Apocalypse Steelheader

End of the Road

2011-05-17T14:51:00.001-07:00

Well it's been a while now since I've update the blog. The dearth of updates is the product of a variety of factors, but mostly lots of other things going on and lack of inspiration to write interesting pieces. Seeing as I can't honestly say that the situation will be any different in the near future I think its best to bring this chapter to an end rather than letting the blog die a slow death from indifference and neglect. Suffice it to say its been really fun writing this, hopefully some of you have enjoyed reading, and maybe gained something deeper, a connection to the fish, the sport and the people that love them both. I will leave you with this thought, themes which have appeared often over the last year plus...

I honestly believe there is a future for wild salmon and steelhead in the Northwest, and a future for our sport. That future however is one which we actively shape every day, wild fish need our voice but perhaps more importantly we need them. Without wild salmon and steelhead our sport will wither and die, unable to be sustained in any recognizable form by the hatchery counterfits and the types of fisheries they support. As anglers it is incumbent upon us to never lose sight of that fact, to demand more of our resource managers, our fellow anglers and most importantly ourselves. The river is our temple, let us not desecrate it with disrespect. Let us cherish it, protect it and always seek to understand it. Through that understanding we gain a view into something greater than ourselves, something that has always been and, god willing always will be. The river is the pulse of the land, the vitality which is drawn from the age old rocks and mountains, the ancient trees and the water which has forever run to the sea. The salmon and especially the steelhead give us and a momentary glimpse into that world. A bastion of natures wild perfection in our chaotic and mechanized world. Their beauty, power and stamina are a reminder of why we love them and of their fragility. The future is in our hands, long live the wild fish.

Curse of the Banana

2011-04-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

Steelheaders are understandably a superstitious bunch. Trying to provoke a grab one of the most ghostlike mysterious freshwater fish on the planet with a fly, when they aren't even actively feeding will do that. and when most of us catch only a handful of fish in a given season, we're looking for any little bit of luck we can get. Matt Klara's column for sexy loops this week on fishing superstitions got me thinking about my own superstitions surrounding fishing. I have a few but perhaps the most important is, never bring bananas fishing. I wont even touch them for 24 hours before a trip, wouldn't want to carry any bad mojo with me on the road. So a couple weeks back when my friend Jon Moore showed up for a day of fishing with a banana I was concerned. Apparently he was unaware of the fact that bringing a bananas is a surefire way to ensure that you have a fishless day on the river. The damage was done though and after a good natured ribbing we strung up the rods and started fishing. It wasn't 10 minutes before Jon had hooked and lost a fish on his first day EVER speycating. Needless to say I was feeling a little sheepish.

Flash forward two weeks. Yesterday back on the same river, his 4th day of fishing the two-hander. After a quiet morning I went back tot he truck while he went down river to fish another run. Grabbing sandwiches from his bag I reached in and, gasp another banana. For a superstitious steelhead bum like myself this is when the horror movie sound track starts. Oh god, this day might as well be over. He brought a banana again AND now I'd touched it. Anyways, trying to get over the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I tossed the sandwiches in my backpack and headed back to the river to meet Jon. In the next run, a sweet, long piece of water with two foot chunks of grantie interspersed throuhout I set Jon in the bottom half and started at the top. Ten minutes later it was deja vu all over again, him with a hot fish jumping on the end of the line, me feeling incredulous that my banana superstition didn't seem to apply to him.

The thing is, the fish ended up coming unpinned and I didn't touch anything either of the two days. So perhaps the curse of the banana is real after all. The only way to truly establish the credibility of the ancient and feared banana curse is to put it to the test by swinging a fish while dangling a banana in the water from your wading belt. Of course to do such a thing is to risk death or worse, bad steelhead karma...Klara are you game?

This is it

2011-04-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

Last week of April and we're nearing the end of steelhead season. Depending on the weather we may occasionally get a week or two of May before runoff starts full force but that of course remains to be seen. What is true though is that we've had one of the coldest springs that anyone can remember, keeping the snow largely locked in the mountains up to now. Normally by this time run off has started, slowly at first but enough to keep the river flush with water and that beautiful green color of spring steelhead water. There's been some fish around, we'll have to see what we can find tomorrow.

Back From the Hinterlands

2011-04-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

With a few photos from last weeks trip north. should be a great summer, more soon

Salvelinus confluentus

2011-04-08T22:45:00.000-07:00

Bull trout release.

What Luck

2011-04-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of fishing yesterday with Jon Moore, new faculty in our biology department. Jon is a salmon enthusiast who like myself, spent several years at UW fisheries. He also happens to be an avid steelheader. Having just moved to BC, he's been in the market for a two handed rod for sometime, so yesterday, finally having his new T&T 1307 in hand, lined up and ready for the river we decided to get out for a day of fishing, casting and bullshitting. Starting the day at a nice long run that fishes from river left we spent the first 15 minutes practicing the snap-t and before long Jon was making casts in the 50 foot range and fishing well. Seeing that he'd gotten comfortable enough casting to be left to his own devices I started to wander off upriver but before I could go more than 30 yards he let out a whoop. I turned around just in time to see his rod doubled over, pulsing with the weight of a fish. Then as quickly as it had happened, the fish was gone, unseen but memorable none the less. Hooking a winter fish on your first day of spey casting is certainly not the norm, but there's nothing like a little taste of luck to plant the seed of addiction.

BC Government DFO Gone Awry

2011-03-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

As the Cohen commission has progressed its been a bit like watching a sad train wreck. The BC government and DFO have long been boosters for the aquaculture industry, most of which is foreign owned, but their behavior of late has crossed a line in attempts to shield the industry from scrutiny from the public. No longer are they simply ignoring the effects that salmon farming is having on wild fish throughout the Georgia Basin, now they're covering it up.

A major publication by a DFO researcher and a group of collaborators recently revealed that a viral pathogen, likely salmon leukemia, is having devastating effects on Fraser Sockeye with as much as 95% of some components of the run dying before they reach the spawning grounds. Since the publication she has not been allowed to speak to the media and so far DFO refuses to test salmon farms( a likely vector and breeding ground for any disease) for salmon leukemia.

Recently, when asked to furnish disease records for the Cohen commissions inquiry into the Fraser Sockeye collapse the government declined, saying the records, do not include information about the location of the sampling and are there for irrelevant. First of all, I don't buy it. No one has seen the records save for a few attorneys and the BC government, but who honestly collects data without noting their location? If someone who is trained as a scientist did collect information in such a fashion they certainly did it for a reason. And guess who the province trotted out to announce they wouldn't be releasing court ordered disease records? Gary Marty, the esteemed veterinary scientist who recently found it within his area of expertise to publish a paper using proprietary industry sea lice data which dubiously claimed that population collapses of Broughton Archipelago pink salmon were not caused by lice. Not only that, but rather than face the very obvious conflict of interest head on he chose to publish the paper through a faculty posting he has at UC Davis, oh but by the way he's a fish pathologist with the BC ministry of agrniculture when it comes to shielding fish farming companies from public scrutiny. I suppose that's out of UC Davis' mandate.

All of this stinks it is becoming increasingly apparent that the BC government and DFO and really just bullshit machines intent on allowing open net pen salmon farming to continue unchecked in the provinces waters. We've already seen collapses of multiple species throughout the Georgia Basin concurrent with the expansion of the fishfarming industry, doesn't that alone warrant good hard scientific look at the impact of fish farms? And the sad fact is the industry could very easily be making money in closed containment, on land, they just dont want to. So instead foreign owned fish farming companies (mostly Norwegian) are happy to place BC's public resources at risk, biding their time until one day, hopefully in the near future, they cut and run. Lets just hope the devastation isn't as bad as what they've left in Chile, Norway, Ireland and basically everywhere else they're gone.

A Big Week for Public Fishing Rights

2011-03-24T21:39:00.001-07:00

Great news from Montana where state lawmakers finally came to their senses and opted to table a controversial law that would have dramatically reduced public access to rivers in the state. HB 309 appears to be dead thanks in large part to the voices of the angling community who saw the bill for what it was, a move by wealthy land owners to privatize fishing rights in the state. Also, in BC the provincial government has opted to delay implementation of laws that would further reduce the ability of non-residents to angle without a guide. Glad to see lawmakers finally seeing the light and understanding how fundamentally important public access to rivers is.

t-bone contemplating rule changes in the North Country

Alive Again

2011-03-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

Venturing almost as far from civilization as is possible in these parts, Ralf and I spent yesterday exploring some new water and visiting a few of his favorites. It was a perfect day for steelheading, mild with temperatures reaching into the 50s by afternoon and a light drizzle falling for most of the morning. In the steep glacial valley the clouds hung close the precipitous mountain sides, draped in moss and studded with the hardscrabble firs and spruce which predominate the region. The river looked good too, after falling for almost a week it still had a touch of color and enough flow to give us confidence in our presentations. A month of fishless swings had my confidence at a low ebb, but this time of year anytime the line is in the water good things can happen.

About 11:30 we crossed the river and walked up to a nice run where two braids came together, pushing hard against the left bank and creating a soft bucket in the head. Ralf chose to fish the tail, a long ambling piece of water and I shuffled up to the top. The run was fishy and swimming my white, pink and orange offering through I felt I was covering the water well. maybe 15 casts into the run the line tightened with an almost imperceptibly light tug. Waiting but focused I let the fish take the fly, turn and then set in a sweep towards the bank. Instantly it was rushing down and across river leaping downstream, then upstream again, far into my backing. After one of the strongest fights I have seen in some time the fish finally came to hand, a thick shouldered buck, bright and probably 12 pounds. Minutes later Ralf would hook and loose another fish on the leap.

We fished the rest of the day only landing a few bull trout, but the afternoon sun was glorious and the memory of the leaping fish is forever etched in my memory. We also had an encounter with a bobcat. Apparently unperturbed by our presence he sat watching us fish for almost an hour, at one point allowing me within 30 feet to snap a photo. A day like that revitalizes the will to fish, sharpens the focus and highlights just how preciously short the season is. In a land dominated by its glacial past and present fish arrive to the spawning grounds late. From now until freshet we will see some of the best fishing of the year and I for one am really looking forward to it.

afternoon visitor

Missing the Stomping Grounds

2011-03-21T22:38:00.000-07:00

This time of year is when the heartsick longing for the beleaguered but still epically mighty river comes on strong. Undoubtedly this weeks rain has brought some nice fresh fish into the system and chances are, were it legal, we'd probably be able to eek out some of the sweetest days of the year right about now. instead I'm sitting at home riding a month long dryspell thats damn near broken my will. Anyways, I'll keep the line in the water and hope something good happens, starting tomorrow. In the meantime here's a photo of the river I've always enjoyed.

The Atlantic Salmon Journal

2011-03-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a steelhead fisherman and in general I have a hard time getting excited about other quarry. That said, what steelhead angler doesn't fantasize about fishing for atlantic salmon? Atlantic salmon are the aristocratic cousins of steelhead and our sport owes many of its ritualized traditions to the long held practices of fishing for atlantics. Equally chrome, and slightly larger on average, atlantic salmon share the steelhead's aggressiveness towards and swung fly and under the right conditions are known to take skated flies.

A few weeks back I was busy wasting time on the internet perusing photos of chrome atlantics from eastern canada, and russia. Wiping the drool away from the corner of my mouth I stumbled across a link to the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a group based in Eastern Canada dedicated to the preservation of Atlantic Salmon Fisheries. Intrigued I read more, turns out for the price of an annual membership (25 bucks I think) they will send you their beautiful quarterly publication the Atlantic Salmon Journal, needless to say I signed up. I'm not really one to subscribe to fishing magazines, mostly because I find the stories are typically repetitive and poorly written but I like to support the conservation of beautiful anadromous fish even if I may never be blue blooded enough to actually fish for them. Sort of a principle thing I guess.

The magazine didn't disappoint, full of beautiful photography and art it strikes the right tone in balancing angling with conservation and avoids the normal, how to, where to drivel we're all so accustomed to. Anyways, check out their website and if you want to get a sweet quarterly magazine and support a fantastic cause.

http://www.asf.ca/journal.php

Avid Angler Under New Ownership

2011-03-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

Established in 1975 the Avid Angler has long been a fixture for Puget Sound area fly fishers. With a great selection of materials and equipment, and a friendly, knowledgeable staff its one of my favorite shops. Since Nate Keen, the shops long time manager and part owner left the shop a few years ago for a different job some of us worried. No need to worry now, good friend, world class guide and former Avid employee Ryan Smith recently bought the shop, ensuring that the Seattle area institution will remain in business and thrive. The shop will still be in Lake Forest Park but is moving a few storefronts down to a slightly smaller space. That's not to say they're cutting the good stuff out, they'll still carry the best selection of feathers, hooks, rods, reels and bullshit in the area. Ryan is a good friend and I'm glad to see the shop is in good hands, congrats buddy!

BC Seeing the Light

2011-03-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

For the time being at least BC is opting not to change angling regulations in the Skeena pending the outcome of a tourism and economic impacts study. The province had been planning on adopting a controversial set of rules that would limit non-resident angler access to many watersheds in the Skeena system. The rule changes had been heavily supported by the guiding industry. Good news for fish bums world wide who would rather drink cheap whiskey in a wet sleeping bag than pay 5000 bucks a week to fish in the pampered setting of an overpriced fishing lodge.

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2011NRO0004-000199.htm

Get Derelict Gear out of Washington Waters

2011-03-07T12:32:00.000-08:00

A bill in Washington State which would vastly improve reporting and recovery capacity for lost and derelict fishing gear is currently stalled in committee. If it doesn't make it out by the end of the day today (5:00PM) it will be dead. Every year ghost nets, lost traps, etc kill thousands of fish, birds and other marine life in Washington. This is a no brainer. Check out the osprey for more info and contact your state senator immediately.

http://ospreysteelheadnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/action-needed-derelict-fishing-gear-out.html

Something Stinks in Montana

2011-03-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

Something I’ve been watching the last several weeks is the current controversy in Montana over protecting public access to streams. Apparently some wealthy landowners feel that owning land adjacent to a river gives them exclusive rights to fishing the river, despite the fact that the laws of Montana, and many other states protect the rights of citizens to accessing public waterways. HB 309 which has already passed the state house and is headed to the senate next week is a bad idea for a lot of reasons both economic and ethical, but what it really comes down to is, cutting off public access to rivers flies in the face of a long held tradition of land and river use in the US. Bowing to wealthy landowners who hope to secure private rights to angling on many of the West’s greatest fishing rivers would set a terrible precedent and reeks of the type of aristocratic entitlement that Americans loathe.

In the UK river front lands have been controlled by the wealthy elite for centuries, making angling for trout and salmon the exclusive realm those who can afford expensive daily rod fees, and memberships to private clubs. Part of what makes anling in North America unique and special is the relative equality in access for all members of society. Fishing transcends economic categorization and anglers range from deeply working class to extremely wealthy. The fact that so many Americans partake in fishing and other outdoor activities stems from the fact that we have followed a very different model of land ownership. The western United states was practically given away to settlers, railroad companies and investors to stimulate settlement and economic growth. In the same way we have long given private individuals and companies access to our public lands and resources for grazing, logging, irrigation, mining and other economically important activities. The west is built on the ability of individuals to share common space, while simultaneously protecting the rights of individuals and their property. Access to the outdoors is deeply ingrained in the culture of Western North America and it is critical that we protect the right of all members of society to enjoy these opportunities. Stream access laws are an essential part of the fabric of the culture and economy of the West. The rights of landowners should absolutely be protected, however public access to rivers has long come with the stipulation that river users respect private property and remain below the highwater mark while fishing adjacent to private land.

Montana is trout country. Every year thousands of anglers from all over the world make pilgrimage there to fish the legendary rivers of the state. The fly fishing industry and associated travel makes up a significant portion of Montana’s GDP, however angler visits to the state are largely contingent on individuals having access to rivers. Why Montana is even considering abolishing public access to rivers is practically unfathomable given their long reign as a North American mecca for fly fishing. The only conceivable explanation is that wealthy, influential land owners have effectively lobbied Montana’s state government to consider a law that does not benefit the vast majority of the state’s citizens. That stinks so lets call it what it is, bullshit. If you’re from Montana, let your state senators know you oppose the passage of HB 309. If you’re a non-resident of the state, email the governor and tell him that while you have enjoyed traveling to Montana in the past your interest in visiting the state is contingent upon open access to rivers.

The bill goes before the Senate Agricultural Committee this Tuesday March 8th and a rally at the state capitol building is planned for 2:00 that day.

Contact the governor at:
http://governor.mt.gov/cabinet/contactus.asp

Here is a list of the Senators:
SD 01: Chas Vincent (R) 34 Paul Bunyan Lane Libby, MT 59923 
293-3839 / Cvvincent@hotmail.com

SD 02: Ryan Zinke (R) 409 West 2nd Street Whitefish, MT 59937 
862-0823 / Ryanzinke@yahoo.com

SD 03: Bruce Tutvedt (R) 2335 West Valley Drive Kalispell, MT 59901 
257-9732 / Tutvedt@montanasky.us

SD 04: Jon Sonju (R) PO Box 2954 Kalispell, MT 59903 
270-7113 / Sonjumt@yahoo.com

SD 05: Verdell Jackson (R) 555 Wagner Ln Kalispell, MT 59901 
756-8344 / vjack@centurytel.net

SD 06: Carmine Mowbray (R) PO Box 1202 Polson, MT 59860 
883-4677 / clarity@cyberport.net

SD 07: Greg Hinkle (R) 5 Gable Road Thompson Falls, MT 59873 
827-4645 / ccwhi@blackfoot.net

SD 08: Shannon Augare (D) PO Box 2031 Browning, MT 59417 
450-0020 / Shannonjaugare@aol.com

SD 09: Rick Ripley (R) 8920 Highway 200 Wolf Creek, MT 59648 
Ripleys@3rivers.net

SD 10: Bradley Hamlett (D) PO Box 49  Cascade, MT 59421 
264-5885 / Wranglergallery@hotmail.com

SD 11: Anders Blewett (D) PO Box 2807 Great Falls, MT 59403 
231-8618 / Anders.blewett@gmail.com

SD 12: Mitch Tropila (D) PO Box 929 Great Falls, MT 59403 
899-3474 / tropila@mt.net

SD 13: Edward Buttrey (R) 27 Granite Hill Lane Great Falls, MT 59405 
250-5103 / ebuttrey@cteq.com

SD 14: Llew Jones (R) 1102 4th Avenue South West Conrad, MT 59425 
271-3104 / Lcjones@3rivers.net

SD 15: Jim Peterson (R) 1250 Buffalo Canyon Road Buffalo, MT 59418 
374-2277 / jpranch@ttc-cmc.net

SD 16: Jonathan Windy Boy (D) Box 269 Box Elder, MT 59521 
395-4718 / Windyboy_j@yahoo.com

SD 17: Rowlie Hutton (R) 2 Lila Drive Havre, MT 59501 
hutton4senate@yahoo.com

SD 18: John Brenden (R) PO Box 970 Scobey, MT 59263 
783-5394 / senatorbrenden@gmail.com

SD 19: Donald Steinbeisser (R) 11918 County Road 348 Sidney, MT 59270 
433-2187 / Donstein@midrivers.com

SD 20: Frederick Moore (R) 487 Signal Butte Road Miles City, MT 59301 
234-3562 / elmoore@midrivers.com

SD 21: Sharon Peregoy (D) PO Box 211 Crow Agency, MT 59022 
639-2198 / apsaalookewoman@yahoo.com

SD 22: Taylor Brown (R) 775 Squaw Creek Road Huntley, MT 59037 
348-2070 / Taylor@northernbroadcasting.com

SD 23: Alan Olson (R) 18 Halfbreed Creek Rd Roundup, MT 59072 
323-3341 / Ajolson@midrivers.com

SD 24: Kim Gillan (D) 750 Judicial Avenue Billings, MT 59105 
248-6063 / Glonky@aol.com

SD 25: Kendall Van Dyk (D) PO Box 441 Billings, MT 59103 
690-1728 / Kendallvandyk@gmail.com

SD 26: Lynda Moss (D) 552 Highland Park Drive Billings, MT
59102 252-7318 / Lyndamoss@imt.net

SD 27: Gary Branae (D) 415 Yellowstone Avenue Billings, MT 59101 
245-2127 / Garybranae@gmail.com

SD 28: Jeff Essmann (R) 2101 Grand Ave #5 Billings, MT 59108 
259-8404 / Jeff@jeffessmann.com

SD 29: Edward Walker (R) 4221 Rimrock Road Billings, MT 59106 
697-6967 / ewalker@edwalker2010.com

SD 30: Jason Priest (R) PO Box 743 Red Lodge, MT 59068 
425-0674 / jason@priest2010.com

SD 31: Ron Arthun (R) 285 Shields River Road Wilsall, MT 59086 
578-2340 / ronarthun@gmail.com

SD 32: Larry Jent (D) 506 East Babcock Bozeman, MT 59715 
587-1210 / larry@imt.net

SD 33: Bob Hawks (D) 703 West Koch Street Bozeman, MT 59715 
587-1403 / R_hawks@imt.net

SD 34: Joe Balyeat (R) 6909 Rising Eagle Road Bozeman, MT 59715 
539-5547 / Joebalyeat@yahoo.com

SD 35: Art Wittich (R) 3116 Sourdough Road Bozeman, MT 59715 
585-7418 / art@wittich4senate.com

SD 36: Debby Barrett (R) 18580 Highway 324 Dillon, MT 59725 
681-3177 / Grt3177@smtel.com

SD 37: Steven Gallus (D) 2319 Harvard Avenue Butte, MT 59701 
494-3914 / Steve.gallus@gmail.com

SD 38: Jim Keane (D) 2131 Wall Street Butte, MT 59701 
723-8378

SD 39: Terry Murphy (R) 893 Boulder Cut Off Road Cardwell, MT 59721 
285-6937 / murphter5@yahoo.com

SD 40: Mary Caferro (D) PO Box 1036 Helena, MT 59624 
443-4066 / Marycaferro@gmail.com

SD 41: Christine Kaufmann (D) PO Box 1566 Helena, MT 59624 
439-0256 / Kaufmann@mt.net

SD 42: Dave Lewis (R) 5871 Collins Rd Helena, MT 59602 
458-5511 / Davelewisd@aol.com

SD 43: Gene Vuckovich (D) 1205 West Third Street Anaconda, MT 59711 
563-2313 / genev@q.com

SD 44: Bob Lake (R) PO Box 2096 Hamilton, MT 59840 
363-4091 / Lakemill@montana.com

SD 45: Jim Shockley (R) PO Box 608 Victor, MT 59875 
642-6647

SD 46: Carol Williams (D) 3533 Lincoln Hills Point Missoula, MT 59802 
728-8735 / Cwilliams@montanadsl.net

SD 47: Ron Erickson (D) 3250 Pattee Canyon Road Missoula, MT 59803 
549-4671 / Nancron@aol.com

SD 48: Tom Facey (D) 418 Plymouth Missoula, MT 59801 
728-6814 / facey_tom@hotmail.com

SD 49: Dave Wanzenried (D) 903 Sky Dr Missoula, MT 59804 
543-2775 / daveew@gmail.com

SD 50: Cliff Larsen (D) 8925 LaValle Creek Road Missoula, MT 59808 
728-1601 / Cliff@larsenusa.com

It's March

2011-03-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

Has been for a couple of days actually. If you're a steelheader that means the itch to abandon work, family, and society altogether to live under a bridge on a steelhead river is becoming more substantial with every passing day. Although few actually spin all the way out of control into a full blown life of fishing induced hermitage, March is a great time to be a steelheader. With snow falling from the sky right now in Vancouver you wouldn't know it was getting towards spring, but I guess thats why they say it comes in like a lion. Waiting for a little bump in the hydrographs before I head to the river but after a week of cold weather and low water its getting to be unbearable....

hope to find a few more of these before its all done

Doug Rose Word Up

2011-03-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

I ran across this article a while ago on Doug Rose's website and more or less forgot it. Its a worthwhile read though so I thought I would pass it along. In recent years the Peninsula has seen a huge influx of "flyfishing" guides fishing almost exclusively with indicators out of the boat. In this post Doug takes a good, nonpartisan look at what he personally defines as flyfishing for steelhead. Rather than bashing bobber fishers Doug focuses on the reasons why people historically chose to fly fish and how growing interest in flyfishing has led to some changes in the culture of the sport and the expectations that anglers have for a day of steelhead fly fishing. check it out here:

http://dougroseflyfishing.com/blog/?p=225

Low and Cold

2011-02-28T14:37:00.000-08:00

We've got a good batch of our annual low and cold conditions going on in the Pacific Northwest right now. With 6 inches of snow Saturday night, the lower mainland is still pretty messy and the rivers are hovering in the mid to upper 30s. Fish can still be found but an angler must adjust their water selection and tactics slightly, under these conditions T-bone usually fishes a dryline and a lightly weighted fly and has had good success. I prefer a light tip, long leader and a sparse fly. Might spend this week catching up on work and wait for some better conditions.

Deneki

2011-02-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

The folks at Deneki outdoors operate lodges in BC, Alaska, Chile and South Andros. While these fine establishments may be well beyond the humble means of a 25 year old dirtbag steelhead bum, Deneki has a reputation as one of the finest outfits in the business. They also have a blog updated daily with high quality content on tackle, technique, destinations and the occasional guest article. Linked in the sidebar and here:

http://www.deneki.com/

Politics As Usual

2011-02-20T15:45:00.000-08:00

Last week House Republicans continued their assult on the environment using massive cuts in federal discretionary spending to attack ESA protections in the Central Valley, remove funding for dam removal on the Klamath, and cripple the EPA and their capacity to regulate polluters. They're also proposing to slash all funding for NPR (I know the last one isn't environment, but in the long hours alone on the road NPR has always been a favorite). All this under the guise of of spending cuts, but the bottom line is these cuts are politically motivated, particularly when you consider discretionary spending they're cutting is only 1/6th of the federal budget.

Of course the alternative isn't too pretty either. A telling editorial last week in the Oregonian shed light on the fact that Washington's two Democratic Senators in collaboration with Gary Locke the former Governor turned head of the Commerce Department have been working actively to stifle debate on Snake River dam removal and ensure that the Obama administration adopt the illegal Bush BiOp as its own. As you can see the political choices we have in this country aren't particularly enticing. That's why it's critical that we are remain politically engaged to ensure that our representatives are accountable to their constituents. That is doubly true for my conservative friends, make sure your congressman knows you're a conservative voice for wild fish and the environment, there's lots of you out there, make your voice heard. In the coming weeks the senate will vote to pass their own budget for the current fiscal year and it is critical that the environmentally destructive provisions included in the House bill not make it through.

More info in the Osprey:
http://ospreysteelheadnews.blogspot.com/2011/02/hr1-undermines-salmon-recovery.html

Send a letter to your senator:
https://secure3.convio.net/sows/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=516

One for the road

2011-02-14T21:51:00.001-08:00

Headed out tomorrow morning with the steelhead dog. We'll be in the distant lands yet untouched by the internet so it might be a while before I get around to posting again. Hoping to come back with some photos, stories and old growth fish bum crust. In the meantime enjoy this photo from last week. Ralf taking it easy tossing a nice wedge.

Sweet Anticipation Plus a Few New Flies

2011-02-12T15:10:00.003-08:00

Newly Minted

Its raining in Vancouver today, hard. Its been a week since we had much measurable rainfall and the rivers have gotten pretty low. Over the next two or three days some areas of the Pacific Northwest are forecasted to see a few inches worth of rain, how much actually falls remains to be seen. Generally though its pretty likely that depending on where you're fishing conditions will range from absolutely perfectly cherry to somewhere just shy of flood stage. With a week of fishing ahead of me I'm taking a wait and see approach, watch the hydrographs and the weather forecast closely and make a call when things get a little bit more clear. For a normal member of society unaccustomed to the whims of winter river conditions it might seem maddening, particularly when most people plan vacations months ahead of time. For the steelheader it offers the tantalizing possibility that one or more of the favored stomping grounds could be fishing perfectly. A little high and green always beats the hell out of low and clear.

I've also been doing a good deal of tying lately. Then again, when am I not? Fishing with Ralf last weekend got me thinking about pattern design, size and what makes a steelhead bug "fishy". He's a proponent of smaller flies, tied sparse with just a little bit of flash so they sink well, but have lots of lifelike movement and shimmer. I've always loved the classic lines and sensibility of spey style flies but the appeal of more modern fly design with its emphasis on tubes and stingers, articulated, flash covered sea creature like monstrosities tends to also play a prominent role in my pattern design. So I've come up with a compromise. A classic prawn style spey fly, tied with all the traditional materials, but embellished with just enough flash and nastiness to make the fly really swim. This batch is tied on 1.5 AJs and should fish well under most winter conditions, but I think the pattern holds promise for summer runs as well if its tied on a smaller hook, particularly early in the season when the fish are bright and aggressive.

did someone say Jungle Cock?

Big Water

2011-02-10T17:35:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday with the river falling from a little overnight bump of water I spent the day swinging flies through the lower end of the Sea to Sky River. While the steelhead are few and far between this time of year the conditions had us hopeful and there are undoubtedly a few fish in the system already. This particular river is unique to the lower mainland because it offers one of the few truly big water fishing experiences in the region. The Puget Sound region is blessed with an abundance of medium to large rivers which tumble from their glacial headwaters out into the Puget Sound Lowlands creating some of the finest large river steelhead water on the planet. It is these rivers that have made the Puget Sound on of the epicenters of our steelhead flyfishing traditions. Heading north though the mountains push against the Pacific and the ocean reaches far inland through the steep glacial fjords of the BC Coastline.

No knock against smaller more confined water but large rivers offer a sort of majesty that is unique and breathtaking. Dwarfed along the banks of a massive run an angler is always tempted by the water just beyond reach, always wondering if just a few more feet could make the difference. There are runs that can be fished for hours. Step after step swimming the fly over the large alluvial boulders into the hangdown, where despite the river's massive size there always seems to be a willing fish. Even in the largest of rivers steelhead will and often do sit in unimaginably soft and shallow water. And when low light or slighlty murky water affords them cover the fish seem to prefer to slide into the shallows, along the gradually sloping bottom to lie in the softest part of the run.

Reading break is upon us now and the next week will be nothing but steelhead revelry. Really looking forward to getting back to some of the old haunts, maybe if the stars line up right we'll find a few fish.

Been A While

2011-02-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

Northcountry Flashback

Its been a while since I updated the blog. Apologies for the one dude somewhere out in the netherregions of the internet who actually cares. TW has probably been pressing refresh on the browser every 39 seconds for the last few days. Don't worry guys. I have been fishing, taking photographs and I'll take some time and try to write something very soon.

In the meantime...misguided state lawmakers in Washington are trying to merge WDFW with the parks and here's the killer, take the teeth out of the Fish and Wildlife Commission. I'm the first to acknowledge that WDFW has its shortcomings but the reality is, without a state fish and wildlife agency our chances of getting any sort of sound fisheries management in this state go to zero. At present the commission wields considerable power. They have the ability to hire and fire the director and as such play a prominent role in guiding WDFW's strategic vision. While hatchery and harvest reform still has a long way to go in Washington, the commission has played a major role in getting the ball rolling. If SB 5669 & HB 1850 are passed the governor will appoint the director of WDFW. Not a good idea when you consider how close Dino Rossi and his cronies at the Building Industry of Washington have been to getting the Governorship. Those are the same knobs that sued to delist upper Columbia steelhead.

The Osprey has more information and a link where you can take action.

http://ospreysteelheadnews.blogspot.com/2011/02/protect-fish-and-wildlife-commission.html

La Niña We Hardly Knew Thee

2011-02-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

For fish lovers in the pacific northwest the prospect of a La Niña winter is enough to make us lick our chops. Strong La Niña conditions are associated with productive marine conditions during the spring when millions of salmon and steelhead smolts are hitting the Pacific for the first time. These first few months in the salt are far and away the most important factor determining survival within that cohort and the run sizes that the river see's in subsequent years when fish return to spawn. Legendary years like 2001 and 2009 when more than 600 thousand steelhead passed Bonneville Dam came on the heels of strong La Niña winters the year before, when outmigrating steelhead and salmon entered the productive waters of the pacific. This winter is supposedly one of the strongest La Niñas on record but so far hasn't delivered the cold weather and hefty snow pack we're accustomed to. Chances are the ocean will still be more productive than usual, but the strange weather has rattled the confidence a little in the predictability of the climatological pattern. Cross your fingers, if it holds up like its supposed to fall 2012 could be amazing.

Fish Photos

2011-01-28T13:24:00.000-08:00

When it comes to fish photos I'm pretty particular. I like a photo where the fish is the subject and since I usually fish alone its all about making the call, can I get a photo of this fish without risking its survival? Last weekend in the last run of the day I hooked and landed a nice wild buck, around 7 or 8 pounds. Chrome but for a faint blush of pearl and purple on its cheek the fish would've made a great photo subject but I opted not to take it. In the small river where I'd caught it the fish never really had a chance to run a long ways meaning that when it came to hand it wasn't really all that tired. Instead of laying the fish in shallow water for it to flop around while I fumbled for my camera I opted to slip the hook out and release the fish quickly. Winter steelhead are hard to come by, and while I would've loved to have a photo of the fish it just wasn't the right situation. That happens, and besides, the fish is forever etched in my memory.

I see alot of fish photos where the fish is just a tiny splash of white and chrome and the angler is really the subject. It seems like a wasted opportunity since you cant really see the fish very well and save for the blurry lump in the anglers hands the photo ends up looking like any other picture of a dude on a river. Another type of photo that I can't stand are those where the angler is pointing the fish at the camera. They look like shit and you cant see the fish at all. Instead it looks like any other hero shot but significantly more idiotic because the angler has decided to use the fish as a gun/weapon. Maybe someone can explain to me why these photos have grown in popularity over the last few years?

I would post a picture demonstrating what I mean, but I don't have any. I'm not trying to start a shitstorm by calling any specific individual out, but if you take a quick look around the internet you'll find the type of photo I'm talking about. Generally its a fish with its mouth agape, gasping for air being held absurdly close to the camera while the angler either scowls or smiles like a cheese dick. Guess its just not the angling aesthetic I'm going for. The thing is, holding fish out of the water does affect their survival and studies of C&R mortality have shown that anything beyond 30 seconds out of water and mortality increases exponentially. So keep them in the water, and take a picture of the fish. They're beautiful animals. And besides we've all got more photos of our ugly mugs than we know what to do with anyway.

Old Man River

2011-01-24T21:34:00.000-08:00

Wandering around in the forgotten corners of the rainsoaked hinterlands over the weekend I ran into my good friend Old Man River. It was a pleasant surprise seeing him although I should have known I'd see him there. He spends most of his time fishing and the river was in shape. With one day to fish I woke up at 4AM Sunday and drove in the dark to the river. Pressure was a little more than I like but a little bit of walking was all it took to get away from the crowds. Also encountered a couple of fish.

first of the day

Thanks Ray's

2011-01-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

Wild winter steelhead where it belongs, in the water

Glad this situation ended up so well. As Spencer Miles says, we can only keep playing "whack-a-mole" for so long. Time to go after some bigger prizes. Steelhead should be on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch List and more needs to be done to discourage distributors from buying steelhead.

From Ray's:

Thank you for your additional feedback. We are no longer serving Steelhead. We will continue to work hard to find truly sustainable sources for our products and appreciate your comments at any time. Thank you for your time and passion on this very important issue. Best, Peter Birk, Executive Chef | Ray’s Boathouse, Café & Catering 6049 Seaview Avenue NW | Seattle, WA 98107

Jims Weigh in on Science

2011-01-18T20:52:00.001-08:00

A few days ago the peanut gallery at a popular online fishing forum got wind of the Native Fish Society's work to reduce the impact of hatchery programs on the Sandy. While there are some seriously misinformed people out there it is also good to see the issue of hatcheries and their impacts on wild fish coming before the mainstream. It is also encouraging to see the number of people in the angling public who understand the role hatcheries have played in depressing wild runs. One common problem people seem to have is understanding that scientists never talk in absolute terms. As scientists we're trained to acknowledge our uncertainties and limit our inferences to what the data can address. For individuals accustomed to politicians and cable news broadcasters that type of equivocation is all the ammunition they need to dismiss it as nothing more than theory, or even attempt to discredit the researchers as biased. Natural systems however are inherently complex and the decline of wild fish will never be attributable to a single cause. Some love to blame commercial fishermen despite the fact that very few Sandy River steelhead are caught in commercial fisheries, others blame habitat destruction and while they lament the past they dismiss the possibility of improving conditions for the future. Blaming something other than your own consumptive use is always the easiest way forward, but as anlgers we can and must do better. The bottom line is people will believe what they want to believe regardless of the strength of the evidence, but for me the dozens of scientific papers which point to hatcheries as a major driver of wild population declines are more than enough evidence.

From the way alot of those dudes talk you'd think they had read a great deal of the literature on hatchery wild interactions.

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?p=3481507#post3481507

Get the facts, hatchery/wild literature on the NFS website:

http://nativefishsociety.org/index.php/conservation/science-research/wild-vs-hatchery-salmonid-interactions/#fitness

Wild Steelhead on Ray's Menu

2011-01-17T10:32:00.000-08:00

Rays boathouse in Seattle is serving wild steelhead caught on the Olympic Peninsula. What a load of crap. Write them an email and tell them how you feel about their fine dining establishment.

email:
rays@rays.com

My Letter:

Hello,

I am writing you regarding your decision to serve wild steelhead in your Seattle restaurants. Perhaps you are unaware but wild steelhead are now listed under the endangered species act in 5 of 7 Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) in Washington State. While the fish you are serving come from the Olympic Peninsula, these stocks have been in decline for more than two decades and at present populations are hovering around 10% of their historic abundance. More concerning is the fact that over the last 5 years many of these rivers have failed to meet even the modest escapement goals set our by WDFW and the tribes. In each instance run sizes were large enough to meet escapement goals however irresponsible overharvest of wild steelhead in tribal commercial fisheries resulted in runs failing to meet conservation levels. Wild steelhead are an integral part of our state's cultural, economic and ecological heritage and to serve them on your menu despite the fact that populations are extremely depressed statewide represents gross negligence on the part of your business. The future of the seafood and restaurant industry depends on sustainable practices and well managed fisheries and your decision to serve wild steelhead demonstrates your lack of awareness. Instead it appears you are out of touch with the biological realities of fisheries in our state and are willing to harvest until the last fish has been sold on your menu. Until wild steelhead is removed from Rays menu I will absolutely not patronize your restaurant and will do everything in my power to divert restaurant goers in the Seattle area to establishments with a higher environmental standard.

Sincerely,

Ten Seconds to Save the Sandy

2011-01-12T17:04:00.001-08:00

I posted last week about ongoing hatchery practices on the Sandy which are undoubtedly depressing the productivity of wild stocks. Despite the relatively good habitat of the Sandy and the millions of restoration dollars spent in the last decade the department continues to treat the river like a put and take hatchery raceway. Well folks at the Native Fish Society have set up a quick and easy webform for fish lovers to submit email comments to ODFW and Governor Kitzhaber. It only takes 10 seconds to fill it out and let the department and governor know how you feel about the Sandy.

http://alerts.nativefishsociety.org/campaign/3-save-the-sandy

Reading Bruce Brown

2011-01-11T21:21:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year my mom bought me a copy of Moutain in the Clouds by Bruce Brown. She'd read an interview with the author in the Seattle Times and thought I would be interested. While I'd long known the book existed I'd never managed to get a hold of a copy but I'm glad I did. The book, first published in 1982 walks readers through the history of salmon declines in the Pacific Northwest. Full of historical fact and natural history the book tells the story of wild salmon in Washington State through vivid accounts of historic and contemporary attitudes towards the natural world and in specific wild salmon. Brown writes with a unique style that seamlessly weaves a keen understanding of natural history and Native American culture with political and economic realities that have long motivated the destruction of wild salmon and their habitats. What he delivers is a truly tragic account of the shortsightedness of our forebearers in the region as well as some important context and history for those who would quickly blame the Boldt decision and its reinstitution of Native American fishing rights for declining salmon in our waters. The book is damning of fish management in Washington and it is sad to see that many of the paradigms which lead to the decline of wild fish persist today hampering their recovery. Despite the sometimes bleak facts surrounding salmon the book manages to strike a chord of hope, identifying progress which had been made to halt the destruction of wild salmon habitats and areas in Washington where wild salmon still remained relatively robust. At the time of its writing the book offered a revolutionary view about salmon , criticizing the idea that hatcheries could sustain salmon populations and the people and ecosystems that depend on them. Today many of the facts remain as true as ever and Moutain in the Clouds and the ideas it embodies provide a foundation for the conservation and recovery of wild fish throughout our region. Fish lovers shouldn't be without a copy.

January Warm Rain and Rising Rivers

2011-01-06T23:46:00.001-08:00

Thursday night the river was on the rise but flirting with cresting right around perfect. I woke up around 6:30 to find that rain overnight had the river spiking again, but a forecast of a falling snowlevel had me hopeful that the river might just be perfect. Warm rain after a week of hard cold always gets cold blooded creatures like myself moving.This time of year conditions are so tempermental and a few degrees, a quarter of an inch of rain or a thousand feet of difference in the snow level can be the difference between the best day of the season and a blown out river. Rising water means fresh, bright fish and on the relatively unconfined rivers of puget sound the range of flows at which fish can be taken on the swing is tremendous. There are certainly a few fish in the river now, although you wouldn't know it from my fishing yesterday. That said, with about a foot of visibility and the occasional log floating by my expectations were pretty low but it was definitely good to get out. Over the holidays I was experimenting with some real crittery flies, trying out some new flash material and straight eyed shanks I bought. Char seem to like them so I'm guessing odds are, a fresh steelhead will also find them appealing.

Sandy River Broodstock Part of the Problem Not the Solution

2011-01-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

For about a decade ODFW and a few guides on the Sandy River have been harvesting between 10 and 15% of the wild run annually to provide brood for an integrated hatchery program. While the department and guides will try and sell these types of programs based on their conservation benefits the bottom line is, there aren't any. ODFWs own science has show that the reproductive fitness of hatchery fish declines significantly after one generation in the hatchery AND that large numbers of hatchery fish spawning in the wild is extremely detrimental to the productivity of wild runs.

The myth that we can somehow build runs through hatchery supplementation has been in place for nearly 100 years, and throughout its history its been a failure. The hatchery system we live with today is a vestige of the long held American delusion that we can control natural resources and engineer our way around proper stewardship. Public perception about harvest and habitat has come a long ways to the point where hatchery programs like these are limiting the ability of wild fish to recover and in many cases may be threatening the future of the wild stock. There isn't a single example of wild broodstock programs actually helping wild fish.

The damn shame of it all is that this shit is going on in the Sandy, one the greatest steelhead rivers on the face of the earth. Given the opportunity wild steelhead on the Sandy would very likely recover to levels unimaginable to most in the angling public. NMFS identified hatcheries as the most important factor in limiting the productivity of wild fish in the Sandy. It's time for a paradigm shift, the public is ready but we need progressive management from out state agencies not more waste of tax dollars to ensure that native runs stay permanently in the tank. Imagine for a second if MOE decided to build a massive hatchery on the Dean? Are you kidding me. These rivers need to be valued for the natural wealth they already provide, wild steelhead. The department's own mandate dictates they must first and foremost protect native fish. With a quarter million hatchery smolts released into the Sandy annually, they probably outnumber wild smolts 10:1. That's unacceptable and until that changes we're going to see the abundance of wild fish on the Sandy hover at 2-5% of historic abundance.

Spencer Miles has put together a bunch of really great information on the Sandy on his blog

Whitefish Can't Jump

The Osprey

The Sea-Run Angle

2011-01-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

Checking out Jeff Bright's website last night I found a link to his regular column in a new online magazine called the Contemporary Sportsman. The magazine is an attractive publication covering a wide range of outdoor pursuits from bill fishing to wing shooting, sort of in the Grey's sporting journal tradition. Jeff's column though stands out as the highlight. For those who haven't met him, he's a gifted photographer, writer and generally amiable fellow. He's devout worshiper of wild salmon, capturing the primal essence of the fish and their native ecosystem in his words and photography. Not only that but his writing reflects a deep understanding of the need to protect and restore our magnificent wild salmon. Jeff's column can be found on page 36 of the latest issue of the contemporary sportsman:

http://www.thecontemporarysportsman.com/

Out With Heavy

2010-12-29T18:54:00.001-08:00

Had the pleasure of getting out fishing today with Heavy D on the local flow before he drives back to Montucky tomorrow. It was classic early winter steelheading with freezing cold water and snow pounding down all day. At the very least it made for some spectacular photography, if not perfect fishing conditions. That said, over the years I've had some pretty good fishing in snow dumps and if we know where to find fish anywhere its on the local. Driving out in the morning, traffic was its usual Western Washington in a snowstorm. Would've been humorous if it wasn't so scary, luckily among the 15 some odd vehicles that were spun out/off the road we didn't see any that looked particularly dangerous.

Given the god awful road conditions we'd expected to find the river abandoned, instead we found more or less normal numbers of folks out on a weekday. Apparently we aren't the only people in the Seattle area capable of steelhead induced lunacy. The weather stayed just warm enough to keep the guides from freezing which made the snow somewhat bearable, top if off with a nice big bill trout and a mystery fish that came unpinned after a couple of good headshakes and it was a well above average day. Stopped by All About the Fly on the way home to say hi to Ron and to bid farewell to the brick and mortar shop that has helped nurture both of our steelhead addictions. Sad to see that place go. Ron also showed us some new stinger wire he's discovered that wont go all limp and wiggly like firewire or powerpro. Watch out world, the stinger fly may never be the same.

We're all Terrorists

2010-12-24T20:18:00.001-08:00

According to John Shivley, the CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, the groups currently fighting against the Pebble Mine amount to legal terrorists. This sort of rhetoric from the neoconservative, rape the environment at all costs types is unfortunate, but also not terribly surprising. Now lets lay the facts out here. Shivley and his cronies at the Pebble Partnership are proposing to drill a hole almost a half mile deep through the heart of the worlds most productive salmon ecosystem. No one in the world who doesn't stand to make a lot of money from the project actually believes that the mine and the huge lake of toxic tailings wont have a detrimental and potentially catastrophic impact on Bristol Bay salmon. Now, because groups are fighting to protect the wild salmon that have for thousands of years served as the regions ecological, economic and spiritual heart and soul, they're deemed terrorists. Excuse the coarse language but that's just bullshit. I can't wait to see those assholes kicked to the curb once and for all and sent packing back to their stockholders with nothing to show. I'm not gonna be scared out of protecting the environment by neocon douchebags touting "economic growth". Since when was the economy of Bristol Bay so broken in the first place? And its not as though British companies have a great track record for cleaning up the messes they make on US land.

video link:
http://www.akrdc.org/membership/events/conference/2010/video/shively.mp4

All About the Fly is Closing

2010-12-24T17:45:00.000-08:00

Found out this week that All About the Fly will be closing their brick and mortar store in Monroe January 22nd. They will still be open for business online. It's a real bummer to loose that shop, its one of my favorites as it has a good assortment of fly tying materials and friendly service. Ron, Brian Page and Mike Kinney are all full of information and sage advice and were more than happy to point me in the right direction during the early stages of my steelhead addiction. The shop will definitely be missed for the characters, casting days on the river and ample BS. Check out their webstore at:

http://www.allaboutthefly.com/

Winter Mystery

2010-12-22T23:12:00.000-08:00

This morning I stood waste deep in the early winter dawn, transfixed at the gently rolling, jade green surface dappled with the season's incessant drizzle. Below me the whisper of a distant rapid, above the gnarled alders, barren like the ribs of the mighty river. Winter steelhead season is a time like none other, a time when each solitary step and cast offers the faint glimmer of hope. What lies beneath this molten surface, slowly gliding in its sinuous path towards the pacific? Fishless days blend together in the current until I am momentarily jarred back to attention, tug tug, wait...then nothing. Must have been a cutthroat I mumble to myself, but who will ever know?

Why can't there be one?

2010-12-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

Washington State hatcheries or outplants which release more than 10,000 fish

A post on Chasing the Scraps got me thinking...why not one river without hatchery fish? There certainly aren't many in Washington.

The state has stopped planting smolts in SOME systems without collection facilities. But the Puget Sound is still loaded with hatchery fish and in many parts of the state fish continue to be released with absolutely no prospect for collecting them. WDFW releases all these fish without ever monitoring the impact of hatcheries on wild populations or the proportion on the spawning grounds. Managers may not be paying attention but it doesn't change the fact that the number of hatchery fish that spawn in the wild each year is massive. In Willapa Bay the state manages chinook and coho stocks as integrated, doesn't mark hatchery fish and allows up to a 90% harvest, essentially guaranteeing the extirpation of wild salmon through overfishing and hatchery introgression.

In Puget Sound the state basically closed fishing to protect wild steelhead. Last year WDFW adopted a rule change that closes every river in the Puget Sound except the Skagit on February 15th meaning that they don't see wild populations being able to support incidental C&R mortality in the near future. If populations are fragile enough that they cannot sustain the limited mortality of a sport fishery, how can the impacts of hatcheries possibly be justified? Ocean survival is widely acknowledged to be limiting Puget Sound steelhead populations and yet we continue to release millions of smolts a year, swamping the limited carrying capacity of the sound with unfit hatchery fish. Managers recognize that marine survival is the limiting factor for salmon and steelhead in the sound but have largely shrugged their shoulders as if they have no control over what goes on in the marine environment. Even if the factors associated with survival in the marine environment are poorly understood, the one management tool we have at our disposal is reducing the number of steelhead and salmon released from state hatcheries. This is made necessary not only by the ecological impacts of the system, but also economic realities and the tremendous cost of failing state hatcheries. When hatchery fish are costing taxpayers 800 bucks a pop the system is broken. If the state hatchery system was a private business it would've been bankrupt ages ago, instead we've continued to subsidize fisheries to the tune of nearly 60 million dollars a year. Despite all this spending we continue to loose more and more angling opportunity every year and wild fish are further than ever from recovery. If we hope to recover listed steelhead and chinook in puget sound we need to start accounting for the full impacts of the hatchery system. Why not dramatically reduce the number of hatchery programs in Puget Sound and see if wild fish make a recovery? At this point we're basically out of other options.

Just implementing the State Wide Steelhead Management plan (SWSMp) and some of the recommendations made by the HSRG would represent a major step forward but since its adoption in early 2008 almost none of the SWSMp has been carried out. Worse yet, the year of its adoption, the Quinault tribe knowingly dumped IHN infected smolts into Lake Quinault. Then last year IHN appeared on the Quilleyute system forcing hatchery managers to destroy the entire brood year of adults. The Statewide Steelhead management plan had supposedly put an end to out of basin transfers of hatchery stock, yet in the first test of that policy WDFW opted to transfer tens of thousands of fish from the Hoko hatchery and outplanting of hatchery smolts continues in dozens of rivers around the state.

Now on the Elwha, the greatest salmon restoration project of our lifetimes, they're planning not only to mine wild eggs for broodstock, but also to continue releasing 60,000 chambers creek smolts annually, despite the fact that the river will be closed for five years to any angling. That just doesn't make any sense. At some point it just becomes hatcheries for their own sake. And can anyone actually cite an example of a system where a broodstock program has successfully increased the abundance of wild fish over the long run? A similar project on Hood Canal boosted spawner abudance during the life of the program, but last year only 42 fish returned. Despite uncertain benefits of such a captive breeding program, it has been expanded to a number of other Hood Canal tributaries. A broodstock program on the upper Kalama has been taking about 50 wild fish out of the population annually since 1999 with no appreciable increase in the abundance of wild spawners and the wild broodstock program at Snider Creek has arguably been the least successful hatchery in the state over the last 25 years. Wild fish have shown a tremendous capacity to colonize habitats and the remaining wild fish on the Elwha provide a direct link to the river's evolutionary past. They are the key to recovering the Elwha's once vast wealth of wild salmon. But we have to give them a chance.

Undoubtedly there is a role that hatcheries and selective fisheries can play in our society, but the scale and cost of the current system is not only wasteful but also environmentally destructive. As Kurt Beardslee of the Wild Fish Conservancy says, the Elwha could be a paradigm changer, a grand experiment in the ability of Wild Salmon to recover without the influence of hatcheries. I think most people would be surprised just how quickly populations of wild salmon will grow in the Elwha once the dams are removed. As the western most river in the Puget Sound the Elwha may be less hindered by probelms with early marine survival as many other rivers in the ESU. Some hatchery advocates have cited concerns about high sediment loads in the Elwha as a justification for the wild broodstock program, but think about how much of the watershed wont be affected by dam removal. Tributaries, stable spring-fed offchannel habitats and the mainstem above the dam sites will all provide large refuges for wild spawners.

Wild fish in the Elwha have endured a century of clinging to their existence in the lower 5 miles of river. Miraculously though, they're hanging on. A few hundred wild chinook return annually to the Elwha system, and a small population of steelhead will benefit greatly from healthy numbers of rainbows upstream. Trapped rainbows in the upper river continue to produce smolts every year and bull trout remain in healthy numbers above the dams. The Elwha is arguably the most pristine river in the Lower 48, now with the dams gone the fish will finally be able to use it fully. So why not one river without hatcheries?

Chasing the Scraps:
http://scrapchaser.blogspot.com/

Elwha Fishing Mortatorium on the Osprey:

http://ospreysteelheadnews.blogspot.com/2010/12/wdfw-accepting-comments-on-elwha.html

Early Winter Steelheading

2010-12-11T16:53:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, for the first time in over about a month I spent an entire day on the water. I have been itching to get out and now that the season is finally upon us I can't wait to spiral into full on steelhead induced revelry. With heavy rains blanketing the region Weds and Thursday the water was a little on the highside, but visibility was solid and the weather couldnt have been fishier. No tugs, but it felt damn good to swim a fly again, explore a little bit of new water and visit some spots from last season. The snow level was about 2000 feet and in the upper valley the mountains seem to hang right over your head. In the early winter light, the broken clouds clinging to the moutains, covered with a fresh coat of snow made for a very striking backdrop. Talked to some gear fisherman and it sounds like there are at least a couple fish around although it will be a while yet before the peak of the run comes in.

Its About that Time

2010-12-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

With heavy rain falling throughout the region, life around here is starting to feel pretty darned fishy. We've had a spell of cold, low water and with warmer temps and a splash of rain things ought to pick up in a major way now. There have been reports of fish in every major river but the next few weeks will be telling with regards to how the hatchery return will shape up. This time of year can be tough, with ultra short days, unpredictable conditions and unsnappy fish, but its great to feel the drive to fish taking over again. November is always a time for recovery, relaxation and attending to nonangling related matters. Now its time to tuck in the kids, kiss the wife goodbye and buckle down for the best part of a steelheaders year. I've spent the past 3 days tying, cutting tips, prepping gear, now its time to go, should be a fun ride.

A Few Hours on the Water

2010-12-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

Finally got out fishing again, even if it was only a few hours. It was great to see my buddy Ryan Smith of Arch Anglers Guide Service. I've known Ryan for a while and over the past few years he's become a good buddy and a reliable fishing partner. We only had a couple of hours so we headed to a local pugetropolis stream that may have once had a few steelhead. The water was low and clear but we fished good water and it was great to be out again. The dogs had a pretty good romp too.

House Republicans, are you serious?

2010-12-05T23:04:00.000-08:00

So I read last week that the house republicans have decided to eliminate the special house committee on climate change. I can't believe how hard they're working to submarine any progress on the issue. Our planets climate is changing, because of human activities, PERIOD. There is no longer a debate about that fact, so for an entire political party to dismiss the largest environmental crisis of all time and dissolve the house committee tasked with addressing that issue seems more than a little foolish. Actually it seems downright idiotic. Republicans talk all the time about not saddling our future generations with debt. That rhetoric obviously only goes so far. They can't be terribly concerned with the well being of future generations if they are unwilling to even recognize the threat that CO2 emissions pose to our planet, and all human societies. Its really simple, climate change is going to happen and we can either get our shit together and deal with it now or its effects will get more and more costly every passing year, that ought to make sense to conservatives and liberals alike. Why not act now, invest in green energy and technology and be an example for the entire world? Surely independence from foreign oil is desirable. The technology is there, all it takes is the political will.

There are alot of reasons to deal with climate change, but as anglers one glaring reason is, steelhead go to the ocean. The ocean is going to get alot less productive for coldwater fish like steelhead when the climate changes. Add in the fact that increased atmospheric CO2 is already acidifying our oceans and in 100 years it may not matter how far we've come in terms of the management of our wild salmon. If the ocean isn't a productive place for salmon it will all be for not.

Dear Dr. Ward

2010-12-03T12:24:00.001-08:00

For those who haven't followed along with this blog since summer (so probably all of you) might not be aware of the fact that I have, at times been critical of of Rio's newly released MOW tips. In my last post on the topic I suggested they were a rip off, gimmick that was a classic example of needless overmarketing in the flyfishing industry. That suggestion raised the slightly amused ire of one well known steelhead guide who was in part responsible for the inception of the MOW tip concept. What followed was a length description of the benefits of their tip system which can now be read on a number of popular spey fishing forums.

In reading these I came to the startling conclusion that Dr. Ward and I actually agree on basically every aspect of the sink tip fishing game. And that he has thought long and hard about the technical challenges presented by winter steelhead fishing and how to best address them with the equipment. He pioneered the use of shorter, heavier tips in winter steelhead fishing and I scarcely use anything but short pieces of t14 for my own winter fishing any more, mostly because I like how it turns over slug sized pieces of rabbit. So I owe you an apology, I'm certain that MOW tips are an effective tool for sinktip fishing as I've used them myself. Not the rio brand, but tips in many of the same lengths and weights as those available in the factory tip set. And for some anglers making your own sink tips probably isn't worth the time when you can just buy it prepackaged at the flyshop. Call it a stylistic difference.

Jonesing...Very Hard

2010-12-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

Jonesing obscenely hard this week. Its been more than a while since I've been on the water and we're right in the midst of the steelhead doldrums here in the Salish Sea. Things are about to get slightly more interestin in the next month as we should be seeing a few hatchery winters, enough at least to keep the antsiness and cabin fever at bay. My attention span has been next to zero one minute someone in the lab is talking to me, giving me very important instructions the next I'm wondering where I'd like to fish in February during the reading break. Wondering what the run just above the junction with the Big River looks like, and if the fish will be laying in the run above the bridge like last year. Hopefully winter break will provide an opportunity to get out and fish a little. Wouldn't mind making it out to the rainsoaked hinterlands but we'll see what familial responsibilities come up. In the meantime day dreaming, scouring the internet aimlessly for fish porn or scenery photos will have to do.

Thanks to Give

2010-11-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

Giving thanks today for another great year of loving wild anadromous fish, their habitats and the hodgepodge of lunatics that chase them. Thanks for the most epic year imaginable in the northcountry and for the fact that our beloved Puget Sound steelhead are still hanging on. Thanks for a good little run of one salts this summer to the locals and the hope that gives for this year. Thanks for all the people that fight for the fish, as hard as it can be to believe some times, we're making progress. Thanks for the glaciers that carved the valley and the water than runs through it all.

Winters here and a month from now we'll be in the midst of the local, nonexistent hatchery run. By christmas there should be native fish in every river in the region. Every year the crowding gets worse and worse but I've realized a few things over the last few years, one of which is I'd rather walk, and have a chance at a fish in solutide, at the end of the day its all about the peace you find, the greasy new bucket, the cedars dripping with moss and the faintest hope that maybe, after a long day walking, that beautiful wild fish lights you up and leaves you shaken. Looking forward to this winter like never before.

A Batch o' Nasties

2010-11-25T01:25:00.000-08:00

With temperatures this week hovering around -4 in Vancouver fishing seems inadvisable. We all get a finite amount of time on the water in a given year so freezing my guides is lower on the list of priorities than a few other things at the moment. Still, the Jones' are definitely setting in, stuck in the house this weekend with crappy weather I took a little time to tie. I swear to god this year I'm fishing more traditionals, they work and its nothing like hooking a fish on a sweet tie.

A few from this week:

Quillayutes

Clear Water 1/0 Spey

Peacock and Silver.

Shrimp Style

Nates Magic

Speaking of flies, I stumbled across the Idylwilde blog, some good stuff over there

http://idylwilde.com/wordpress/

Two Dudes, One Tiny Raft

2010-11-22T16:24:00.001-08:00

Sometimes crossing a large river to fishy water justifies a close encounter with the teenwolf. Definitely not coast guard approved.

The Wisdom of T Bone

2010-11-17T11:38:00.001-08:00

Talking today to Tbone about an article I saw in the Oregonian about 4 counties in WA and OR that are opposing the Columbia DEIS on the grounds that they believe the Columbia needs more hatchery fish he dropped some seriously enlightening knowledge about the state of political affairs in some of the counties in Coastal Washington and Oregon:

"jims love hatcheries...jims live in the counties at the columbia mouth....jims vote in jims as county reps at the columbia mouth....those reps dont know their ass from their mouth but lower taxes while demanding federal subsidization of perceived entitlements at the cost of the country's natural capital"

"yay for america"

The funny thing is, he's right. These county commissioners, with their opposition to the DEIS are actually doing themselves a disservice. Upper River stocks are depressed in part because of huge numbers of unfit hatchery fish spawning in the wild, and until ESA listed stocks make some semblance of a recovery, down river fishing opportunities are going to continue to be very limited. It doesnt matter how many hatchery fish you dump into the Columbia as long as they're swimming along side endangered Redfish Lake Sockeye, Upper Columbia Steelhead, etc. Figure it out Jim's...it doesn't take einstein

More info from the Osprey:
http://www.ospreysteelheadnews.blogspot.com/

WDFW Budget Woes, Time to Reset the Priorities

2010-11-13T13:16:00.001-08:00

Puget Sound Egg Wagon

In a recent press release WDFW identified ways it will seek to alleviate its massive budget shortfall. Among the options listed was closing a number of hatcheries, reducing enforcement, and...here's the killer, closing Puget Sound tributaries for steelhead fishing. Already opportunities to fish for steelhead in Puget Sound rivers have been cut sharply. Last year all rivers closed mid-February to protect low numbers of wild steelhead, and this year the same is expected. I'm not sure how they could possibly limit steelhead fishing any further short of closing the rivers for the entire winter. It is clear that steelhead in Puget Sound are in trouble, but does anyone actually believe sport fishing is to blame? Certainly incidental CnR mortality on wild puget sound steelhead is undesirable, but any biologist at WDFW or NMFS will tell you, poor marine survival is really whats limiting Puget Sound steelhead.

The legacy of historic habitat degradation and overharvest remains, but the habitat has been slowly recovering from the rapacious logging practices of the 60s, 70s and 80s and harvest of wild steelhead hasn't been allowed any where in the sound in almost a decade. C n R opportunities continue to disappear at an alarming rate and WDFW doesn't seem inclined to do anything but close sport fishing. Hatcheries continue to dump millions of fish into the sound annually, with almost no return. Last year a state auditor's report revealed that the average puget sound blackmouth costs taxpayers 780 dollars and more hatchery fish are released in the Elwha every year than on the ENTIRE Oregon Coast. All that fisheries wellfare is what's bankrupting our state fisheries management agency and it isn't working, period. Monitoring efforts are a joke, with index reach methodology that hasnt been calibrated since the 1970s and almost no effort to enumerate parr or smolt production. WDFW doesn't put confidence intervals around their abundance estimates, but if they did it would quickly reveal the fact that they have almost no idea whats going on. The entire Skykomish system wasn't even surveyed in 2007, 2008 and 2009 because of poor visibility. Meanwhile, wild fish continue to decline and there has been no comprehensive effort to understand survival in the marine environment or to what extent hatcheries are contributing to the problems in the sound. If we hope to help steelhead recover in the sound, the first step is actually monitoring populations, if that comes at the expense of wasteful hatchery programs, so be it.

Even more disappointing is the fact that the state promised to establish Wild Salmonid Management Areas in the Statewide Steelhead Management plan, to date they have yet to take any action. Guess what, wild fish cost nothing to produce. They are a part of the natural wealth of our region, a gift from 7000 years of evolution. WDFW seems to believe that fisheries cannot exist without harvest opportunity and it is time for that paradigm to change. The future of wild fish depends on change, and given the current budget woes, now is the time to redefine the mission of our outdated fish management in Washington.

Somewhere in the North Pacific

2010-11-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

A bright fish is headed towards home. It might say fall on the calendar but it sure felt a lot like winter today. With the clear cold weather, the North Van mountains tower over the city with their tops covered in a fresh coat of snow. We're still 3 months from the heart of steelhead season but that time will fly by. Of course that hasn't always been the case, historically good numbers of wild winter steelhead entered our rivers beginning in December. Catching a bright wild fish in November wasn't unheard of. Those fish still exist but 50 years of "segregated" hatchery programs, tributary logging and non-selective harvest have whittled their numbers down to nearly nothing. Still, somewhere in the Salish Sea is a bright, wild, winter steelhead headed home. Only one thing to do, swing your fly and wait....

Thoughts on Politics

2010-11-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

This is not a political blog, its a fish blog, but unfortunately sometimes the two overlap. Midterm elections this week were a vivid reminder of that fact, where Washington voters had the dismal choice between Patty Murray and Dino Rossi. Murray a three term Democrat has been woefully absent from the discussion over what to do about the four lower snake river dams and appears much more interested in pandering to lobbyists and ensuring her own reelection than addressing the needs of her constituents. Rossi on the other hand is a realestate barron with enough money to fund his continually failing political aspirations who happily takes handouts from the Building Industry Association of Washington, the same organization that is constantly on the wrong side when it comes to habitat protection for endangered species, the same organization that petitioned for the delisting of endangered upper columbia steelhead. You can see it wasn't a pretty choice. In the end Murray won, barely.

Hopefully the close call serves as a wakeup call that a politician is defined by their responsiveness to the people they were elected to serve, not by the photo-ops and political star power that lines up on their side. Our political system, indeed most of our institutions seems woefully removed from the citizens which fund and support their very existence. The two party system which we live in almost ensures ineffective government where the two parties are guaranteed a hegemony over political discourse and are therefore preoccupied by their election prospects and the petty disputes with their political adversaries.

Please stop the bullshit and do something.

In Oregon the situation looks a lot better. John Kitzhaber eeked out a win over his republican opponent, ensuring that Oregon will continue to lead the region with progressive efforts to restore and protect wild salmon. Kitzhaber is a well known advocate for wild salmon and serves on the board of Oregon Trout.

Only time will tell what this election will mean for our region but we can only hope it wont be more of the same from Washington's senate delegation.

Right On

2010-11-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

The other day at the salmon rally the chief of the Squamish first nations band addressed the crowd. Well dressed and eloquent he greeted us saying,

"hello and welcome to our territory"

I chuckled at the time, but the idea resonated with me. A nod to our predecessors on this land, whose way of life has been so easily pushed aside by the onslaught of European colonialism and western capitalist ambition.

He spoke of animals as "people" and of the sacred pact between his tribe and the salmon. Those salmon who for so many centuries gave life to the NW coastal indians. He spoke of the balance of nature and respect for that balance saying,

"for us this is not science, it is ancient wisdom, it is a way of life"

and I thought, right on.

It's Salmon Season

2010-10-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

Every October I have the same internal conflict...do I drive multiple hours to chase rapidly darkening summer steelhead or do I stay local, fish my home rivers during what is often the quietest time of the year. This time of the year, with just a little planning I can normally fish all day on the locals without seeing another soul. On the dryside it will be another few weeks before the crowds really thin out. Salmon runs aren't exactly gangbusters in the Salish country these days, but most rivers get a few thousand coho, chum and chinook every year and in odd years pink salmon provide entertaining fodder for a few morning beach sessions. More and more, traveling long distances to fish isn't something that sits all that well with me, particularly when I've got respectable fishing, on rivers that I know and love right out my backdoor. Besides with another mid-February closure looming for the Puget Sound rivers I want every day I can get on my home waters. Coho are in now and while the run is looking somewhat below average, fishing can still be worthwhile. Hopefully with all this rain we've had in the last weeks there will be some nice fresh fish in the river.

Calling all Coho

Farm Fish Got no Soul, Wild Fish Rock and Roll!

2010-10-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

Spent yesterday morning with a few hundred other wild fish advocates in the pissing rain, rallying with Alex Morton in hopes of sending a message to the Cohen Commission. Fish farms belong on land, period. It is absolutely ludicrous that DFO, the agency charged with sustaining BCs wild salmon resources in perpetuity has sold its soul to Norwegian Multinational Fish Farmers. Fish farms have wrought havoc on wild salmon populations by filling juvenile migration routes with parasitic sealice and disease from their million fish feedlots. In Chile, where disease destroyed the salmon farming industry the industry hit and run, leaving communities which had shifted resources and livelihoods in shambles. The same is happening in BC. The technology is in place to run profitable salmon farming operations on land, and some visionaries are already doing it. However for widespread adoption of land based farming it will take a legal mandate. The Cohen Commission hearings began this week and it is imperative that they demand full disclosure of salmon farm disease records which have until now been veiled in secrecy, hidden by DFO and salmon farming companies from the public eye.

Good 'Ish

2010-10-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while wasting time perusing fish related interweb materials I encountered a new blog. Written by Spencer Miles who is also, coincidentally the Nestucca/Tillamook Bay river steward for the Native Fish Society White Fish Can't Jump combines fishing reports and anectodes with a healthy dose of well informed conservation. As a bonus there are about a dozen photos worth of NorthCountry soul from this fall. See for yourself

http://whitefishcantjump.com/

Well Done Sir

2010-10-13T18:03:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to give a shout out to my labmate and buddy Brendan Connors for a couple of scientific papers he published recently that have been making noise in popular media. Brendan and his collaborators document a new mechanism by which sea lice transfer between pink salmon and their coho predators. Sea lice loading on coho appears to have had an extremely detrimental effect on productivity of coho stocks over the last 20 odd years and hopefully this will add ammunition to the tidal wave of work already coming down on the salmon feedlot industry. Get that shit out of the ocean and on dry land where it belongs. Its always nice to see when a group of scientists has spines stiff enough to do great work and stand up to government and industry pressure.

Brendan is also a serious fish bum although hopefully his work on behalf of wild fish pays off with some good fish juju. Cheers buddy.

Fall on the Dryside

2010-10-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

Teenwolf throwing his patented "manchild" cast in a fishy run

Thoughts on Wader Repair/Simms Rant

2010-10-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

As a poor, dirtbag of a steelhead bum I tend to abuse my gear pretty hard. Of all the gear though, it seems waders bear the brunt of this abuse most intensely. Obviously they are going to have a limited lifespan, but I have a hard time getting a pair to last a single season. For the last three years I've been wearing Bailey's waders and they've held up reasonably well. One pair lasted an entire year, the next came delaminated after a few months, but the company made good on the warranty and sent me a brand new pair. Well that pair is finally near the end of its natural life so last month in preparation for the Northcountry trip I went looking for a new pair.

Time was short and the shop I went into here in Van happened to be a Simms dealer so I thought I would give them a second chance. The first pair of simms I had didn't hold up as long as I would've liked, but I tend to attribute that to the fact of how hard I use them. Anyways, I dropped around $250 for a pair of freestones. Not simms top end wader, but the material felt pretty durable and I figured for 250 clams I would at least get something that kept me dry. Apparently I was mistaken. By my second day of fishing the seams on the right leg were already failing in three places and at the end of the day I was wringing out my socks. With subfreezing mornings the norm this time of year, leaky waders were definitely a bummer and I did my best to patch the leaks with aquaseal each night. By the fourth day of the trip both legs were getting leaky faster than I could keep up with the patching.

What the fuck? Tbone calls Simms Sieves and I can see his point. Has the company gotten so lost in its own marketing and bs that is lost sight of its made in the USA, high quality roots? Or maybe they just design their products for cheese dicks with a 6 figure salary who fish 10 times a year and prefer to cast standing in the front of a guides driftboat rather than walk and earn their fish? Either way, thats the last pair of Sieves I'll be buying. Now I'm stuck without a pair of good waders midfall, waiting on Simms warranty department to give me my money back. Worst of all, I'll only be getting store credit for my troubles and since they're an exclusive simms dealer I don't exactly have the greatest selection to choose from. I'll probably end up spending another 100 dollars to upgrade to an overpriced pair of "guide" waders just so I dont get wet another 5 days after getting the new pair. It all seems like such a waste. A brand new pair of breathable waders, sent back, presumably thrown in the garbage just because of the inferior workmanship and product design of a company which has seems the have more interest in full page adds in fish porn rags than in building a pair of waders that will keep a hardworking fishbum dry.

The only brightspot is that with all those leaks I've gotten pretty handy at patching waders and finding holes. I've been using a trick that Tbone showed me and its definitely the best way I've found yet for locating holes. Get a flashlight or headlamp, turn out the lights and slide the beam of light along the inside of the wader looking for thin spots or punctures. Its foolproof, quick and easy. Once the hole is found circle it with a premanent marker and apply aquaseal liberally.

The Truck is Loaded

2010-10-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

After 5 days of shaking off the northcountry crust, working in the office and attending to non fishing responsibilities I'm going out of town again. Just a couple days this time, but the weather turned sweet just in time for the weekend. I'm headed south to meet up with the Teenwolf, back from medschool for a four day steelhead binge. I hear he'd already got a few, we'll have to see what we find. Fishing some new water to me so excitement and expectation is high, regardless of the outcome floating, drinking beer and trash talking with TW will be good. Last time I saw the big fella was in February on the Big River. Given the time of year and the robust run of fish we're having this fall the river should be pretty full of those aggressive little wild fish. This time of the year is always bittersweet, but its the best time to find a fish on the dryline. Better get it while its good.

Back From the Northern Wilderness

2010-09-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

The Long Road to Nowhere

Got back into town late on Saturday night, boy does the Northcountry Blues hit hard. I had planned to fish through Saturday but it pissed rain all day and night Friday and I woke saturday morning to find the river chocolaty and gone for at least a couple of days. Rather than doddle around I thought it best to hit the road and get to those nagging responsibilities which had been building up steadily since I left the week before. After 9 dayson the road, sleeping in the tent, fishing 13 hours straight in moist, stanky waders and eating a steady diet of cornchips, PBJ and various barbequed meat I was ready to be home. Still, city life seems strange, rushed and completely detached from the reality of the planet we live on.

Big Water

If you haven't heard by now they're having a great run this year up north. Tyee test fishery counts are the second highest on record and I've heard rumors of anywhere from 18,000-30,000 fish returning above Moricetown. Thats alot of steelhead and for the 8 days I was there the fishing ranged from steady to absurd. After last years trip I wanted to spend a little more time, see a some new water, and revisit some good spots from last year. I also set a few goals for the trip, 1. catch more than half my fish on the dryline, 2. catch a fish on a waker, 3. find a rhythm in my fishing. Going in I'd heard good reports and tyee counts looked good but I was hesitant to get too hopeful. The most important thing to me was to catch a few fish, on my terms, fish well, learn the rivers I fished and try my best to forge a connection with the rivers that flow through gods country.

Upper River Vista

Steelhead and Smuddler

The first few days went more or less as expected. Found a small onesalt buck the first evening on the dryline with a purple smuddler which helped the confidence and reinforced the supremely fishy feeling I've had about that pattern for sometime. The next day I found a couple of fish, two which pluck plucked the first swing only to crush the fly. Also got a very large hen, probably equal in size to the two other largest fish I've ever caught (both on the big mighty river). The rest of the trip more or less as planned. All but two fish were on the dryline which was extremely gratifying. The funny thing is, despite the fact that fish in the northcountry are world renowned dryfly eaters, most dudes still fish tips. With water on the low clear side I think a dryline was actually fishier than tips and the fish seemed to have no ambivalence about rising a few feet in the water column to blow up my wakers.

Afternoon light

The Northern Rivers are so special. I always feel like I'm looking into the past of our southern streams, into the primordial world when salmon and steelhead still outnumbered anglers when a moose or grizzly can stumble out of the woods at any minute. The north is a raw, young land. A place of epic views, harsh and abrupt seasons and rivers with a power rarely witnessed in the more southern latitudes. Even in mid september, the nights were well below freezing and each morning the tent was covered in a thin coat of ice where condensation from the previoius night had frozen. Accordingly, the fish are strong, determined and 100% wild something which is difficult to find following a century of industrial scale hatchery production. If last year was a primer to the unforgettable beauty of the northcountry and its fish this year was a big step towards total ruin. This year the timing was better, the fish more abundant and I fished on my terms, in no particular hurry and confident that the fish would willingly rise to the surface. There is absolutely nothing more gratifying or exciting than raising a steelhead to a waking fly, even if every time I have to fight my impulse to immediately raise the rod tip and take the fly away. All in all an unforgettable trip, 9 days fishing alone in some of the beautiful country on earth, I even found a few fish.

Big Hen

Heading North

2010-09-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

After a whirlwind return to Vancouver I'm leaving town again. I've been rushing to meet work obligations, pack and refill the fly boxes before taking off for a 10 day sojourn in the Northcountry. Last fall's expedition gave me a little flavor of what to expect but definitely didn't satisfy my need to immerse myself fully in the beauty of the Northcountry fall and its native steelhead. Now I'll have a little more time, runs are shaping up nicely and the timing couldn't be better. Life is good amigos, life is good.

Hoping to find a few of these

What Makes a Good Guide?

2010-09-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

What makes a good guide? Well being a dirt poor, fish bumming lowlife I’ve never experienced a guided trip first hand. That said, spend enough time on your home rivers and chances are you’ll get to know at least a few guides. Every angler is looking for something different, but as an outsider looking in I would argue that a good, complete guide has to meet a couple of important criteria. First, they must be a teacher. Anyone can row a boat down a river, drive a jet sled, or stand idly while clients accrue wind knots, casting poorly into unlikely water. Second, a guide must be a good citizen of the river, that means respecting other anglers and perhaps more importantly, being an advocate for the wild fish which provide their livelihood. Finally the obvious, a good guide must be fishy. Fishiness is hard to quantify, but basically some have it and some don’t. While there are a number of good guides working the steelhead rivers of the Pacific Northwest, Ryan Smith owner of Arch Anglers Guide Service is a good friend who to me epitomizes all that a guide should be.

I first met Ryan a number of years ago when he was still working at Avid Angler. Since then we’ve shared more than a few days on the water, had some epic adventures and consumed more beers than the surgeon general would recommend. He also snapped a photo of the largest fish I’ve ever gotten, a sweet March Hen on the Big Trib a few years back that remains forever etched in my memory. As an added bonus, he also allows me and the fish hound to crash his couch when we’re chasing fish on the eastside.

Ryan has been busting his ass the last few years getting his business off the ground and from the sounds of it, it’s paying off. It’s good to see someone being rewarded for doing things the right way. He’s dedicated to conservation and to giving his clients an experience that will stay with them, whether he’s teaching a double spey or tailing the fish of a lifetime. While Ryan is a devout steelhead bum, he’s also extremely knowledgeable about fishing the beaches of Puget sound, and trouting on the Yakima. With steelhead runs tanking in Puget Sound, guides must be jack of all trades to make a living anymore.

He also stands out as the only guide to my knowledge who fishes the eastslope and doesn’t emphasize bobber fishing from the boat. The Rivers draining the eastern cascades are renowned for their free rising, acrobatic steelhead and the explosion in the number of people guiding these rivers who almost exclusively bobber fish is disheartening. While Ryan would never condemn the tactics of another angler he instead focuses on imparting to his clients the rewards of fall steelheading with a floating line, and I can tell you, they catch plenty of fish.

Check out Ryan’s website:

http://www.archanglers.com/

The Slow Ride Home

2010-09-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

Back from the hinterlands and finally with some motivation to write. The ladyfriend flew down to SF and we took the slow ride home, driving up the California coast and about half way up 101 into Oregon before hanging a right to the NU. Other than a couple of days at either end of the trip in Berkeley and Seattle it was 6 days of sleeping by the river, campfires and plenty of fishing. Its a bit difficult to talk the girlfriend into an all day grinder of fishing, but lucky for me she loves to sleep in and doesnt mind eating a late dinner so most days I got to fish morning and evening. This time of year fish can be hard to comeby mid-day anyway, so a siesta, swim or slow lunch was a welcome break.

A passing squal driving over from Fog Town

First stop was the Rattlesnake Fork where I'd previously scouted a sweet, secluded river side camp spot conveniently situated next to a couple of the fishiest runs I've seen. The first morning I'd fished through all three of the runs in camp by about 8AM and decided to take a second pass. A fish took In the very top of run just where the run went from boiling white water to smooth surfaced seam and ran immediately downstream before screaming up and across, jumping out of the water and throwing the hook. After a rusty summer it was just the affirmation I needed, steelhead still take flies. Being early yet in the season my expectations were fairly low on the Rattlesnake Fork, but it was beautiful weather and scenery and the camping by the river would have been worth it on its own. The fish was a great bonus though.

Camp spot

The next afternoon we drove back out to Fogtown and up the coast to Oregon to the mouth of a long storied river. Arriving near dusk there wasn't alot of time for scouting, but a quick drive out on the bar in camp revealed a reasonably fishy looking piece of water. The next morning I woke at o'dark thirty to the sound of diesel trucks rumbling down to the boatlaunch. In riverside campgrounds throughout the west an alarmclock is hardly necessary and for a light sleeper the predawn diesel truck hatch is normally more than enough. The first run proved fishy and gave up a couple of nice half pounders, which put a surprisingly nice bend in the old brown 5120-4. The thing I love about half pounders is their exuberance. They still take with a force that can only be found in fish which have traveled the ocean and without fail they leapt from the water when hooked, meaning that despite numerous encounters, few came to hand. Drove upriver a ways after the first run, hoping to fish below the mouth of the first major tributary, but I found the river crowded with jet boats filled with gear anglers chasing Chinooks. The crowds and bad manners were a major turn off, and after having one jet boating Jim drive over my line repeatedly I asked him nicely to please drive up the otherside of the river. Spent the afternoon in the sun on the beach and the next morning after fishing we packed it in and headed up the coast, then inland to the NU.

Playing in the water

Evening on the Lower River

Sometimes you've gotta smell the flowers

I had a chance last summer to fish the Ump for a couple of days, but since then I'd been thinking about it often. 30 miles of beautiful flyfishing only water is more than an angler could reasonably explore in a summer, let alone a few short trips so I've been trying to take it in piece by piece. The great thing is, other than the few quintessential runs near the mouth of Steamboat, the river tends to be fairly open and there is plenty of amazing water. The first day was pretty uneventful, lots of casting, no fish to the fly. The second evening, in the last run of the night I hooked a fish in a sweet looking piece of water behind a pile of fishy ass boulders and got absolutely schooled. Fish jumped twice right off then bat, then peeled off way down into the backing before running towards shore and cartwheeling within a few feet of the bank and then sprinting back up river. The fish settled down and the holyshit part of the fight was over, just when I'd caught my breath and was picking up some line, working down towards a better spot to try and land the fish it leapt on last time and threw the hook. Despite loosing the fish, I got all I could ask of it and got a huge confidence boost. The fish took a red and black smuddler, flies which I've been tying all summer in anticipation for this time of the year.

First time up Steamboat

The next morning was the last fishing of the trip, and around nine, with the sun just beginning to peak around the doug firs and basalt cliffs, I stopped in at a shady little run that I fished last year and found to my liking. I started in at the top with a skunk, a fly that normally gives me major confidence, however about half way through the run I saw a fish jump out of the water near the head of the run. I'd fished over that spot just minutes before without a take. Who can say why, but starting in at the top of the run for a second pass I knotted on a purple and black smuddler, figuring the bright purple body and the movement of the wing would provide a nice comeback after the more drab, buggy skunk. a few casts into the run the fish took with an electric jolt was was immediately off to the races. Fist downstream, then up, then across, then back up, leaping directly across from me showing itself, a male about 7 pounds with just a hint of color. I reeled, then stripped line frantically, trying to keep tension on the fish and had managed to hold on when the fished jumped even closer, its body contorting in the air. Then the line was stuck...the fish had run around a rock, leapt and broken the line in midair. As I tied on my new fly I could barely thread the eye of the hook, my hands shook and my heart beat quickly, trying to catch my composure after the frantic excitement of the fish. I did eventually manage to tie on the fly, but my fish encounters were done for the trip. 0 for 3 on hook ups with three sound ass beatings, the fish won fair and square, whatelse is there to do but sit down and catch your breath?

Large Man, Large Fish

2010-09-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

Back in computer land again, building up the stamina to write a wrap up of the epic journey home. Thought you might enjoy this quick photo in the meantime. Man Bear Pig on the River Nunyabusiness with a perfect summer fish. Now he's back on the Wrong Coast, hopefully the sweetness of this fish is lingering enough to hold you over. Nice job buddy, looking forward to seeing you in October.

Back From the Hinterlands

2010-09-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

Just recently got back to real life after a week of slow driving up the coast from California to Pugetropolis. The drive was good, weather mostly cooperative and it gave me a chance to fish a few of the more legendary steelhead rivers in the world. Headed out the door for now, more later.

The Governator Talks Klamath Restoration

2010-08-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

Just Found this video from a press conference following the signing of a deal to remove the Klamath Dams. Arnold, never one to disappoint delivers some hilarity....

Arnold Schwarzenegger: I'll be back! from Thomas B. Dunklin on Vimeo.

Bill Bakke, Trey Combs and the Evolution of our Angling Ethic

2010-08-05T21:15:00.001-07:00

Native Perfection

Reading through Comb's classic "Steelhead Fly Fishing" for the zillionth time last night and I noticed a passage I thought I'd share. Let me first preface this by saying that while I love Trey Comb's books I've long been puzzled by their only passing mention of the threats facing wild fish. By the time Steelhead Fly Fishing was published in 1991, wild steelhead were in deep trouble throughout most of their range. While he does discuss dams at some length in the chapter on the Clearwater, Combs mostly chooses an uncontroversial tact, focusing primarily on the fishing prospects of our storied rivers, effective flies, and angling lore.

That's all well and good, but its been done. If the culture of steelhead fly fishing is to survive in the 21st centurry it will take all of our will and dedication to protect the wild fish which are the fabric of our sporting culture. I see hopeful signs, yet collectively we remain woefully slow to transcend our techno gagetry, spey casting, fly marketing, story telling and resignation to failure and enter the ring for our wild fish. So while I will always love Trey's books I look to Authors like McMillan and Roderick Haig-Brown as the godfathers of our modern sporting traditions and ethics. Both of these men have written extensively on intricacies of fly fishing for steelhead and both were decades ahead of their time in recognizing the growing list of threats facing wild steelhead. Not only did they recognize these threats but they became ardent advocates for the fish they loved.

While he has not written extensively on steelhead flyfishing, Bill Bakke has made his dedication to wild fish his life's work and Steelhead Fly Fishers all over the world owe him a debt of gratitude for it. He has been working on behalf of wild fish for 30 years and the Native Fish Society, an organization he founded in 1995 is one of the most effective and consistent advocacy groups in the Northwest. In our culture of steelhead hero worship, Bakke sometimes doesn't get all the credit he's due, he was also among the first in our region to experiment with waking flies for steelhead. His classic pattern the Dragonfly remains extremely effective and that brings me to the passage in Combs book,

Bill tied the first waking dry I ever saw. We were fishing the Wind River, and he showed me a new pattern he called a Dragon Fly. It had the spun head of a muddler, deer hair wings that stuck out from each side nearly horizontal to the water, and a deer hair tail. It floated well, but extremely low, and then came alive under tension. The wings became little paddles as the fly rocked back and forth and churned a bubbly wake through the swing. Steelhead devoured his entire supply that day. It seems like one of us was into a fish constantly. The flies were a wonder. It was years before I heard about Bombers.

Bill Bakke was ahead of his time in other ways too. Twenty-five years ago, the Kalama River already had a ten year history of stocking hatchery steelhead. The first plants were a mixture of Cowlitz and Elochoman winter steelhead. And in 1957, the Kalama received Washougal and Klickitat summer stocks, those selectively bred Skamania stocks that came to be planted everywhere, even in the Great Lakes.

The Kalama naturally had fresh steelhead every month of the year. It was famous for its springers, sexually immature summer-runs that came in as early as March, with the winter fish. The main summer-run month was July, the perfect fishing month in the Northwest. Upriver, in the area of Pigeon Springs was a short fly-fishing only section. Add to these resources the prospect of an ambitious hatchery program, and you have angling Nirvana. Send a tiny fish to sea, argued the hatchery proponents, and get back a steelhead weighing seven or eight pounds. This arrangement with Mother Nature would be a bargain at half the cost! Hatcheries were nothing less than an integral part of the American way of guaranteeing that more anglers would catch more steelhead. Punching your card out meant your annual limit of thirty steelhead had been realized. This is what your license money paid for, and a skilled angler expected his money's worth. The Good Old Boy network could tell you who was and wasn't.

Bill Bakke spoke to me in a strange reactionary tounge. He talked of catch and release, gene pools, racial diversity, and why he hated hatcheries. In his mind, they were a covenant with the Devil, the state getting off cheap for sucking the life's blood from the watershed. Whether is was dewatering, deforestation, dams, or the kind of massive erosion that turns spawning gravel into concrete didn't matter. Native steelhead were races unique to each river, ten thousand generations had seen to that. The most perfect Kalama River steelhead was a wild fish, naturally born and bred. They existed and flourished because of the pristine watershed. Dumping a weird genetic mix of hatchery steelhead into the Kalama - and a hundred other rivers as well - was rape of the native strain's genetic integrity. Bill believed that. In time, I believed it too.

Check out the Native Fish Society's Website:
http://www.nativefishsociety.org/

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

2010-08-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

The memory card in my camera decided to shit the bed earlier this week meaning it might be a little while before there is any new photo content on the blog. Out here in the distant and misty californee coast range the nearest electronics store is probably two hours away. On an even more crappy note, beer spilled on my laptop's keyboard earlier this week, so it might be EVEN longer before that situation is resolved. After removing the battery and drying the computer for a couple days the computer started, but all is not well in PC land and the screen display decided to slip itself upside down about 3 minutes into using the computer. I tried restarting but all I got was a loud beeping. I turned the computer off, I need some professional help.

Great Moments in Jim History Pt. 1

2010-08-02T17:54:00.001-07:00

If you read this blog regularly or spend any appreciable amount of time around me you'll probably pick up fairly quickly on my use of word "Jim". Borrowed from my good buddy Jon, Jim is basically a substitute for the word redneck, moron, etc. As anglers we're fortunate enough to visit some real outposts of Jimdom (ie Forks Washington). Spend enough time in these places and eventually something ridiculous will happen. Sure, spend enough time in a city and the same is true. But in these rural outposts of Jimery there is a special kind of ridiculousness that occasionally comes out.

As they come to me I'll be posting stories from some of my favorite Jim encounters. The first installment takes place on a popular Desert River, where morons parading as guides spend their days ferrying 5-10 anglers upriver in jet boats, dropping them off and leaving them to stand on their rock of choice for approximately 8 hours. Anyways, all that is an aside to say I was fishing a favorite spot one morning when a Jet boat loaded down with eager clients dropped off three anglers across the river from me. In the chilly September morning water temperatures hovered around 60, air temps were much cooler. Apparently the guide had not spoken to his clients about appropriate equipment prior to picking them up at the boat launch and all three were wading wet, looking very cold and irritated as the cast spinners into their bucket of choice.

Within about 20 minutes I heard a Yeehaw across the river as Jim #1 hooked a fish. After a short fight, the fish was brought to hand and released. In celebration Jim #2 said to his lucky partner...."Hell yea, only two things in the world that make your hands smell like that, and both of em's good!" All I could do was laugh, shake my head and mutter, "e'ffing Jims".

If my memory serves he looked something like this

Love Rivers? Drink more beer!

2010-07-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

Starting August 1st and running through mid-Sept, Sierra Nevada brewing based in Chico California will be donating a portion of all sales of their well loved Pale Ale and Seasonal Beers to the Western Rivers Conservancy. Western Rivers has done some great work to buy and protect some of our regions finest watersheds, including recent purchases on the South Fork Trinity and Blue Creek, a critical thermal refuge for Klamath River Salmon and Steelhead. To top it off, their beers are damn tasty and with every refreshing, hop filled sip you'll be helping protect our beloved Rivers for future generations. Gjod save my liver.

A few classics

2010-07-29T19:13:00.001-07:00

Filling the nonfishing void right now with alot of tying and alot of anticipation for the coming road trip home and a long trip to the northcountry. I wonder whether they'll like these....

Blue Charm

Undertaker

Morejohn's Pool Cleaner

Pops Visit

2010-07-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

Just back from a couple days on the Rattlesnake Fork. Before that the Old Man came down for a little bit to visit, and check out the progress here in the coast range of NorCal. Being a tree lover he was excited by the prospect of seeing the Redwoods. My old man is great. 0% fisherman, its surprising I ever got into this. He will fish, does occasionally, but rarely by choice. He says, "I feel bad for the fish" when explaining his lack of interest, but really it just isn't his thing. You'd never have known it growing up though. I was bitten hard by the fly fishing bug at 11 which meant that he put in 5 years of hard time playing driver before I finally got a license and headed out into the world on my own. Sadly, since then we haven't gotten out together too much. Having him down here was a great chance to show him my work as well as get him out on a steelhead river, which was a first. I sometimes think my dad missed his calling in life, he's one of the most intellectually curious, well informed people I know and having him in the field was great. He asked more questions than an excited 5th grader, ranging from food web ecology to questions about the native vegitation, which he actually knows more about than I do.

On our last day we drove North along 101, then jumped off the main highway to drive the Avenue of Giants, which definitely lives up to its moniker. We also made a brief pit stop at the Founders Grove at the confluence of the mainstem and SF Eel. There are some seriously epic trees there. Next we drove up through fog town and across the coastal mountains to the Rattlesnake Fork.

First Rays in the Canyon

Still pretty early for many fish to be around, but it was great to see the river again and do some more exploring. With water temps at the lower end well over 70 F I opted to fish the upper river near some cold, mountain fed tributaries hoping there might be a few early fish around. The drive up the canyon is pretty cool, the box canyon near the mouth of the Lower Tributary has some legit class IV water. Above, the river is slightly smaller, with the surrounding hills gradually become more arid as you move upstream.

Fishing pressure was nonexistent, probably owing to the fact that the bulk of the run is still 6 weeks from arriving, and the afternoon temperatures are over 95 degrees. Waking up at 4:50 for two or three days running really gets to be a grind, especially after fishing most of the previous day in the beating hot sun. Still, waking up early has its perks, and the first few hours of light feel so fishy this time of year. During winter, unless the pressure is absurd I'm not in too big a rush to get on the water early, but in summer its absolutely imperative. The cool morning and low, reflective light of dawn always feel so fishy. For the first time this season I skated a muddler, hitched. For some reason I have trouble seeing waking flies when they're further than about 60 feet away from me so I find myself balancing the desire to see the fly v casting the fly just out of sight to reach the holding water on the far side of the river. Often I see the fly as it lands but inevitably I loose it in the chop at the middle of the run. Sometimes, find myself wondering what the fly is fishing like as I squint towards the end of my line hoping to detect a rise in the general area where my fly is currently fishing.

Two dawn patrol mornings and not even a sniff, even threw some sink tips the second day through some pretty likely water. During the midday heat, when fishing is risking heatstroke I opted instead for a swim in a few fishy looking spots but didnt end up seeing anything. Now it might be a while before I'm back on the river. Worked 31 days straight in May and June and I've got a feeling it might be at least that many until the next time. The RattleSnake Fork will remain mostly a mystery now, buts it's some spectacularly diverse, spiritual country and I'm sure I'll be back as soon as things wrap up here. Also good to see my dad, glad he made it down.

What a Gimmick

2010-07-18T18:06:00.001-07:00

I thought i'd seen it all until I came across an advertisement for Rio's new MOW sink tip kits, yours for one easy payment of $150. In an effort to cash in on the angling community's inexplicable thirst for hero worship,the add name drops three well known, oft worshiped spey guides telling readers that they can have sink tips just like the "pros". Wow. Basically what they're selling is factory spliced pieces of t-11 or t-14 in various lengths ranging from 2.5 feet to 12 feet. One question, does anyone actually use 2.5 or 5 foot sinktips? I usually carry all of 3 pieces of t-14 when I'm fishing a skagit line 8ft for the greasy, slow tailout, 10 for my all purpose and 12ft for the deep heavy pieces of water. Yes the different lengths/grainweights mean that with each switch of the tip I have to make minor adjustments to my casting stroke, but its really not terribly difficult. On the Delta I prefer t11 tips, with the slightly lower density they dont overload the rod. 9 and 11 feet pieces work nicely. A little secret that Rio doesn't want you to know....making your own sinktips is VERY easy.

Instructions: Buy desired length of sink tip material. Make loop at one end with 10 lb maxima and two nailknots to secure the loop in place. Apply a light coat of aquaseal over the nailknots. enjoy.

If anyone is interested I'm willing to make you a set of three sink tips for the low low price of only $50, guaranteed to be at least as effective of any factory tips you overpaid for and with none of the pressure of trying to be as cool as Ed Ward.

Words For WDFW

2010-07-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

WDFW has opened a comment period until July 23rd on the 2011-2017 strategic plan. In the face of massive budget cuts the department appears to be in flux. It is critical that they hear from conservation minded anglers who believe the state must prioritize the well being of wild salmon and steelhead populations. Submit comments and make your voice heard...
http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/strategic_plan/2011-2017plan.html

Here's what I told them...

I am writing you today to express my concern about the future of wild salmon and steelhead in Washington State and how I believe WDFW can better meet their responsibility to protect and restore our wild salmon over the next eight years. Throughout the state most populations of wild salmon and steelhead currently exist at less than 10% of historic abundance, and steelhead, chinook and coho are all listed under the ESA. While many factors have contributed to the sad state of our anadromous fisheries, there are many actions which WDFW could potentially take to significantly improve conditions for wild salmonids. Among my concerns are the current extent and magnitude of hatchery propagation in our state, and continued over harvest of many wild stocks including steelhead on the Olympic Peninsula, Chum and Coho in Willapa Bay, and Coho in Puget Sound.

Currently WDFW operates the largest state run hatchery system in the United States. Particularly troubling are hatchery practices in Puget Sound where the HSRG has expressed concern that hatchery releases are surpassing the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Mounting scientific evidence suggests that the ecological impacts of hatchery fish may be at least as substantial if not greater than the genetic and evolutionary consequences. In Puget Sound, an already degraded ecosystem, dumping millions of smolts annually does not make sense, ecologically or economically. Declines in abundance of wild coho and steelhead have been attributed to low marine survival, which is almost certainly being reduced by large scale hatchery supplementation. A recent state auditor's report concluded that each fish harvested in the fishery costs nearly $800. With budgets decreasing statewide, how can the department justify this wasteful program? This is just one example of what I believe to be a systematic problem. Fifty years of blind faith in the merits of hatchery propagation and its ability to produce productive sport and commercial fisheries has led to the expansion of our state hatchery system to a level which clearly cannot be sustained. It costs too much money and it doesn't work, period.

Survival of hatchery steelhead smolts on the Skagit and other Puget Sound Rivers is commonly below 1% meaning that for 450,000 smolts fewer than 5000 adults return to the river to be caught in the sport fishery. Nearly every year state hatchery managers are forced to scramble to reach egg take goals closing fishing on even these meager hatchery returns to get the minimum number of eggs necessary to sustain these failing programs.

Healthy populations of wild steelhead support nearly four months of sport fishing, bringing huge economic benefit to local communities at absolutely no cost to the state. Conversely, hatchery fisheries end February 16th in Puget Sound lasting little more than a month and cost the state millions of dollars. Furthermore, these fisheries are often concentrate in terminal areas and fail to attract the type of angling tourism associated with healthy populations of wild steelhead. Forks Washington is a perfect example of what traveling angler's dollars can mean to a community.

I believe that the state must take three actions in order to give wild salmon and steelhead a chance of recovery. First, designate multiple Wild Salmonid Management Zones in every ESU. These refugia should be placed in watersheds which contain the most productive and intact habitat, support the greatest diversity of salmonid species and life histories and which have outstanding cultural value. Second WDFW should set hatchery releases in accordance with ecosystem carrying capacity. I believe this would mean significantly reducing the number of smolts released at most hatcheries in the state, particularly those in Puget Sound. Finally the state must stop placing harvest opportunity first and foremost. As citizens of Washington State we are the guardians of a tremendous natural wealth. Healthy populations of wild salmon and steelhead are an essential part of our regional culture, ecology and evolutionary legacy. It is our responsibility to safe guard the future of that vast natural wealth and I believe up to this point, we have largely failed. Please make wild fish the priority of WDFW moving forward. Their future depends on it.

Obviously there is alot more that could be said but I figured the longer I wrote the less impact I'd make I tried to hit the key points quickly.

Fishing, Finally

2010-07-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

After a brutal June which included exactly zero days of fishing and a lot of ball busting work in the field, I finally snuck out for a couple days fishing earlier this week. First morning I started out at the mouth of the River that is the Grand daddy of steelhead fly fishing. I'd heard stories in the past of people catching fish there this time of year, but water temperatures were around 70 in the morning so after half heartedly fishing a couple of runs I made coffee, headed back down to fog town and hung a left towards the cooler water tributary.

Got to the Rattlesnake Fork of the Poison Oak River around 12:30PM and it was already blistering hot, it gets that way in inland California this time of year, but the water temperature was cooler, below 68 so I felt a little better about my prospects and the prospects of the fish's survival should I luck into an encounter. Sure enough within my first 20 casts I hooked a fish. Must've been beginners luck. The fish took at the top of a nice run, in broken water about 3 feet deep and immediately went into the backing, slowed just long enough for me to gain some composure and then proceeded to go much deeper into my backing in a single run. Its the first time in a long time I've actually chased a fish, and since I wasn't going to have much luck pulling it up through the heavy water at the top of the run I figured I better go down and get it. I was just getting to the quiet water on the inside of the run when the fish decided to run into the shallows and start headshaking in place. Fish that are rolling around in shallow, slow water tend not to stay hooked very long and within a couple seconds the fish was unpinned. While I would've loved to see the fish, shaking the rust off and feeling the tug for the first time in two months was more than enough. Walking back to the car I thought about how easy that fish had come and wondered whether I would get another shot at a fish, fished hard for the next two days without another touch.

Thats life, and thats steelhead and the one brief encounter coupled with the beautiful water and scenery will definitely bring me back. Sorry, no photos since I left my camera's memory card in my computer.

Casting Photos

2010-07-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

Anyone who spey casts and enjoys photography knows how difficult it is to capture the cast and do justice the the fluid beauty of a line in motion. Occasionally I've been lucky enough to snap a shot only to discover later that I caught the cast, line in flight, loop unfloding perfectly. Still, for as many hundreds of photos I take every year with my point and shoot, good casting photos are hard to come by. So when a friend offered to take some photos with his digital SLR I couldn't turn down the offer. We hit the river a little late last night meaning there weren't very many spots left with enough light for good photos. Here's what we did get though. More to come.

A cool sequence of a single spey

Holy Steelhead!

2010-07-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, most of you know that I adamantly oppose naming rivers, pumping numbers, or generally running ones mouth...but has anyone checked the Bonneville dam counts lately? I guess its no secret that there are steelhead in the Columbia river so I wont feel too guilty. I checked this morning and had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. The best part, the numbers of unclipped fish are huge, outnumbering hatchery fish in the counts the last few days. That means more aggressive surface oriented fish, with a passion for small flies fished in the grease as opposed to the dour, finless drones which normally fill the river every summer. The D or steelhead Disney Land as I affectionately call it is a perfect case study for this point. Hatchery fish routinely outnumber wild 5 to 1 yet the catch is consistently dominated by wild fish. Basically, wild fish crush flies with ruthless vigor, and while the hatch doggies occasionally get fed up with waiting for the pellets to arrive and capitulate, they mostly sulk and hurry back to the hatchery.

Last year on a nameless eastslope river I had an experience that really affirmed just how aggressive wild summers can be to surface flies. It was getting towards dusk and I was fishing my last run of the evening, a heavy water run with some large boulders where I figured the fish might be hiding out in the low water conditions. About 40 feet into the run the fly dangled into the seam and a fish boiled behind the fly, I waited for the weight to set the hook and it never came. As often as people talk about their strategy for getting fish to comeback I find that I only get a few opportunities to put it into practice a year, so I did what I had the most confidence in, took two steps up river and fished the fly through the lie again figuring that if the fish wanted the fly that badly on the first past it might well want another shot at it. Sure enough the fish was there, but this time it was a pluck pluck again never fully committing to the take. At this point I was shaking, muttering to my self, at the brink of steelhead induced delerium. Growing impatient I cast the fly again, and as it swung into the hang down in no more than 12 inches of water the fish took with a strong yank, instantly flipped out of the water, nearly beaching itself and threw the hook. While I didn't land it, that fish stands out as one of the most memorable of the season, a wild male with the bronze, and rose blush of a fall steelhead.

Yesterday more than 2900 wild fish passed Bonneville, more than 5300 total. Of course I'll be in California until Sept so I'll have to wait until this fall to find my own rock and take part in the glory. This boom of productivity on the Columbia coincides with La Nina conditions of 2007 and 2008 when ocean productivity and consequently survival was at levels previously undocumented. I Read yesterday that alot of climatologists believe we're shifting back into another La Nina pattern. Keep it coming ocean gods, and keep the spill coming Judge Redden.

Smuddler

2010-07-09T22:10:00.000-07:00

I got this pattern from my friend Brad Smith. Brad is a SW WA native who's family has been catching native summer runs on the grease line since before I was born (and when there were still a few fish around). Last summer I was lucky enough to be introduced to Brad on his home river, the River Nunyabusiness, with fellow steelhead junky Mike "Steelie Mike" Davidchik. Being trained from an early age in the ancient jedi art of fly fishing summer steelhead in low water conditions, Brad fishes almost exclusively with a dryline and....a single handed rod. Gasp. While no one in their right mind would assert that they invented the muddler, Brads pops apparently was one of the first folks to regularly make use of a muddler with a marabou wing, a pattern which they fish often and call the smuddler. I'm not sure the exact details of the story, but at some point someone claimed the pattern as their own and sold it to the commercial tying company as an "after dinner mint". Unfortunately the factory version, with its gigantic jug head and over stuffed marabou wing with just doesn't have quite the mojo of the original.

Brads tie is tied on a long shanked, downeyed streamer hook so you'll have to forgive my bastardization, and I've taken a few liberties with the color combination since I couldn't find my purple body braid. I've been a believer ever since last summer when I saw him take a fish on the comeback which grabbed on and started running into the backing before I even realized what'd happened. Hope you guys are having a good summer in SW, thanks for the fly buddy.

Its been a while

2010-07-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

Since I went fishing. The jonesing is starting to get severe...bordering on delerium tremens. Doesn't help watching bonneville numbers and webcam everyday, salivating over what i'm missing. The only river system worth fishing within 200 miles is still about twice a fishable volume with not end in sight. Guess we'll have to see what the next couple weeks bring for weather and flows. On the bright side I've now tied a lifetimes worth of summer steelhead flies should the opportunity to actually go fishing arise.

And I Quote

2010-06-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

Eloquent words on the Oregonian's website in response to Seafood Watch listing Oregon Salmon as "avoid"...

"Seafood Watch's warning in this case are not supported by the scientific data...just another politically-based nonsensical warning designed to paint an entire segment of the Oregon commercial fishing industry with a broad brush. Even though most salmon landed in Oregon ports originate from the COLUMBIA RIVER SYSTEM, and not the Sacramento, we have a California-based feel-good organization spreading B.S. nice and thick. But then again, who would expect anything less from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's coterie of birkenstock-wearing, patchouli-soaked, chin-pubed libtards"

The Columbia River

2010-06-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

With a strong Spring Chinook run already in the books, and more to come this summer and fall, a record setting Sockeye run in progress and early returns of steelhead looking extremely promising it's looking like another amazing year on the Columbia system, made more amazing by the fact that the river and its fish have continued to overcome so many insults and still gives so much. Last year's return of steelhead was the second largest on record behind 2001 and fishing was phenomenal. Unfortunately, along with large numbers of fish come larger numbers of anglers. Still, its hard to get too uptight with so many fish around.

The Columbia is a special system and sadly behind the Sacramento it is the most degraded, damned and generally hosed large, salmon bearing river system on the west coast. Yet somehow the fish hold on. Not only are they holding on, they're producing numbers unseen by modern man with a little help from ocean conditions, favorable outmigration, and increased spill mandated by the man who should be a hero to every steelhead angler worth his wading boots, Judge James Redden. The Columbia is also spectacular for its diversity. By my count more than 20 rivers between the mouth and the headwaters support decent to excellent summer steelhead fishing depending on the year, and rivers like the Kalama, D, Grande Ronde, Clearwater are as important to the history of steelhead flyfishing culture as any. Summer steelhead bring out hordes like almost no other fish, and sure many of the fish on the Columbia system are of hatchery origin. But in among the hordes and the masses of fin clipped hatchery fish swim some of the most aggressive, acrobatic and beautiful wild steelhead on the planet. So much soul in those little one salt fish that recklessly grab small, sparse flies fish in or near the surface, screaming downstream with seemingly impossible speed, cartwheeling as they desperately fight to throw the hook. Who could ask for more from a sport fish?

What makes me sad about the Columbia is to think of just how good it COULD be. The four lower Snake River dams remain in place, and are substantial obstacles to the recovery of ESA listed Sockeye, Chinook and Steelhead in the Snake system. Imagine how different rivers like the Snake, Ronde, and Clearwater would be without those four fish killing dams reducing the survival of outmigrating smolts? How productive would the Salmon, Selway, Middle Fork Clearwater be with huge slugs of wild spawning salmon every year? It boggles the mind. This year Columbia River Sockeye will break a long standing record of the largest return since the construction of Bonneville dam started modern era fish counting, and in all likelihood fewer than 2000 sockeye will return to their natal rivers in the Upper Snake system. The record since the construction of Lower Granite, set two years ago is 1200 fish, probably 1% of historic run size for the productive lakes of the Salmon and Snake River system. Most of the Sockeye entering the Columbia this year are bound for the Okanagan and Wenatchee systems, just imagine if the Snake wasn't hindered by four lower river dams...

The Columbia was once the greatest salmon bear river on earth, providing nourishment both literally and spiritually for more than a dozen tribes of native Americans. While it has been driven to a shadow of its former might by the shortsighted hydro projects, irrigation, overharvest to name a few, the fish remain resolved to continue the legacy of their forebearers, migrating a thousand miles to the rivers of Idaho, Eastern Oregon, and the Eastslope of the Cascades. With our help these fish can continue to give so much to our region, tying us together as totems of our shared culture. We the citizens of the northwest are modern day salmon people and it is imperative that we fight to protect that foundation of our culture. For one more year we can enjoy their bounty, knowing well that without action now their future remains tenuous,let this year of abundance inspire us to action on their behalf, knowing just what the Columbia River could be without the four lower Snake dams. Long live the Columbia and its mighty runs of salmon.

Airflo 6th Sense

2010-06-22T21:06:00.001-07:00

I finally got enough spare time in the evening to get out on the river and toss the new line around a little. Much as I'd expected the line casts much like the 7/8 delta I've got for my solstice. With the old sage 5120 the it flies with almost zero effort, the key as usual being to take it easy and let the line load up. Even after a three week hiatus from any casting it took only a few minutes of tinkering to get the stroke dialed to throw the 45' head before I started working line out. I found that it casts easily to about 80 feet which is really all I will ever ask that light spey rod to do. While I favor a single spey for summer fishing the line felt sweet with a snap T as well. The combination of the ultra light rod and delta taper is pure butter, and as a bonus, the line casts extremely well overhead adding even more versatility for close in presentations etc. Thanks airflo for another sweet line.

With the fly fishing industry always focused on pushing the envelope it can be frustrating watching companies abandon great designs infavor of techno progress. I'll just come out and say it, Airflo...please don't change the delta, this may not qualify as a long term business plan, but I promise to buy one delta every three years for the rest of my life. I'm pretty sure its the sweetest line/taper possible and I could very happily fish it for 90% of my fishing. Sage, I've long since given up on you but I'm not mad at you. (although the XP/Cabelas deal was a little whack). Keep pushing the "envelope" with new designs and $750 rods. I'll stick to the used goods and the unfilled warranty card for 1/3rd the price.

Thinking about Corporate Accountability, BP and Other Environmental Catastrophes

2010-06-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

Watching the Gulf Oil spill saga continue to unfold has been a bit like watching a car crash. Its hideously ugly, tragic and terrible, but somehow the American public can't keep its eyes off what has already become one of the greatest environmental tragedies in the history of humanity. With Americans momentarily enraged and looking for answers, all of a sudden taking a hard line on oil companies has become politically expedient, even if they've been cutting you campaign checks for your entire political career. Of course most of that outrage will dissipate once the 20 second soundbite ends and the opportunity to do something substantive for the environment arises but thats the nature of our culture where political opinion is driven by who can shout louder and the environment is too often overlooked in favor of short term political gamesmanship.

While the Gulf Oil spill undoubtedly stems from negligence and a lack preparedness at BP, its ironic that this whole thing is an accident, particularly when you consider some of the intentionally heinous things which take place all the time. Yes, this accident is of a magnitude never before seen, but there have been many negligent AND intentional actions taken in broad daylight by corporate logging, mining and oil companies over the last 50 years which have had arguably equally catastrophic effects albeit at a slightly different scale. How can the complete destruction of the Deer Creek Basin in Washington not be considered among the same type of environmental crimes? But there was no justice department inquiry then. Sadly the Forest Service was complicit in the wholesale rape of Western Washington's most storied summer steelhead stream, building the roads and making the timber sales that facilitated the thoughtless and destructive pillaging of the hallowed watershed. So many in Washington DC are eager to hand over vast tracts of public land, and resources to corporations which have absolutely no intention of dealing with the fallout of their profiteering. Meanwhile stock holders get rich and the public is left to pay the cost of cleaning up the mess. Pebble mine is a classic example, and like the deep water horizon or so many other corporate cash grabs, it is destined to end in tragedy. The politicians will act outraged to appease a momentarily transfixed constituency and then go back to their steak dinners with oil and mining company lobbyists and their "drill baby drill mantras".

What about the actions of the Bureau of "Wreck the Nation" (Reclaimation) and the Army Corp of Engineers throughout most of the 20th century? Government agencies intentionally destroyed huge swaths of free flowing river and with it the legacy of millions of years of evolution and local adaptation within populations of wild salmon and steelhead, and they did it all for pennies on the dollar in irrigation and hydroelectric returns. The damming and subsequent loss of the North Fork Clearwater and its race of B-run steelhead is as egregious as any act ever committed against the environment. The rash of dam building has subsided since government agencies in cooperation with power and utility companies have managed to dam and destroy most of the major rivers in the Lower 48 states. But the political culture which allows for the intentional destruction of public land, water and fisheries resources remains, always with the shortsighted goal of appeasing the gods of profit, lobbyists and other uncouth and unethical figures. The Dalles, Dworshak, and every dam on the Lower Snake River are perfect examples, and until some of our supposedly "environmentalist" politicians from WA grow a spine and stand up against the death sentence we've collectively given Snake Salmon they're no better than the rest of DC and its godawful political culture.

All I can say is, if Washington DC wants to be about sound bites and bullshit thats their unfortunate choice, but there is no way in hell some republican from Arkansas is going to have a damn thing to say about the fate of my home watersheds and the fish they support. At the end of the day there are only a few with attention spans long enough to make a difference and I can guarantee you that doesn't include 98% of politicians.

New Line

2010-06-11T20:52:00.001-07:00

Haven't been fishing at all for the last couple of weeks. Early part of the field season is always hellacious with work like that I guess. Luckily evenings have been pretty quiet here in the heart of the California coastrange so I've had enough time to tie a lifetimes worth of summer steelhead flies. I also just ordered a single hand airflo 6th sense 7/8 online. For a long time I've been looking for the perfect line for my Sage 5120, and while an old 5/6 windcutter does the job it definitely isnt bringing out the best of that rod in my hands. 6th sense should be absolute butter. Its got the same taper as the delta which is my favorite line of all time. I know a lot of folks like to fish scandi lines for their summer fishing but somehow I can't get excited about fishing short shooting heads with small flies. After stripping and managing big lengths of running line all winter its the last thing I want to do when targeting summer fish. Of course some people who fish long bellys would say that a delta, with its 50-58 foot head qualifies as a shooting line, but on most summer rivers if you're shooting very far beyond that you're over casting. Besides, how many people do you know who can actually make a long line fly right most of the time? For the number of people talking about fishing them I've seen very few casters who make it look easy, so I find that a delta is the perfect compromise, plenty smooth for delicate presentations, easy to manage and cast.

Anyways, The 7/8 should be right on grain wise on that little rod. I'll let you know how it casts when it arrives.

Skamania Death...Dale Jigs

2010-06-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

While most of us fly swinging types probably prefer to catch our summer fish on floating lines and waking flies the unavoidable fact is that pressured hatchery fish can be pretty darn dour. From July to November the first option is the floating line, but there are times when conditions or tight lipped fish demand that the fly get down in the water column. A few summers back when TBone and I were really getting serious about this steelhead business he was the butt of more than a few of my jokes for using what I called at the time "Dale Jigs". See T's buddy Dale is mostly a gear fisherman, and he loves fishing terminal areas. As a consequence he's dialed in the art of fishing to stale fish like none other, routinely taking fish on the 97th pass of the day. Dale jigs are pretty simple, and very deadly. Basically small dumbell eyes on an upeyed hook with a few clumps of marabou in various colors. While I never got into swinging jigs for summers, seeing T hook multiple fish on his "flies" left a lasting impression on me. I'll be the first to admit I'm a fly snob so this is my answer to the now legendary Dale Jig. The Spey Dale Jig, stale skamania's beware. They should also fish pretty nasty on the floater up in the Northcountry this fall.

Northcountry special. Black and Blue.

Classic Black and Red.

Pink and Purple. Nuff said.

Spawning Purple. Favorite Colors for late fall

Dale Jig Strikes

Bonneville Web Cam

2010-06-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

Every summer as the annual run of steelhead starts to build over Bonneville dam, one of my favorite time wasting activities is checking the live feed webcam from the dam. From now until the end of August the peak of the run will pass over Bonneville, giving fish porn enthusiasts the chance to get a glimpse at literally thousands of fish as they undertake their long migrations to the distant tributaries of the Columbia and Snake. Granted, easily 4/5ths of the fish that pass through the fish ladder there are nubby finned hatchery drones headed for the mass production facilities designed to "mitigate" the effects of the dams. However mixed among the clouds of hatchery fish are some of the most beautiful wild steelhead on earth. From 4 to easily over 20 pounds, blushed rosy on gill plates and hardened in their determination to reach their natal stream. These wild steelhead will spawn in the desert tributaries of the middle Columbia and Snake, in the dam battered rivers of the eastern cascades or in the high elevation rivers which drain the distant rockies. They are as resilient as they are aggressive towards surface flies and while many of us are still lucky enough to catch a few every year its always a wonder to see them, there in the man made fish ladder, just long enough to have their picture taken and sent across the world on the intraweb. Check it out.

At the Mouth of a Great River

2010-06-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

The Great Estuary, worlds best chinook nursery

We Spent the last three days driving from Vancouver to our summer field site in the coastal mountains of Northern California. Normally it takes a day and a half of hard driving to get there, but since we didn't technically have a place to stay at the field station until Monday afternoon we figured we'd do it at a leisurely pace. Needless to say, driving from the Canada border to Northern California means you will cross most of the greatest steelhead rivers in the northwest. One river though stood out in particular and I was glad we had a little time to explore and soak in the surroundings. Being that I've cut my teeth on big rivers like the Big Mighty, Big Trib and the North Fork Pugetropolis, you could say I've got an affinity for big water and this particular river is arguably the grandest of all the steelhead rivers in the Lower 48.

The Great River has seen its fair share, including some bloodiest, most controversial, and longest fought battles over water rights, fishing and native rights. Despite it all, the river continues to produce prodigious runs of fish even if they are a fraction of the its past abundance when it served as a cradle for the modern tradition of steelhead flyfishing. So it goes without saying that when we drove by we had to stop and take a look around. We headed up river, looking for a well known riffle with its own first name and ended up riverside on a gravel bar where a half dozen other rigs were parked. Jet boats ran up and down river while another sat anchored in 4 feet of water pulling spinners for spring chinook. Asking for directions we met a nice retired local named Joe, who having caught his limit on the morning tide graciously offered to give us a tour of the area. What we got was a history lesson, mixed with a sociological study of the local community and a lot of good old fashioned fishing stories.

Afterwards, with hours to kill before sun down and no where to be, we decided to check out the mouth of the river. A short walk past the site of an ancient native village put us on a long sandbar, which backed up the river into a lake like estuary on one side with the pacific on the other. The beauty, history and abundance of life combined to create a real sense of gravity. 300 yards off shore a large group of humpback whales with calves surfaced, apparently in no particular hurry to go anywhere. Pelicans and ospreys dove in after out-migrating juvenile salmon while sea lions crashed through the standing waves of the river mouth chasing adult chinook. Standing at the edge of the Pacific, where one of North America's greatest salmon rivers meets the vastness of the ocean I felt overwhelmed by the sheer power of the river and its ecosystem. Despite years of mismanagement and insult, the spirit of river Orego's remains alive, supporting an unparalleled abundance of life. Despite my normal fishy inclinations I was perfectly happy in that moment to sit in the sand and watch in awe. For now, I'll have to focus on work. But a month from now, when the first bright steelhead of summer slip into the lower river, I will most certainly be back on the banks of the Great River, giddy and energized by the life around me and the hope that I might momentarily feel the spirit of the river connected through 8lb test and 90 feet of fly line.

Oregos and the Birds, guarding the river's mouth

Thinking about Summer

2010-05-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

Summer is so close I can taste it. Another month and a half from now and most of the great summer steelhead rivers in the region will have good numbers of bright fish. Summer steelhead are special creatures. All trout, but with power and speed from a year or more of oceanic migration. As the days get longer and the air gets sweeter I am anxious for the early july morning, when steam rises from the river into the cool summery air. Wading wet with only a floating line, tippet spool and a small box of flies offers an angler the opportunity to fish unencumbered by gear and complication. They are a flyfishermans fish to be sure and the sport is steeped in rich traditions of angling for summer steelhead.

Tonight in a binge of anxious preseason energy I tied a dozen flies, including the sweetest pair of lady carolines I've ever turned out. I don't normally tie with expensive feathers, but I've had a couple sitting around for a long time and I've been wanting to try the pattern again. Every angler has a favorite summer steelhead fly, but I tend to think they're pretty interchangeable, as long as they're buggy. Purple is good, black is better. Alec Jacksons bend out too often to make their pretty lines worthwhile so I tend to tie on good old fashioned 7999s. That said, a lady caroline is meant to be tied on a spey hook so I tied on some #3 AJs, heavy wire.

A couple of summers ago I was fishing a medium sized summer run river that drains the glacial flank of a local volcano. Fishing was slowish, which I expected since I generally have my ass handed to me on this particular river. In the last pool of the evening a heavy fish took forcefully in the hangdown ripping line from my reel. I set the hook expecting a solid hookup but to my dismay nobody was home. The fish had bent a #3 AJ on the turn. God it stings to get that type of yank and never see the animal at the other end of the line. The mystery yank that should've been a fish, guess thats one of many reasons while steelhead remain mysterious and intriguing after hundreds of days on the water .

drylines and muddlers...life is good

May Steelheading and Heading South

2010-05-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

Nothing like sunshine and chrome summers

Spent the last couple of days exploring a couple of little summer steelhead rivers south of Seattle. It was good to get out and swing flies again, and I've got to say I'm a little sad I'll miss the annual June opener on the locals this year. While fishing this time of year is far from predictable, the fish are fresh, aggressive and generally on the move. All this comes together to make for streaky fishing with nothing going on one day and multiple hookups the next. The summer field season though will have me traveling to NorCal for the summer at the end of May meaning I will miss what has become the most productive time of the year on the local puget sound rivers. With 16 hours of daylight it can get to be a grind fishing all day, but after a fishless May I'm always ready to push myself a little, especially when there are bright fish to be had. Soon it will be dryline season properly. No more chucking lead eyes and t14 on skagit heads, for the next 5 months I wont pick up anything but a delta and I hope to be fishing the floating line most of the time. While I will miss the locals there is plenty of exploring to be done to the south and I have the rest of my life to fish and enjoy the rivers of the Puget Sound area. Take good care of them while I'm gone...

Now its off to the southern hinterlands of Klamath country. I'm looking forward to getting a little taste of the area and exploring what was arguably one of the most productive salmon ecosystems in the world before European Americans did their dam/mining/irrigation/logging/hatchery thing. I understand there are still a few fish around...we'll see what I find.

MOE Blows it on the Skeena

2010-05-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

The BC ministry of environment recently released its recommendations for the Skeena Angling Management Plan. It appears they've more or less aligned with the interests of the guides to implement changes that will take the fishery one step closer to being closed to non-residents unable to afford the elite guide and lodge experience. As T-Bone said during a recent discussion of the changes, "this is the seventh level of Dante's inferno" that is, they're restricting the freedom of nonresident anglers to fish the hallowed waters of the Skeena system and handing it over to guides (hardly the most reputable or fair stewards of a sport fishing resource).

The most striking changes to the regulations as I see it is the implementation of resident only saturday and sundays on all classified waters within the Skeena angling zone and the adoption of resident only angling zones on some rivers or reaches of rivers. Overall its a bullshit resource grab and will be a disservice to businesses throughout the valley which rely on nonresident angling dollars and to the Skeena itself which needs all the friends it can get. The future of the Skeena system is already on shaky ground with plans in the works for huge coal bed methane extraction in the Sacred Headwaters, a massive oil pipeline from Alberta's tar sands and continued over exploitation of steelhead as bycatch in an artifically enhanced sockeye fishery all posing serious threat. Meanwhile guides spend their time and energy fighting to keep the resource to themselves, missing the point entirely that without a strong, international outcry against these threats the Skeena will be doomed.

For the time being I'm a resident of BC so it doesn't actually affect my fishing directly, but its the principal of the thing. North American angling tradition is rooted in public access for all citizens to sport fishing opportunities and this is just one step back towards the longstanding (and totally bogus) European tradition of only the privileged and aristocratic having access to anadromous fisheries. The only other option would be to go outlaw and say screw the guides and the new regulations and I know more than a few people are planning to go that route.

Photos from the Sea to Sky River

2010-05-12T15:32:00.001-07:00

For me May is more or less a blackhole in my life as a steelheader (a bit like November). While I miss the rivers I call home during this time, its always good to take a short brake and savor the season gone by. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few photos from the last day of the season on the Sea to Sky River. The setting couldn't be more dramatic and the budding April foliage makes for some pretty shots. Check it out.

Dawn at a sweet run

boulders and alders

just above tide

up the valley to the confluence

last pass of the season

Go Alex!

2010-05-11T17:06:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure how many in the fly fishing world are noticing, but we owe a helluva lot to a biologist and activist named Alex Morton. A trained biologist, and passionate environmentalist, Alex has been leading the fight against open net pen fish farming in the Lower Mainland BC since the start. Over the last decade she has been involved in some of the most important research to document the environmental impacts of fish farms and associated sea lice outbreaks and while progress has been slow, change is coming. This month Alex led a protest walk all the way down Vancouver Island to raise awareness of the plight of juvenile salmon out-migrating past a gauntlet of fish farm produced disease and parasites. The walk culminated with a demonstration in Victoria attended by thousands of passionate wild salmon advocates.

As a young biologist I view this sort of environmental stance as far too rare among researchers and academics. Too many are content to receive government money in exchange for not rocking the boat. DFO and industry lobbyists are quick to categorize Alex as an advocate, prone to overstatement and lacking objectivity. Sure she is an advocate but thats what's so refreshing. The world needs more people like Alex. We are woefully short on people who are not content to sit behind a desk in a bureaucratic agency job and watch as wild fish and their ecosystems go down in flames. And, so far she's been mostly right when it comes to the impacts of sea lice. Sadly, salmon populations have almost uniformly crashed in areas with high densities of salmon farms and the peer reviewed research has mostly confirmed what Alex has been saying for a decade. Meanwhile the industry and DFO knowingly spread misinformation to protect the status quo. All I can say is GO ALEX! you're an inspiration.

Fish farming in BC is almost certainly having some impact on Puget Sound Salmon and Steelhead, although the proportion of our fish that travel out the Georgia Strait as opposed to turning left and going out Juan de Fuca is unclear. The fish farming industry is knocking on Washington's door, apparently there are 8 fish farms in Puget Sound....8 too many. There is almost certainly a fight brewing to stop the industry from expanding further and we had better be ready if we want to avoid the same fate as Georgia Strait and Broughton Archipelago stocks.

Visit Alex's website and learn more...

http://www.adopt-a-fry.org/

Saying goodbye to an old friend

2010-05-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

My old digital point and shoot camera took its last swim last week and while its sad to see it go, it definitely used its nine lives well. That camera was fully submerged in water on more than one occasion and always beat the odds and survived. Eventually the luck is bound to run out but for a piece of electronics it had unusual lasting power. At this point I can't even remember when I first got it although I suspect it was around 5 years ago meaning that I've had the camera throughout my entire death spiral into this addiction called steelhead angling. It was far from fancy, with only 4 mega pixels but it went some amazing places and always seemed to do justice to the light, color and beauty of a given moment. The camera was there for my first spey steelhead, spent a summer in the Hoh River Rainforest, another in Alaska. Needless to say its taken some pretty amazing photos over the last few years and it will be missed.

Here's a couple of favorites:

All this nostalgia for gear that has served me well over the years got me thinking about what else, if anything I own that has had that sort of lasting power. Certainly not any pair of waders or wading boots I've ever owned. The current pair of wading boots are only a year old but are literally disintegrating off my feet to the point that gravel can pour in the sides. So much for dropping $200 on a fancy pair of simms wading boots. If they're all gonna shit the bed within a year of purchase why not buy the cheap ones?

One product that I've always been completely satisfied with is the Airflo delta spey line I have on my 6/7/8 CND. The line is entering its fourth year of service, has fished literally hundreds of days in that time and has yet to crack, abraid or otherwise turn to a piece of crap. I've had other lines do that in 4 months. Not only is the line durable, but it's versatile, and buttery as hell. After fishing heavier tips all winter with a skagit compact, I've been fishing lighter tips and smaller flies to match the late spring conditions. Its always nice to put on the delta and launch some smooth single speys after a long winter of water anchored monotony. I love that line for light tip fishing and dryline, in fact I love it so much I just recently traded an extra skagit compact head I had sitting around for an 8/9 delta for my heavier rod. It casts just as sweet as the lighter version and should be ideal for bigger water, both dryline and sinktip fishing when conditions do not demand giant flies.

This weekend we're headed down to Amurica to pick up the sailboat and sail it back to Vancouver. Planning on dragging some flashers and hoochies behind the boat the whole way, figure odds are eventually it will run into some salmon. I know absolutely nothing about ocean salmon fishing but in talking to a friend who guides here in Vancouver it sounds like the fishing for feeder chinook has been pretty darn good of late. We'll have to see what we find.

Another Season In the Books

2010-04-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

Winter season ended officially for me today and it came full circle nicely. Other than a few days in the hinterlands fishing time's been scarce of late. With school and other non-hermit activities keeping me preoccupied, I have been hard pressed to get a full day of fishing in. So when a weekday open in my calendar today, I knew it would be my last chance to get out before the end of April, and the unofficial (or official depending where you live) end of the winter steelhead season.

April is just so good, it hurts to see it end. This evening at 8PM I was standing knee deep in a run about a mile above tide in the Sea to Sky country, watching swallows dive on a huge spinner fall. A perfect end to a season which has gone from the short, frigid days of winter to full on spring. The fish continue to ascend the rivers, but it will be only a matter of weeks now before the last of the fresh fish pass through the lower river to the upriver spawning grounds. I got onto the river a little before noon and with the sun on the water decided to fish a classic orange GP. A lot of folks knock the classic general practitioner as a stiff, traditional fly, but something about the pattern is so fishy too me. I've gotten just enough fish on it that I can always fish it with confidence, and when the water has enough visibility and it feels right I never hesitate to tie one on.

Got a fish near the bottom of a nice long run I've fished a few times this winter. It always seemed fishy, but it was nice to finally get some confirmation. The fish was a male, chrome and thick shouldered, as bright as the first I landed this season, probably 14 pounds and sporting a pair of sealice just above the anal fin. It never ceases to amaze me that fresh wild steelhead are literally entering many of our rivers in this region for five months. Some systems, year round. This winter, like every other since I became afflicted with an interest in steelheading went by all too fast. From the barren cold of january to the leafy sweetness of this long April day, winter season has so much variety. Throughout the season the river and its surroundings change, however the constant remains the pursuit of the steelhead, native to our waters. Building throughout the season to this point when spring rains, high tides and warming rivers drive the biological necessity to spawn and deposit the next generation of fish to their natal waters. Fish are as fresh and aggressive as ever in April and I often think a dryline would be more than adequate. I spoke with a guy today on the river who was fishing a 6 foot piece of type III and from the sounds of it, it provided more than enough depth to entice fish to strike. Knowing that, I can't help but wonder why we even both fishing tips? Habit mostly I guess, plus we know it works...

Just another question that will have to wait until next year.

Last week of spring steelhead

2010-04-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

Last week of steelhead season in the lower mainland for me. Hope to get out before the season closes down as there should be a fish or two around and water temps are pretty excellent for finding them. We've been getting rain off and on all week but between downpours its been downright pleasant outside. Sunny days this time of year dawn and dusk start to matter a little more I think, maybe i'll drag my ass out of bed early monday?..

Missing the big river bad this week...

Somewhere in a Remote Coastal Inlet

2010-04-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Leaving the city behind

Spent yesterday with a couple of good buddies/fellow biologists. A boat ride of under an hour took us to the head of a remote coastal inlet where a smallish river (think upper NF stilly) enters saltwater. Anadromous fish can access roughly 7 miles of this stream before they reach an impassable falls, so we weren't expecting huge numbers of steelhead, but we figured with the splash of rain over the weekend and the remote setting we might be able to find something. The ride up to the river was an experience in itself and riding north up the inlet surrounded by snowcovered ridges rising straight from the waters edge. In the early morning, the water was glass, blurring the distinction between where sky and water met. After setting out a pair of crab and prawn traps, we got started and hiked up to where the canyon starts to close in, just below where the falls block fish passage. With limited information on fish populations in this particular river, we didn't know what to expect, however an old report from the Ministry of Environment indicated that the little river once supported a respectable sport fishery for steelhead and was known for producing large bodied fish. Anticipation was great, but given the poor condition of almost every stock of steelhead in the Georgia Basin our expectations were tempered by realism.

Docking

The river was in good shape. Running about a foot above the algae line but clear, the river had risen considerably with rain over the weekend and the first nudge of spring snowmelt. Hiking upriver we stopped to admire the tranquility of the valley. Only an hours boat ride from a booming megatropolis, home to more than 1.5 million people and the little river valley was like taking a step back in time. Without a sign of human's touch other the old road we walked, a dock and a few old buildings near the mouth the roughly 5 mile walk up river to the canyon was like taking a step back in time.

Downstream

We found a few good runs, but as with many floodplain rivers, there was also alot of glidy, riffle water with little promise of holding fish. One pool at the junction with a large tributary seemed particularly promising. Roughly 4 feet deep in the thalweg, a bottom of large cobble, dotted with boulders ranging from 2-3 feet in diameter the run seemed to have all the characteristics of a good piece of steelhead water. Chris was fishing a small bucktail jig under a float and when he hooked a fish, I thought we'd found a quicksilver ghost. The fish thrashed violently at the surface and put a deep bend in his rod, even after seeing the fish cartwheel I thought it might have been a small steelhead but as it got closer we realized it was a resident rainbow. With long fins, a touch of purple on the flanks and a heavy spotting pattern on the back and below the lateral line, it was probably the nicest rainbow I've ever seen in a coastal system with access to anadromy. Even more interesting, the fish appeared to be a female. Granted every population of fish will have males and females, however if there was a sizable anadromous component, we would expect the sex ratio of resident fish to be strongly skewed towards males. Resident, male "rainbows" routinely spawn with anadromous females, but under historic ocean conditions, with reasonable smolt survival, females will be predominantly anadromous. The reproductive advantages of large body size and higher fecundity are just so much more pronounced for females. So while we were glad to see such a beautiful fish, it raises some interesting questions about the life history distribution of O.mykiss in this particular river. Could it be an indication that the anadromous life history is no longer viable? Future expeditions will most certainly include snorkel gear.

Resident female?

Towards the end of the day, walking back to the river we stopped at one final spot, a pool just at the top end of tidal influence. Just above the estuary the river becomes fairly confined between cobble banks and large conifers hold the river in place creating a nice run, heavy in the head scouring down the middle and gradually softening as it slides over large, jagged boulders, characteristic of the young landscape of the region. For me fishing steelhead rivers at tide water is a treat. So many of the rivers in our region are heavily impacted by urbanization, diking, and agriculture that for the most part fishing isn't even worthwhile in the lower river. Here however, was a perfect steelhead run 100 yards from a tidal estuary and centuries away from the day to day. Near the bottom of the run the scenery opened, offering a view of the broad tidal estuary where the deep green conifers and newly budding alders gave way to spring flowers and marsh grasses. If ever there was a place to catch a steelhead this was it.

Back at the boat I asked Brendan about his experiences with that particular run. While he isn't particularly experienced fishing for steelhead he fishes the river regularly for chum and pink salmon and has found that the fish don't hold in that run but rather push through on high tide and by the time the tide ebbs, they've made their way above the tidal reach, leaving the seemingly perfect run devoid of fish. Like I said, my experience fishing tidal reaches of rivers for steelhead is almost nothing, but I couldn't help but wonder whether the steelhead would do the same? Then I remembered a chapter from Steve Raymond's book, Steelhead Country where he discusses fishing for steelhead in the tide water. It seems to me, if I remember correctly that his observation was that steelhead were much more inclined to linger in tidal reaches of the river after the tide has fallen. Can anyone confirm this observation? I'd love to hear more from the readers on your experiences and observations of fishing steelhead at tide. People catch steelhead in tide water on the Dean right?

Grandeur in a coastal fjord

The day would've been perfect if some shithead hadn't robbed us for two prawn traps and more than a $100 worth of leadline. We just missed the bastard too, the bouys were floating perfectly equidistant apart, about 100 meters up the inlet from where we'd set our traps and the tide had been ebbing almost all day, meaning that the traps had been stolen within an hour or so since the tide slacked and started flooding. Nothing like loosing 300 dollars worth of borrowed prawning gear to put a sour taste in the mouth.

Last Fresh Fish of the Season

2010-04-17T12:51:00.001-07:00

It rained last night, but this rain was of a different sort. After a winter of frigid, chilling rain, which saturates the landscape this rain felt very distinctive. Every spring, with the trees budding out, the flowers awakened from their winter slumber, there is a noticeable shift in the smell of the air, and the feeling of the rain on the skin. This is type of rain that seems to quench the land, feeding yet more life into the vibrancy of springs new growth.

With these rains come the last trickles of late spawning wild, winter steelhead. In rivers all around the Northwest coast, bright females, laden with loose eggs will slide into their natal streams and deposit their offspring into the river of their ancestors. Among the dark males and spawned out females desperate to return to the ocean and recover their strength, these fish can be found. Close to tide, in the green, mysterious broken water lays the last bright fish of winter.

Late Season Chrome for TBone

Guides, numbers and the ethics of chasing wild fish

2010-04-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

Well the rumor mill is busy again. I've been pretty checked out of the online banter this winter. Too busy with having a life and trying to manage some fishing time to worry about it. Still news of a 30 fish day for a somewhat notorious fly guide have me scratching my head. In my few limited interactions with this individual he has always professed to be a true lover of wild fish, an advocate with every intention of doing right by the resource. Othertimes however, actions speak louder than our words. Hooking 30 fish in a day is unethical period, and I do not say this out of jealousy. Regardless of our chosen method of angling, the greed and blantant disregard for our personal impact on the resource that is implicit in hooking 30 fish in a single day of fishing is an abomination. Pressure has skyrocketed on the few remaining rivers in WA and if we are serious about protecting these precious fish we all need to take a hard look at our own actions.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I will ask, when does a good day turn into a ludicrous act of egotism? Why the need to measure dicks by catching so many fish? Certainly a 3 fish day is worth celebrating? A 5 fish day the day of a lifetime. These fish are too precious not to value every single one as though it was the last of its kind, and the hypocrisy of pointing fingers at tribal gillnet fisheries while simulateously fishing under the blind illusion that more is better, bragging rights supercede all and a man is measured by the number of fish in the net is a falacy.

This soulless, pseudo flyfishing culture caters to beginning "flyfishers" who lack the knowledge about the resource to know any better, and these guides selling their "expertise" and the promise of huge numbers rake in money. Meanwhile they do nothing to protect the resource which puts money in their pocket and fuels their egos. Since when was the method which presented the least challenge the most desirable? A real guide is a teacher, a steward, a man who lives for the observation of the river and its fish. Sadly it seems that these types are too often drowned out in the chorus of self promoting, boat racers who have marketed their way into the guiding profession.