wanting to start for quite some time now. A couple months back I saw an ad on the Washington Fly Fishing website from a guy selling his drift boat that he had stored over at Red’s Fly shop in Ellensburg. The deal he was offering was too good to pass up.

The boat is a definite project boat. It is a 1977 Barker 15’ fiberglass boat. When doing research on Barker drift boats prior to purchasing this, I was unable to find much of anything other than a few random posts on some internet forums. So I thought it would be worth while to post some information and pictures about the boat as I complete different stages of the restoration.

Mind you, I am by no means a boat restoration expert, nor do I have the financials to pay a boat restoration expert that will charge me more for a can of paint than I paid for the whole boat and trailer. This is a complete experiment on my part, and a way for me to share my troubleshooting experience. This is also my first drift boat, so it will also be an experience learning to row and maintain the drifter, but those are future posts.

So this is me sharing my learning curve, my adventure, and the do’s and don’ts of the things I find as I go. Any comments, advice, direction, or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

So Far...

The first step was to gut the boat and rebuild the benches. Most of the wood in the boat was rotting away, being that is was older than I am. So my first weekend with the boat was spent measuring and cutting treated 2x4’s to make new benches. The most important part was to keep the previous benches and use them as patterns for new ones. I am a cheap person, so if there is something laying around that can be repurposed for free I am all about it. Luckily we had some old closet doors in our house that we have been wanting to tear down for some time. These made perfect tops to my new benches.  So after some sanding,  applying some ½ price deck stain from Lowes, and some Johnson water seal, I was good to go.

My only tools come from a tool box that was found left on the side of the street, a $7.99 circular saw from good will, my imagination, and a Dewalt power drill. So, "measure twice and cut once" becomes important when you lack tools, wood working skill, or any idea what you are doing whatsoever.

With the boat gutted and empty, now seemed like a good time start painting the interior. Since this is my first boat, I was not too concerned about a fancy paint job, especially on the exterior. Since I am an inexperienced rower I likely will be doing some smashing and scraping, so an expensive gel coat seems like a bad idea. I struggled for a long time with what I wanted to use that would be durable yet inexpensive on the interior. I settled on using a spray on truck bed liner from Fred Meyer that runs about $9.00 a can. My thought was this will provide a durable surface with grip, and maybe even add to the structural integrity of an old boat floor. This will be used on the floor and the supports on the boat walls only. After prepping and cleaning the interior, four cans of this and I was good to go. Wear a mask and ventilate, this stuff is potent. The life of this floor on is still TBD, but it went on nicely and seemed to work well, and should be easy to touch up in the future. I am going to try a regular outdoor spray paint on the interior walls.

That is everything I have completed so far. This has been a fun and interesting experiment to this point. I figure as long as I don't drill any holes in the boat I should be ok. Stay tuned for more on the boat and future posts on what its like to learn the art of rowing. That is another hurdle that is quickly approaching.

Its been too long, and its been slow...

Where are all the Steel?

For the past month or so, I have been horrible about updating this blog. I have been so busy with casting practice (not fishing because I can’t catch anything), that I haven’t had time to write anything down. This winter has been a little bit of a drag as far hatchery steelhead go. We have been fishing nearly every weekend and have managed to hook into only 1 steelhead (that I proceeded to lose anyways). Returns of hatchery steelhead have been minimal this winter. It has been a mild, relatively warm winter,  with only a couple decent rains and snow falls. This has also affected our ski season, or lack there of.

 

We spent multiple weekends exploring and swinging flies through multiple runs up and down the Skykomish river with nothing to show for it but several bull trout (which are always great to catch) and a lost hunk of steel. Flows have been pretty good throughout the winter on the Skykomish, however there haven't been many spikes in flows to bring more fish into the system. The river seems to be in its best shape around the 4000 CFS mark. Above 6500 CFS or so, it seems to get a little too cloudy, and below 3000 CFS it is gin clear during the winter.

 

 

Snowy Skykomish

The crowds have been thick and the fish seem to be few and far between (although talking to people on the river, there are fish being caught). The lack of hatchery fish returning to the Puget Sound actually caused emergency closures on the NF Stilly and Cascade River due to low numbers. The NF Stilly has been reopened, but the Cascade Remains closed.

 

It’s difficult as steelhead fisherman to wait all year for the winter season and then have dismal returns. I am no biologist and don’t have a lot of room to speak on the subject, but I think there needs to be a greater focus, or at least a different focus, on the way our state hatchery and wild steelhead operations are ran. But that’s  enough on that touchy subject. With 99% of our local rivers here in Snohomish county closing on January 31^st, the season is wrapping up.

 

With Occupy Skagit coming up again soon, we will fight to reopen the C&R spring season on the Skagit. It would be nice to have something to do until June 1^st.

 

 

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.

 

Goodbye Summer, Hello Rain... and Fish...

 

Did you know that is rains in the Pacific Northwest? If you spent a day on a river in Washington in July or August you would probably think the answer is NO. If you were to hang around until the fall, you would learn the truth. The end of summer is often a big mystery in the Pacific Northwest, sometimes September is one of the nicest months of the year and some years, it rains…a lot. Once summer is gone, it is gone for good and the grey skies and dark clouds set up shop right over the top of Washington State for the next nine months.

This year being an odd year, we were graced with the presence of 6 million slimy humpies that dumped themselves into our Puget Sound rivers about mid August. At first, I was super pumped and couldn’t wait to target humpies and fill my smoker. Now, I can’t swing a fly down a river without hooking one of these things in the hump. It’s like reeling in a piece of drift wood sideways. I never thought I would be annoyed by catching a fish, but I’ve had enough Pink salmon action to keep me content for the next two years. So as September rolled around and as the month progressed, it was time to start thinking about the Pink salmon’s less slimy relative, the Coho.

As most people in the PNW are upset to see summer time come to an end, the river fisherman of our state are chomping at the bit waiting on the first big rain. This time of year there are often thousands of staging Coho in the Puget Sound waiting for their chance to shoot up the rivers where they will swim to their fire engine red transformation. This last week brought in some of these rains, so we decided to hit the river.

The week before Saturday September 28^th, the weatherman was calling for extreme rains that would blow out all the rivers in no time, flood warnings and all. Listening to the radio on our drive out to the Skykomish river Saturday morning, they were saying how this was a good weekend to stay at home and tie leaders. We figured we had a couple hour window first thing in the morning before the river turned to sludge.

Steelhead are almost always my first priority when hitting the river, so after we made a pass through one of the usual runs on the Skykomish, we decided to head down to the mouth of the Wallace river and see if there were any Silvers milling around. 99 times out of 100 there is already someone standing under the train trestle on the Wallace River. I think the cats and dogs falling out of the sky scared off all the regulars this morning, as we walked up through the woods to find no one. By now, the rain was coming down harder than Shaq in the 90’s breaking backboards.

I have a messed up obsession for chasing steelhead with my fly rod, so I continued to fish down towards the mouth looking for steelhead. If there is a chance that a hunk of steel may be nearby, I want to chase it, even if the odds were against me. Katie stayed up river near the trestle, and no more than 10 minutes later she had a silver on the sandy beach. I instantly became jealous and started winging my fly up into the hole where she just hooked the fish. To my surprise, all I hooked were humpies, no matter where I go there is a humpy to be reeled in tail first. The river was starting to change before our eyes and it was only a matter of time before it would achieve full blown out status. So we bonked the hatchery silver and took it home for the bbq.

That morning when we arrived to the river, the Skykomish was flowing about 1500 CFS, by evening the same day, it was flowing over 14,000 CFS (15,000 CFS is flood status). The next morning it was up to 18,000 CFS. These crazy rains are the rains that all of us river fisherman have been waiting for. Once all the houses and cars stop floating down the river, there will be nothing left but fish for the catching. Fall is here, and winter is right around the corner. For many of us this is our favorite time of the year. Happy fishing.