This post was supposed to be filled with enthralling tales of steelhead dominance and gratuitous fish porn shots.

Instead, you get a Roosevelt Elk sticking its tongue out at you.

This photo was snapped on the morning of the last day of a 2 and half day steelhead seeking adventure. Let me just say this, steelhead can be more tight lipped than Cold War era Soviet agents.

So I suppose the elk deserved to mock us. As a regal representative of the wild land that is the west end of the Olympic Peninsula, he was rubbing it in for two guys who got blanked after walking a ton of river miles and throwing hundreds if not thousands of casts.

We fished the Hoh River (aptly titled this time around).

Still the country was beautiful and the scenery supreme. However, fishing that hard, without any success is a straight-up ass whip.

So, I’ll just give you some pretty pictures while I plot my next move to finally get one of these damn fish. I’m going to Alaska where my odds will be significantly increased. Next time I post about steelhead, I’ll be hoisting a fish or 3 or 10.

What a difference a day makes…

On Monday, I got out and fished with a Washington Fly Fishing Forum member named Bill, a.k.a. “Freestone Angler.” Bill posted on the forum about the weather we experienced and described it as “Pinch me” weather.

I think he characterized it perfectly. Bluebird skies, light wind…when the forecast called for conditions worse than what Jon and I had experienced the day before trying to get out on his boat and chase some resident silvers.

Here’s the only fish we caught…

This was early in the excursion before the wind really hit.

After the rain moved out, we experienced this scene for the remainder of the morning:

It was dicey as hell and every time we sighted a school of fish we would be blown off or the waves made effective casting impossible.

So the next day when Bill and I met up, we were apprehensive at best.

The forecast called for higher winds than the previous day and more rain.

The weathermen couldn’t have been more wrong (Accuweather…I’m looking at you, although I suppose you get a slight pass for trying to predict the springtime weather in Western Washington which is akin to predicting the numbers that would have won the Mega/Power/Million/Jillions lotto).

Bill and I got out to our first spot and no one was home. We moved to a spot that had produced for me last week so I felt confident.

Shortly after arriving, we saw the best sign a beach fisherman/woman can hope for…some jumpers and fish slashing at the surface.

I got lucky and hooked up pretty quick. Then, about 15 minutes later, my fly got SLAMMED like a disgruntled spouse’s bathroom door. A very nice cutthroat…

The cutthroat continued to taunt us for the next few hours but we couldn’t get them to play. I was really hoping Bill would get one because I had suggested we hit this spot. Myself…I didn’t get any more either, but I was largely unconcerned after getting the gorgeous fish earlier.

With this approaching my second summer after moving back to Washington, I’m a bit more tempered in my enthusiasm as far as weather is concerned. The promising days are welcomed, but I’m not holding my breath that we’ve fully turned the corner. I learned my lesson last year. Still, I’ll treasure these days that hint subtly at what is to come.

Tachell and I are chasing steelhead this weekend for the last time before the season closes. The forecast says it will be nice. Honestly, I wish it were calling for pissing rain and hail and 40′s. That would probably equate to 60′s and sunshine. Nonetheless, we are after the elusive prize again. Positive vibes people…we need them.

No matter the outcome, a full expose on our trip is forthcoming.

Photos courtesy of Bill “Freestone Angler” and Jonathan Tachell.

Jon got out to some Central Washington lakes last weekend and destroyed it. Below is his account. Meanwhile, I hit Hood Canal and found some love.

Fished Burke Lake on Friday with marginal success. Brought 12 fish to hand from 10″ to 15″ in length. Caught most of my fish on damsel nymphs and chironomids. The weather was not too bad, partly cloudy with an off and on breeze. The water temp hovered between 42-44 degrees.

Saturday we moved onto another Central Washington lake and had much better luck. Fished from 9:00 am until 6:00 pm with mostly damsel nymphs and chironomids. I ended up with 80 fish to hand with the average fish being between 10″-13″ with a decent amount of 14″-18″ mixed in. My dad also landed two nice tiger trout between 16″-18″ and I came away with the biggest fish of the day, a 20″ brown trout. The weather was awesome, partly cloudy with little wind and a water temp of around 47 degrees.

We fished the same lake Sunday from about 9:00am until 12:30pm before heading back to the wet side. Fished damsels and chironomids again with the same results. I ended up with 51 fish of about the same size as the previous day, with a 20″ bow being the largest.. The weather was gorgeous, very little wind and sunny out. It was really hard to head home when it was nearly 65 degrees outside and the trout were biting. Overall it was an awesome trip with lots of fish and great weather.

-Jon Tachell

Below is a photo from one of the lakes Jon fished. To me, the water looked eerily similar to some spots in Central Texas. Of course up here, the lake was populated by big trout instead of big bass.

I ended up grabbing a new rig from the Gig Harbor Fly Shop. A six weight Echo Ion rod and Lamson Konic reel, paired with a Wulff TT line.

I needed to get an adequate beach rig…so I did. I was rewarded on Hood Canal with a bunch of beauties that were spunky and beginning to put on weight. Almost all the fish were a carbon copy of the one below:

I reflected on the beauty of the Olympics over the Canal. Per usual, I felt thankful that I live in such a beautiful place with with multiple fishing options within close proximity to the house.

Swear to God… steelhead are on the agenda again. Jon and I fished it way too hard last time with no result. Its gotta happen the next time out. Send your positive vibes.

For me, that fish was the redeemer.

Jon and I experienced “not steelhead” last weekend.

This is a new term which will replace “we got skunked” (at least for me) for when you get skunked steelhead fishing.

Because its not truly a skunking. It’s just “not steelhead.”

I’ll post a far more literary and photographically telling account of a steelhead trip after I catch one of the elusive sumbitches.

For now, I’ll just say it was typical steelhead fishing in Western Washington. Rainy and cold and standing in the river.

Yet it was still awesome. Beautiful rivers and impressive forests.

I suppose this is why I like fly fishing so much. The pursuit adds a secondary goal to an already badass primary goal.

Primary goal=get out in the woods; experience the environment

Secondary goal=drag a fly rod out there and catch a fish from this environment

Next time we get out there…its happening. Both goals will be achieved.

The consolation prize was fishing Hood Canal under “less than ideal” conditions and still having some success.

There were major winds out there, churning the water into a frothy chop. It became surf fishing. But Jon prevailed…

We fished the spot hard, with the wind unrelenting and the water rolling in like the surf on an open ocean beach.

Jon got two more and I managed to scare up a single fish.

The tide started pushing in and we decided to head back to the spot we fished earlier in the day.

Though the spot was only 2 or 3 miles up the canal, the winds hadn’t quite arrived yet.

On my second cast, after only a couple of strips…I felt the good pull.

Brought the fish to hand and admired a lean sea run cutt. This fish seemed to be a specimen that had recently been upstream spawning. It was strong, but it was slim. Looked like it had been exercising.

I turned it loose and reflected on the fact that while there is the singular prize of Pacific Northwest fishing that is the steelhead, the amazing sea run cutthroat trout provides an excellent alternative when you can’t make the steelhead respond.

But I’ll get a response from a steelhead soon. They occupy firmly the top spot on my list. Next outing…it’s on…

I’m pleased to introduce the first guest post to my little blog. Through a chance encounter on the Washington Fly Fishing Forum, I was fortunate enough to get a chance to fish with my now good fishing buddy Jonathan out on his boat chasing resident silver salmon a few months back.

Last weekend he made a foray to the “dryside,” or Eastern Washington. He fished a water body that is well known in Washington State and throughout the West for its opportunities to catch LARGE trout. I’ve learned not to overtly name spots on the internet so I will only say that the name of the water has something to do with geology and automobiles. With the formalities out of the way, I offer Jon’s account of his “dryside bowhunting”…bowhunting in this case being chasing rainbow trout…

I started fishing early Saturday morning under an overcast sky with a moderate breeze out of the north, making it just cold enough to freeze the guides on my fly rod. I began casting a size 14 olive scud to cruising rainbow trout and missed several fish before I finally hooked up with a nice 20” bow.

As the morning wore on, the wind steadily picked up making sight fishing difficult. So I headed down stream to the skinny water where the water speed increases and the channel of the creek narrows. I started off fishing two midges under an indicator. One a size 18 bead head grey sparkle midge and the other a size 20 black chironomid. This accounted for several small fish in the 10” to 14” range and one nice 18” bow that leapt out of the water several times as it tore up and down the little pool that I was fishing until it tired enough to bring to hand.

In the afternoon, the wind died down a bit and the sun made an appearance triggering a mayfly hatch that was bringing all of the fish in the 8” to 16” range to the surface. I tried a dozen or so patterns, doing my best to imitate the size 14 mayflies, but the only fly that I could convince two fish to take off of the surface was a size 16 adams fished in a quick riffle. For being relatively small fish, they were very selective and tough to fool.

After the mayfly hatch started to taper off, I sat down to take a break and try to absorb as much of the February sun that I could. While taking in the beautiful scenery I hear a pheasant cackle somewhere off in the cattails, then the rooster makes an appearance and flies across the stream in the warm sunlight as the smell of sagebrush gently flows along with the now pleasant breeze. What an amazing winter afternoon in eastern Washington, I think to myself. Then I realize “hey enough sitting around…I came here to fish…let’s rip some lips.”

So I pull out the streamer box and tie on a cone head woolly bugger that I plan on retrieving through the various little pools in hopes of hooking something a little more substantial than I have up until this point. About ten casts in, my line comes tight and I set the hook and right in front of me this giant trout comes cartwheeling out of the water then races downstream. As I am in hot pursuit, he is trying to rub through my leader on various rocks and cattails, as if this technique for shaking a hook had worked for him before. However, my tiny 7x (2lb test) leader holds and I slide him up into the shallows. He measured 24” long and was an absolute tank that I would guess at around 7lbs. I get a couple pictures of him and begin to revive him, which only takes a few seconds, just long enough for me to appreciate what a fine specimen of a trout that he was.

After the bite slows down in the fast water, I head back upstream where I began the day to fish the slower wider sections of the stream. As the evening wears on, I break out my clear intermediate line and attach a leader of about 5x or roughly (4lb test). At the end is a big, size 4, brown woolly bugger. From on top of a boulder, I cast out across the stream and begin working my streamer back towards me when WHAM! Fish on. I play the fish for a bit, land him and then send him on his way. I repeat this same method: cast, strip, strip, strip… fish on..  until night falls and it becomes too dark to see and too cold to feel my hands.

All in all it was a successful day; I ended up with 15 rainbow trout from 10” to 24” with the average being around 20” or so. I got my winter trout fix to hold me over until some steelhead fishing or lake fishing can be pursued in March. So I made the trek home back over the Cascades to Gig Harbor to plan the next fishing adventure.

-Jonathan

Jonathan and I have plans to chase steelhead next weekend. Once again, I am cautiously optimistic. I think I am over 1,000 total casts in pursuit of these chrome ghosts so something has to give. I feel privileged I will get the chance to get out to the Olympic Peninsula with Jonathan. As evidenced above, the guy knows how to fish.

I’ll keep this brief.

Jonathan and I got into the sea run cutthroat again in a good way.

He had tied a baitfish fly that was very persuasive to the cutts. He probably caught 6 or more. A few were quite healthy.

I had a few hookups on various patterns but no fish to hand.

Jonathan offered up one of his freshly tied flies and I proceeded to land the fish of the day. Not the creature Jonathan dredged up last week, but still a beautiful specimen.

My single nice fish and Jonathan’s multiple scores made it another great day on the water.

We’re aiming for a steelhead trip in early March. If we can get some of our cutthroat luck to rub off onto the steelhead excursion…well…I’m not even going to say it. But it could happen.

The job had me singing the blues for the most part of last week.

However, the stress was easily relieved on Super Bowl Sunday.

Two weeks ago, I had severed my fly line on a prop while fishing from my buddy Jonathan’s boat. As a testament as to why you should patronize your local specialty establishments, I offer this…

I dropped my reel off, with the aforementioned severed line, at the Gig Harbor Fly Shop, last weekend. Zack did a phenomenal surgery job and fused my line back together. Then I found another break in it. Old line…bound to happen. Brought it back to the shop. The fellas at the shop reminded me Zack was off guiding steelhead for the weekend. Told them I was aiming to fish the next day. Colton, a good dude who works at the fly shop, told me to hang on. He brought out a really nice rig (Scott fly rod and Nautilus reel) and told me to use that to fish with for the next week.

So I said..”OK.”

This is why you should patronize your local businesses. I had a problem with my relatively inexpensive gear that may have hindered me from fishing. Not only did the guys at the fly shop assure me they’d fix it…they loaned me out about a $900 setup so I could fish. Simply awesome on their part.

Had the pleasure of taking the rig out on Hood Canal with Jonathan early Super Bowl Sunday morning.

We made it to our first spot at about 7:45. The last two hours of the small outgoing tide. As we walked out to the point we planned to fish, something about the tide stage just looked good.

We got up on the point, and Jonathan and I spread out. We saw a dimple in some calm water and Jonathan went to throw a popper at it. I started with a little olive and white streamer.

I fished my side of the point for about 30 or 40 minutes and nothing had happened. Saw some ripples but not much else. I walked over to where Jonathan was at and he told me he had seen one jumper. We were a little surprised he had nothing happening on the popper considering he had seen the fish jump.

We decided to switch up some flies. I tied on a brown sea run bugger sculpin pattern. As I was doing so I saw a fish jump and got on the hustle. It jumped again and Jonathan said it looked just like the one he had seen. I threw cast nearly parallel to shore. Two moderate strips and I felt some weight. Fish on! Quickly had to hand a scrappy little 12″-13″ cutt. I wound up again threw a few more casts. Bump…another fish on. At first it didn’t seem as good as the last one but after its initial slouching it started turning around on me so I knew it was a better fish. Got it to hand and it was indeed a better fish, probably 14-15″ and thicker.

There were more fish jumping which was a promising sign. We knew it meant there was actually a decent amount of fish on this spot. Not just a few solitary ones we managed to scare up. I step out to warm up a bit and Jonathan is quickly hooked up. Soon, he’s got another 13-14″ or so fish to hand. I managed to break my hot fly off on the rocks, so I threw some experiments. Squid fly, different little baitfish streamers. They were still jumping but didn’t want what I was throwing. Jonathan said he had dug deep in his fly box as well.

We kept at it for another 30 minutes or so, but no takers, though they were still jumping now and again so we decided to head to another spot that had treated me well in the past. We got down there as the tide seemed to have turned and was headed back in. We spread out again and started casting. I quickly hooked a little guy, but it threw the fly. I look over and see Jonathan down at the other point with a fish on. As I’m walking over there, I see him hook up again…the arc in the rod indicated this was a pretty good fish. As I was walking up Jonathan was getting ready to snap a photo but it squirmed loose and swam off.

“That one was probably 15 or 16,” Jonathan told me.

We both start casting and I look over and Jonathan’s got another. Next strip I make, I’ve got one on too. Nice double of a couple of 13″ or 14″ fish. Mine scared the hell out of itself because it took a little jump and landed on a thin sheet of ice that was floating in front of us. It broke right through the ice but I think that fish was thoroughly confused by my ice fishing techniques.

Jonathan tosses another cast and has a little resident silver to hand.

Jonathan says, “Alright, I’ve got to throw a popper at them.” He does and I stay with my little bugger pattern. Jonathan throws a cast with the popper, takes one strip, and has a BIG cutthroat, cartwheeling out of the water in ambush on his popper. Loud splash and Jonathan has the fish on. You could tell when you got broadside looks at it in the water that it was a hoss.

He got it close enough and I slipped the net underneath. Success! This was one of the largest cutts I have seen and it was absolutely gorgeous. A golden hue, and almost tiger tout-like spots on its back. It pushed 19 inches. We snapped the photos and sent it home.

We both had a few more follows and I had a pretty decent fish on that shook free.

We called it, and took in the scenery. Enjoying the sunshine and laughing at the fact that we were catching some beautiful coastalcutthroat during  the first week of February in 50 degree, sunny weather.

A great outing, and one hell of a fish.

I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to get out on a boat with a really cool individual named Jonathan.

That’s him on the bow of his boat from which we were chasing “rezzies” (resident ‘silver’ or ‘coho’ salmon).

Jonathan dropped a post on the Washington FlyFishing Forum looking to take his boat out and do some fishing. I was lucky and got a quick response in saying I was down.

We planned to get out Saturday morning but the winds were nasty. Well actually, the whole preceding week was nasty. Western Washington got hit with a pretty good storm. Here’s our yard few days prior:

We ended up getting out on Sunday instead. It was so cold in the D as we launched but the winds weren’t terrible. We ran quickly down south of the Narrows Bridge where I had seen some fish jumping the weekend before during the front end of the winter storm.

We found them quick enough. A pretty good group of them jumping off the beach. I’m still finishing off the loop to secure my fly on my line when I look up and Jonathan’s already hooked up. I didn’t waste any time. Luckily, our proximity to the fish probably helped my weak ass casting and next thing I know I’ve got that good pull happening as well. We brought them in after some aerial acrobatics and Jonathan netted both fish:

We turned them loose to go get grown and started looking for the next jumpers. We found a few more and had some hookups and follows, but they seemed to have become a little less conspicuous. Meanwhile, the wind was beginning make itself felt.

We ran a little further south into a protected bay and tried a creek mouth for some cutts. No takers, but I reckon that spot will have some fish in the Spring and throughout Summer.

So we ran back out into the Narrows and did some searching and blind casting. We found them every now again and had some hookups and chases. I managed to quit paying attention to what I was doing and let my fly line drift into the prop on Jonathan’s 90 hp motor. I saw my rod bending and realized my mistake  just a bit too late. My fly line was sheared in two. Luckily it was only about 10 feet in and I quickly tied a loop on the end of the fly line and threw on a new sinktip. We were casting again and looking for the visual confirmation of the rezzie’s presence when we both turned toward the silver glimmer that caught our peripheral vision. About 20-30′ off the bow  a pretty good fish had just cleared water and landed with a smack a bit more audible than the other jumps we had witnessed. Jonathan was on it, laying down a nice cast towards the splash and got the hookup after only a few strips of his chartreuse and white Clouser.

A really nice, fat, 16″ silver.

By now the wind was making casting a real chore and Jonathan knew that shit would get dicey at the boat elevator at Point Defiance where we launched.

He wasn’t BS-ing. The chop was nasty on the run back but we got his boat safely out of the water.

I’m certainly fortunate I got the opportunity to get out with Jonathan and fish the salt from a boat. I’ve stomped the beaches hard since I moved back up to Washington, but chasing them from a boat, especially when targeting such a mobile species, is pretty much the best. Looking forward to the day we’ve got easy winds and can hit it for 6-8 hours.

More fishing soon. Definitely plan on taking another crack at winter steelhead. I think I’m over 1000 casts now so it shouldn’t be long before I connect. I’ll post evidence when it happens.

Meanwhile, here’s a shot from an outing two weeks ago that didn’t yield any fish but provided some nice scenery.

But it will be soon. For me anyway. For that river up there. Well it could be. But we’re probably going to f*ck it up and it won’t come back. Unless we do something.

New job. Busy. Camera broke. It gets dark at 5:00 PM. Blah, blah, blah…

All true but still poor excuses for my lack of posts lately. I’ve been fishing but haven’t caught a lot.

Got a new/old camera and I’ll be back on it soon.

In the meantime please read this about the Elwha River in Washington, undergoing the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

http://www.flyrodreel.com/magazine/2012/january/kill-reborn-river

This bothers the hell out of me. I’m planning on enrolling in Master’s degree program in Environmental Studies at Evergreen State College here in Washington with my focus on being fighting for causes like these.

This river could make a comeback. But if something doesn’t happen soon it won’t.

If there’s a cause out there you believe in. Any cause. Social, environmental, economic, humanitarian…whatever. Think about what you can do about it and do something. No matter how small. Even as simple as telling someone else about it.

I’ve seen this in Texas. More than once.

In Texas, water snakes are fairly common and nearly every snake one encounters in, or even near the water is a water moccasin. Right?

No… that’s just what everyone thinks. With fairly good reason. Most water snakes (moccasins included) share similar markings and are roughly the same size. Evidently, all you need to do is examine the pattern on its back and determine if one tannish, brownish, dark tannish, dark brownish, diamondish, rhombusish, pattern differs only slightly from another “pattern” and you know you’re safe.

The good thing is that non-venomous (read: not a flippin’ water mocassin) water snakes, outnumber their venomous cousins by a VERY significant margin in central Texas. So, as one who tried to stave off the often insufferable heat of a Texas summer by getting in the water to fish or swim or whatever…I grew to basically like and not fear snakes. Although, once or twice, when I thought I was stepping on a drowned tree branch and it started slithering, I definitely recoiled in terror.

With all that being said, now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, I haven’t thought about snakes as being even remotely scary in quite some time. Yeah I know there are rattlers all over eastern Washington and the rest of the dusty dry “West”, but I live in on the “wetside” (no, not a typo for Westside, although I do live in western Washington) meaning that those snakes just don’t exist in our woods and waters. Or so I thought…

I actually witnessed the scene above while spending some time with my folks on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. You can imagine my surprise when, while wade fishing on a beach, in a different country, significantly further north than where I already live, I saw a snake, with markings eerily similar to those I knew from Texas, trying to eat this fish. What’s even more fouled up? This was in a creek feeding into SALTWATER, only 15 feet away from the open saltwater of the Strait of Georgia.

Whatever…I’d call it a flashback except for my own photographic evidence. I’m still pretending it didn’t happen.

B.C. is known as “Beautiful British Columbia” for good reason. Just go to Google maps, put on the satellite view and see why for yourself.

I didn’t catch any fish there, nor have I caught any on my home waters lately.

I started a new job which takes up a significant amount of my time. I know…the story of everyone’s life.

I’ve got some time this weekend, however, and I plan to change that.

I’ll post with fish soon. (Last time I promised this, I caught one of my best sea run cutts ever so my expectations are high; even if that’s a presumptuous recipe for a skunking.)

There’s a kayak in the equation now (more on that later), and that means significantly increased odds in the favor of the angler.

In the meantime and in-between time here’s a few scenes from Beautiful British Columbia.