Quick Salt report and Sea run Cutthroat Observation

Hit one of my favorite beaches by boat today. Perfect outgoing tide, but pretty windy. Needed to be on the oars to keep us drifting right today. About 5 mintues in, I got a tap followed by another tap and then a hard steady pull. A nice fish that was easy 20" gave me a couple nice runs and a jump and then came off... Got a Few other hits and saw some other follows and my buddy Ryan had a few hits and follows as well. We changed up flies and worked the whole beach.

I have noticed fishing my spots this summer and fall that the size is way up on SRC's this year, but the numbers are down. I have seen in the past seasons, that the majority of the fish I was catching averaged out between 14-16". I have seen very few of the "normal" fish that I have seen in the previous years. What I have seen is large fish. My Average fish this year is 20". Can't complain with that!!! I also saw a lot of smaller 6-8" SRC's earlier in the summer. This looks promising for the next few years as the next age class of SRC's grows older and bigger.

I have broken my tradition this year of only fishing 2 fly patterns for SRC's and have been playing around with a new pattern. It is working very well on larger fish, but I'm still tweaking it and hopefully will be able to start producing them for the shop soon.

I hope everyone that hit the salt this week had a good time and hooked some fish!

Getting some love from Moldy Chum

Moldy Chum is a pretty amazing blog and it was cool to get some love from them this morning.

Wild Steelhead Survey

If you have not yet taken the Moldy Chum Wild Steelhead Survey, do so now. link

Some New Flsh on and Old Favorite

Ask any puget sound cutthroat angler what they carry in their box(s) and without question there will be at least one clouser. This fly has become a staple in many an angler's box and has accounted for more of my SRCs than any other fly.


I thought I'd share a new version of the classic, designed to give of more light and a more realistic "fishy" look in the water because its the time of the year where you can find a mixed bag of chum salmon and searuns milling around the estuaries of south puget sound.

Materials list:


Hook: Gamikatsu SC 15 size 2


Thread: White 6/0


Eyes: 5/32 spirit river green eyes


Belly: pearl bait fish emulator


Flash: Chartreuse crystal splash


Back: Chartreuse DNA Frosty Fish Fiber



simple yet deadly tie,
Enjoy,
Justin

6 days away! Rise premier!

We are now 6 days and counting from the premier of Rise. Come join us at Tides Tavern next Tuesday night. It's free! Tides is rockin happy hour specials. Raffle tickets are $5 and the proceeds go to the Wild Steelhead Coalition. It's going to be a great time. 
Rise is the follow up film to last year's film by Confluence Films, Drift. You can order your copy of Rise here. Help us by spreading the word about this fun event!

Chum time!!

Chum season is upon us in Western Washington, with good numbers of fish returning to the Hood Canal and Puget Sound. While it is still a little bit early in some areas i.e. Minter Creek and most of the small streams around the Harbor, the Hood Canal, Chico Creek and Kennedy Creek are all kicking out fish. The weather and tides continue to play and large role in a successful outing, but when the stars align there is some outstanding fishing to be had. This last week I made the run out to the Hood Canal to check out a few of my favorite chum beaches and while the fish weren't quite in a the first two spots, the third spot was stacked. Upon arriving at the beach, chum could be seen jumping and boiling all over the place and within the first five minutes I had my first fish on. I fished for the rest of the evening using my favorite whistling chum fly and had hook ups every few minutes, with the majority of the fish being from 10-15lbs.

A chrome Hood Canal Chum

With the chum fishing around Gig Harbor getting ready to get going any day now, this is the time to gear up with 8-10wt rods and chartreuse flies. If you are not sure where to start on chum fishing, we will be offering an hour and a half $25 Intro to Chum fishing class at the shop. This class will cover tactics, run times, flies and more. The next class is scheduled for 11/16 from 6:30pm-8:00pm.

Steelhead Day Trip

Waking up at 3:00 AM isn't for everyone. I know it is early but Steelhead are worth the early morning wake up and the 4 hour drive. After 15 minutes at the Shell station with the slowest gas pump ever, we hit the road. Saw an awesome Sunset in Wenatchee.

Continued our drive north and got to our favorite spot. It was cold, but not bad. Fall weather at it's best. Started fishing the first hole that we saw Steelhead on our previous trips in. First Cast and hooked a fish. Smaller fish that ended up coming off. Looked upstream and saw Blake hooked up. I grabbed the net and helped him land a Bull Trout around 22". After getting my hands wet to release the fish because somebody "Didn't want to get there hands wet because they were cold, " I went back to fishing. I hooked up on a nice fish on the next cast. Ended up being a Big Bull around 26".

We hooked a few more Bulls and Cutthroats but no Steelhead yet so we moved downriver to our "Money" run and hole. The water was higher and colder than last time we fished it, but it still looked fishy. Blake took the run and I moved down to the hole. I worked through with a Stonefly bead rig and hooked a Steelhead right in the tailout. Took a powerful run into the fast water below and came off... Went back up and switched flies to the Gob. Blake has never seen the power of the gob. I proceeded to wade out, make one cast, mend and watch the indicator go down. After a nice fight, this is what came in.
A 29" Wild buck. We decided to try further up river after that.

Driving farther up river, we came to a big hole with a large broad tailout. A raft was parked and a guy was fishing the tailout. At first glance, I could see Fish everywhere! Got out of truck and looked closer. Kings were actively spawning and there were multiple redds in the tailout. WATCH OUT FOR THE REDDS!

We swung and nymphed some awesome looking water! Nothing, but that is steelhead fishing.
Saw some other anglers, but the pressure was light compared to other times fishing this river. We decided to head back down river and fish the water we had fished in the morning. Hit an amazing hole and I hooked and lost a fish right off the bat. Then rigged up in the last few minutes of light and hooked and landed this beautiful Wild hen.

The fishing was decent, but the weather was the issue. Snow, wind, rain was in the forecast and the river could blow out with a decent rain. We rolled back up to the Methow Diner and ordered some amazing food. This place is a true find! You better be hungry!!! After a huge dinner we decided to head back home... We ended up driving 8 hours to fish 9 hours. All worth it!


Looking forward to some OP Winter Steelhead that should be here soon and guiding for them through April.