Gray Skies, Pink Fish

One morning on the water resulted in my first Pink Salmon in Puget Sound. My oldest son, Tommy, and I launched the boat at 7am and headed across Commencement Bay near Tacoma. Just down from Dash Point, we saw periodic fish boiling as they moved south along the shoreline, headed for the Puyallup River where they will eventually spawn.

We kept the boat in 10 feet of water and, on an outgoing tide, cast toward shore. We stripped pink and white Clouser and Shrimp patterns back to the boat with a medium-to-slow retrieve. At one point, I felt my line hang up and then I saw three fish boil at about the spot where I knew my fly was. I'd obviously got in front of a small pod and surprised them all when the hook set.

I stripped quickly and got the fiesty three-pounder on the reel. Tommy netted him as I grinned from ear to ear and he snapped a few photos. I've never targeted Salmon in Puget Sound and this was a victory for me. Across the bay were guys catching 30 pound Kings on down-riggers but this fish, taken on the fly, was all I needed and I couldn't have been happier.

As the run continues to grow we will come back and try again. 5 Million Pinks are supposed to make their way through Puget Sound so our odds should improve in the next week or so. Stay tuned for more...

One Man's Swamp is Another's Adventure

Recently, three teenagers and one middle-aged dad decided on some late evening exploration. My boys, Tommy and Terry, had their cousin over for a week and they wanted to take him bass fishing on the old pond in the woods where I took them several times during their gradeschool and junior high years.

This was no average pond. First, it was a pond I fished when I was in high school so there's some tradition involved. Second, this pond sits in the middle of a real life swamp. One of those places that most people just never go. When I was young the woods around it was logged and there was an old logging road that ran down to the edge of the swamp. From there, logs and old tires made a path through the mucky water out to where the pond sat in the middle of the small valley.

Of course, the years went by and the woods grew back up. When I took my boys back several years ago the old logging road was overgrown but we still found it and made our way down to the pond.

This time, however, the old signs were completely gone. Let's just say that you know you're getting old when you can remember a place being logged twice. We showed up at the usual spot and found all the trees gone, logged clear down the hill to within 50 yards of the swamp. The old logging road that we used to look for had been wiped clean and we knew it was going to be difficult to find that one access point that would get us out through the swamp and over to the pond. The boys began to immediately argue about where they thought the old trail used to be. I thought I knew, too, but I decided to stay quiet and told them they could figure it out. Such exploration and searching is a young man's game and there are far too few of our youth who know it. I would rather follow my boys in circles through the trees and brambles than let them grow up without knowing how to find their way, cut a trail, and read the woods and landscape. I would follow them.

Tommy took us down the edge of the clear cut and headed into the small strip of woods along the edge of the swamp. It was immediately apparent why we'd always headed for that one trail. The brush, trees, and briars grew thick in the swamp and at the first point where we came to it's edge we saw that it would take hours to hack our way through the vegetation, not to mention wading in filthy water that would have mud holes and other surprises waiting for us.

We conferred for a bit about what to do. From experience, I told the boys that it was 7:30 and the Black Bass in the pond would stop biting around 8:30, thirty minutes before it would get dark. That meant we weren't likely to find the trail and get out to the pond in time to catch some fish before they stopped biting. They agreed it didn't matter - they wanted to at least see it.

They asked me where I thought the trail was and I said my old compass was telling me that we were about 300 yards too far down water's edge. I suggested we just head in the general direction I was thinking and see if we cut across anything that might look like the old logging road. Everyone agreed and my youngest led off, taking an obvious deer path along the edge of the treeline.

After a while, Terry called out.

"This looks like an old road!"

I caught up with him and saw the low ground cover, sword ferns, and vines that were obviously covering an old road. Vine Maple hung over it from both sides. We looked at each other excitedly and took a ninety degree turn toward the water. Thirty yards later we were standing on the water's edge, looking at an obvious path through the thick growth.

"Looks like we came about 300 yards." Tommy said to no one in particular.

That was all the acknowledgement the old man was going to get for getting it right. Of course, I shouldn't think too highly of myself. If I'd only taken a look at the satellite photos on Google before we left, this wouldn't have been a problem. But then solving these issues the old-fashioned way by using our minds and our sense of direction was a lot more satisfying...

About then we realized we had another issue. This had been a hard, wet winter. The swamp was two feet higher than I was used to seeing it. That meant all the old logs and tires were submerged and we were going to get wet, not to mention muddy, navigating this path. I asked the boys what they wanted to do and everyone agreed we had come too far to let a little water hold us back so into the black water we stepped...

The boys had been trying to scare their cousin with stories of the pitfalls to be found in this swamp. The first unique characteristic of the pond is that the shoreline is made up of tightly woven grass, moss, and bushes. The entire shoreline around the small lake floats on top of the water. As you follow the trail out, you walk across muddy, submerged ground until you get near the pond and you step up onto that blanket of vegetation. When you walk out to the edge to make a cast, you see that your weight is causing the grass beneath you to begin slowly sinking into the pond. It holds your weight but it will continue to sink and soon you are standing in a foot of water.

Second, this floating shoreline is peppered with sink holes. When the boys were junior high age, we were walking the last few yards of the trail and had stepped up on to the vegetation. I stepped in a muddy spot in the trail and instantly sunk into the mud and into the lake beneath. fortunately, only one leg went into the hole so I fell forward and caught myself but in that heartbeat that entire leg had sunk clear up to my waist. The boys were young and already freaked out a little by this creepy place. That brief episode merely cemented their opinion that this place was dangerous. Of course, dangerous like a scary movie. You don't like it but you like the challenge and the creepy feeling you get being there. They would go on later to complain about how much it scared it them and beg me to take them back...

We carefully waded our way along and it only took a minute for the lead boy to bump a foot into the first log. We were then able to step up out of two feet of murky water and feel our way along the logs that were a mere foot under the water. We held onto the brush that grew tightly along the edge of the path so that we wouldn't slip off the logs and into an unseen sink hole. Of course, mud, water, and old logs make for slippery going and the boys would periodically slip off a log. Everyone would look to see if the unlucky guy was going to catch his footing in two feet of water or disappear up to his waist in a mudhole.

We were almost through the swamp and up to the edge of the lake when the boys pointed out the very sink hole that I'd gone into all those years before. Their cousin looked at it as we walked around it. He stepped a little close, on a spot where he thought it looked dry enough to step, and, slurp, he was in up to his waist. Everyone called out and he leaned forward and pulled himself out. Tommy couldn't believe it.

"Didn't we just say 'look out for that spot?!'"

Hey, what's a little adventure without a little peril?

After all the searching and the slog through the wet swamp, it was already 8:30. The mosquitoes were out and we made jokes about being carried off by some of the bigger ones. We rigged up a dry line and a fat popper and took a few casts but we knew we were too late. The bass had gone to bed. After 20 minutes of trying at three different spots along the lake we broke down the rod and made our way out.

We didn't mind missing out on the fish. After all, we had just successfully accomplished a great suburban adventure and had actually found the old pond.

It should be noted that, once again, the fish were just the reason for going...

Below: one fish taken the first year I brought the boys to see this place (2003).

Small Pleasures

Of course, by "small" I mean Smallmouth. And they are a pleasure... After all, one of the prettiest settings in central Washington also offers some great fishing for mid-sized Bass. On one evening recently, I couldn't keep the fish off my line. I arrived late in the day and only had two and a half hours to fish before dark. I would be heading off for some big trout early the next morning so this brief time slot would have to satisfy me. Let's just say the results were surprising and prove why I keep coming back to Banks Lake: 18 fish in 2 1/2 hours - three of them pushing three pounds and all on various minnow and leach patterns in shallow water. Man, I love Smallies on the fly...

Goodbye to May - We Never Knew You...

The month of May is over and it was almost like we never experienced it. Oftentimes, it offered more of a late-winter feel than spring and all the fishing cycles and activity were late by many weeks. This weekend, however, that delay turned out to be a good thing. I went on a four-day road trip and met up with my eldest, Tommy, and our friend, David Dietrich. We did some fishing in the middle of the state and David talked us into spending a day on Omak Lake. The fish there were still in Spring mode and we found them cruising in relatively shallow water all day long. The water will soon warm into the mid and upper 60's and the fish will begin moving into deeper water but our late spring kept the window of opportunity open even as the month of May ended.

Big Lahontan Cutthroat prowl all over this lake and chow on the abundant bait fish. They can grow to very large sizes but average around 18-20 inches. We used minnow and leach patterns in two to ten feet of water and had steady action. Our biggest went 24 inches and maybe five pounds (photo below). Most that we caught were around 20 inches and three pounds, as seen in the photo of Tommy above. Nice fish...

It was 90+ degrees while we were on the water but the wind blew a bit to keep us cool and we almost had the place to ourselves. Definitely worth the effort and definitely a place we'll find an excuse to get back to...

Spring has Sprung

Well, I've been out four times in the last four weeks. Three times on lakes and once on a river, all in my home state. Three weeks ago things were slow and lethargic and the local fly shops have been saying that the fishing cycle is about 4-6 weeks behind. Fishing in early May was sometimes like fishing in March. But I just got back from a lake last night where Spring seemed like it was finally in gear. There were sporadic sightings of Callibaetis Mayflies, Damsel nymphs (and adults), and bomber-sized midges. Exactly what the doctor ordered in a year which, so far, has been all about high water levels, cold temperatures, and lethargic trout.

I took a friend, Gary, out on a two-man pontoon boat and rowed him through some favorite places on the lake. He'd never fly fished before in his life and he was fed up with learning to cast in the front yard. He said he wanted to finally feel the weight of a fish on the end of his line and I was only too happy to oblige him. His casts were simple but improved as the day went on and he had the skills to get the job done, as proven by the fact that he landed several nice fish - the largest, pictured above, was eighteen inches and quite fat.

At one point in the afternoon, I had us within 30 feet of a grassy shoreline and was digging through a gear bag while my partner made a short cast toward shore with a wet fly on an intermediate sink line. I looked up and, just off the end of one oar, saw a plump Rainbow Trout arcing almost four feet in the air. It hadn't made a sound and it didn't seem real until I watched and heard it hit the water with a splash as it continued pulling against the line. I shouted excitedly, "Did you see that?!"

My buddy grinned and looked back at me momentarily as he continued to fight his fish.

"Yah," he replied, sarcastically. "I saw that."

Soon, in the net was another 17-incher. What a great way to welcome in the Spring. A beautiful and warm sunny day on the water with frisky fish feeding aggressively.

Spring couldn't be more welcome.

High Desert Lake in Washington

Last Friday was one of those "I've only got one day off" trips that starts at 5am and ends at 11pm with maybe six hours of fishing in the middle of it... David Dietrich, a friend, and my son, Terry, were in the Tahoe with me cruising east over the Cascade Mountains, headed for dry desert on the east side of the state. We were pulling my utility trailer with David's new 14-foot, 3-man pontoon boat strapped on. We planned to catch some Spring trout and be back in our beds almost before anyone had noticed we were gone.

We paused on the dry side to catch breakfast just after sunrise at a little cafe in Cle Elum but otherwise didn't stop until we got to our destination. The weatherman had predicted periodic rain showers but the sky was clear and the wind wasn't blowing as hard as we expected. We rigged up our rods and got the boat situated with sunshine on our faces and maybe a half-dozen other pontoon boats on the lake.

The water was cold and we knew, with the winter we'd had, that we were early for the good fishing but since the ice had been off the lake for two weeks now, we couldn't wait any longer. We went directly for the north end and found the back cove empty. We had the water all to ourselves the entire day and had a great time - one of the best opening days I've had in terms of satisfaction. I caught several nice fish in the 15-18 inch range and so did my companions. I spent most of the day on the oars and put the guys on hole after hole where I knew the fish would be. Of course, early on it was tough going. The water was cold and the fish were lethargic but we caught a few here and there. Enough to keep us interested.

Then came the late afternoon. The sun had been on the water for a good six hours and I had the lobster burn on the top of my head to prove it. I guided the boat into the back of the north cove where we could see the lily pads growing up within a foot or so of the surface - another week or two and they would have their leaves floating on top. I had my son try a black Sealbugger right over the top of the lily pads and up against the grass in shallow water maybe three feet deep.

Terry's fish hit him as hard as any had to that point in the day and we knew the afternoon bite was on. Within the next hour, David and Terry would hook up on seven or eight fish in the cove, landing six. It was like we'd been killing time all day waiting for the bite that we knew would come. What was surprising was that it lasted a little longer than normal. We caught fish fairly steadily for almost two hours.

David took over the oars about 5:00 pm to take us back to the boat launch. He offered to stop at one grassy point I am fond of and I was glad to get to make a couple casts toward shore. The wet winter had the level of the lake as high as I've ever seen it so the rocks on the point were all submerged but I cast right over the top of where I knew they'd be. I let my black Sealbugger sink for about a five count to give it time to get down above the rocks and then I began slowly stripping it back toward me. I brought it back a little and then paused to let it sink deeper as I drug the fly out into deeper water. I did this retrieve/pause technique about three times and then I felt my line hang up and start vibrating.

Fish on!

I stripped several times to get tension on the hook and then reeled up the slack so I could fight him on the reel. He ran for deeper water and I followed with the rod. After a few minutes he was in the net. All 17-inches of him and fat like a football.

I let the fish go and made a cast to the other side of the point. Several strips later I had another one, a twin to the first.

I love Spring trout...

It's Getting on to Time

Sitting at the tying bench the last two nights, I notice that it's staying light until 8:00 now. You know what that means...

I've already booked two trips for this month with friends who are as anxious as I am to get out and do some Spring fishing. Triploid Rainbow Trout are calling my name and the almost 200 midge, scud, chironomid, and boatman patterns in my lake box confirm that I've done more than enough tying.

Five days from today and I will be on my first outing of 2009. I can't wait. I've got a couple new reels and a new rod to try out and they are ready to go. If you are luckier than I am then you've already started your new season. The winter here is staying a little later than usual this year so I haven't been in a hurry to get out. In fact, the lake we're headed to next week was frozen over ten days ago. So our timing is just about right. See you out there...