Fishing in Washington State

August 29, 2017

Our first stop in Washington State was to pay a visit to Carol's cousin June (her Dad's first cousin) who lives in Okanogan, WA. We had visited June and her husband Red a couple of decades ago, with Carol's mom. June is in her 80s now, and Red in his early 90s. It was so good to see June again after all these years. She had a stroke a few years back, but gets around very well. Sadly, Red has Alzheimer's now and didn't really know us. June is his primary caregiver and certainly has quite a load on her shoulders, but bears it cheerfully. We spent the night and Carol and June talked continuously, catching up on all the doings of their various relatives. It was a pleasant visit, despite the sadness of seeing Red in his current situation.

 June and Carol

We left their place in the morning and headed west, toward the rivers on my list. After an incredible scenic drive through the majestic Cascade Mountains of northern Washington, during which we passed through the Northern Cascades National Park, we arrived at the small town of Darrington near the western headwaters of the Stillaguamish River, one of my top 100 trout streams (according to the Trout Unlimited organization and their book that I've been fishing my way through). The smoke from wildfires burning in Canada, Montana and Washington made the sky very hazy. Many of the streams we passed by in the Cascades looked like good trout waters, but were not on my target list. During the long drive along the Sauk River I heard that river calling to me, but I ignored her.

Northern Cascades National Park. The haze is due to wildfires.

The room at the Darrington Inn was OK, but at over $100 a night, it seemed a bit overpriced for what we got. I paid little attention to the fact that there were no fly shops in the area. But Carol had noticed there was a pawn shop nearby selling fishing licenses, flies, used and new rods (you could buy or rent) and just about everything else imaginable. So after a good night's rest (the bed was comfortable at least) we headed over to the pawn shop to look around.

The woman owner was pleasant and listened intently to my story of coming all the way from Virginia to fish the Stilly, my next-to-last Top 100 Trout stream in the lower 48 states. Then she dropped the bomb on me. "The North Fork of the Stilly is closed to fishing!" she said. "What?" I exclaimed, as if I didn't hear what she said. "The North Fork is closed to fishing." she repeated, "The Fisheries Department closed it early last year and again this year because the flows are so low. They want to give any fish in there the best chance to survive the summer drought and heat." Nothing could have prepared me for this. ALL of my trout books said the North Fork was the best Stilly waters and summer steelhead were in the stream and even the sea-run cuttthroat trout were coming in at this time. Noting my great disappointment and possibly knowing she was about to miss a sale, the woman replied, "But the South Fork is not closed yet and will stay open until September 4th." So I bought my Washington State fishing license and some flies she recommended and headed to Arlington, where the North Fork and the South Fork joined as they headed to the Pacific Ocean.

Carol had found a fly-tying and fishing expert in Arlington and we stopped for a very long chat and I purchased some more flies. An odd but helpful guy. We headed upriver to the first state-maintained campground and found a nice camping spot along the South Fork. We walked along the bank to check it out. The stream was very low and filled with big round boulders, ranging in size from basketballs to Volkswagens.

Boulders and Boulders Galore in the Stilly South Fork

I'm stalling now, in hopes you might have gotten bored reading this and will not notice the stupid stunt I pulled next. I decided to rig my fly-rod and put on a small purple prince nymph. I saw and ignored my wading stick and didn't even put on my waders and boots because I had no intention of wading in the water--I was just going to stand on the bank and throw a few casts, to see what was what.

On the first cast into a likely run, I had a strike. On the second cast I caught a juvenile rainbow about 6 inches long. It still had parr marks on its side (row of spots on juvenile rainbows) so I figured it was a young steelhead trying to fatten up so it could run to sea with the big boys in the spring. A few casts later, I caught a slightly larger rainbow which put up a bigger fight. In trying to unhook him, I slipped on a boulder and lost my balance. I fell over a large boulder, landing hard on my back. It was enough to knock the wind out of me and engage my paramedic skills of checking my body, neck and limbs before attempting to rise. Carol saw me fall and came over to help. But I felt well enough at that point to continue fishing for awhile longer.

Later that night the pains started setting in from where I fell on my elbows and my left hip in an attempt to break my fall. My back hurt pretty bad when standing up from a sitting position. I was moving VERY slowly. We decided to call off the fishing the next day, since I had checked off the stream by catching those trout, no matter that they were small ones. The next morning we drove to Yakima (Carol driving, me still moving slowly), where I planned to fish the last of the lower 48 top 100 trout streams, the Yakima River, the culmination of my 20-year quest. Four days of recuperation, holed up in a Super8 where I could soak my back in the tub, were required before I felt in shape to finally fish the Yakima River.

The highlight of this recuperation period was on Saturday, when Carol's good buddy (another Carol) from her early college days at Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA arranged to meet us for lunch at a nearby restaurant. Carol and her boyfriend Dick, both from Asheville, NC, were also driving across the country in Dick's RV and we'd been following them to many of the same locations, about a week behind, but this was the first time we'd been in the same vicinity at the same time. I was feeling somewhat better at this point and we all enjoyed the lunch together and talking about our travel experiences. (And the delicious fresh marionberry pie a la mode!)

Selfie of the happy group after lunch--Jack, Carol L, Dick, Carol W.

September 4, 2017

During my recuperation period, Carol sought out a good fly shop in the nearby Yakima Canyon and we drove there to view the water and talk to someone in the fly shop. The presence of several fly shops in this area told me this was a good river to fish. We figured that a float trip with a guide was my best chance to actually catch a trout and check off this last river. Carol booked us a half-day float trip and we arrived at the fly shop around 7:30 am on Monday, Labor Day, to meet Shan, our friendly and knowledgeable guide, with his Clakka drift boat. After signing the required releases, we headed upstream and watched as Shan launched his boat and held it in place as Carol and I took our places (me in the bow, Carol in the stern, and Shan in the middle rowing position). I was now able to lock my legs in the bow notch and, armed with Shan's five-weight rod, we headed downstream. The morning was nice and cool and the smoke that had been hanging in the air from multiple wildfires had mostly cleared out. And my back felt a lot better.

Jack beside drift boat at the put-in. Jack stands in the front (left), Carol sits in the back (right), and Shan sits in the middle.

The Yakima River in the Canyon is about 200 feet wide. The water was quite fast and Shan told us the water was still being used for irrigation downstream but the level would soon fall, causing the trout to move around. He felt sure we would have a good day, and that we did. It was not long until I caught my first rainbow--a 9-inch well-muscled trout who put up a surprisingly hard fight. Check off the Yakima River--hooray!

Shan said the fish would get bigger as we moved downstream, and he was right. Once he tied on a golden stonefly nymph, the trout got bigger and bigger. I landed several large trout in the 18- to 20-inch range but I also lost as many as I hooked. These trout were very hard fighters and had a number of tricks up their sleeves. One particularly fast large trout jumped out of the water three times and then ran right toward and under the boat. In the process he wound my leader around the oar-lock and broke my leader, running off with my stone-fly imitation in his mouth. Carol took some great photos. Along the way she and Shan saw lots of bighorn sheep, running in small herds on the distant hills. (I was too focused on the fishing to see them.) They also saw several deer, which apparently here are a mixed breed of whitetail and blacktail deer. They have much bigger ears than our whitetails. Lots of birds were on the river too. Toward the end of the trip an osprey flew overhead with a trout in his talons. I swear they always do that just to let me know they too can catch trout and without a fly-rod and without a guide.

Hard-fighting Yakima rainbow trout.

Note the bend in Jack's fly rod. A big one!

Bighorn sheep - a view of a running herd from our drift boat.

This was a perfect end to a perfect day on my last river in the lower 48! We saw very few other boats or fishermen--it was like we had this beautiful, big western river to ourselves. Carol and I went to lunch afterward to celebrate and reminisce about the years of fishing beautiful streams across the United States. Will I ever fish the last three in Alaska, to make it a perfect 100? Maybe, but probably not. For some reason Trout Unlimited selected 3 extremely remote streams in Alaska that you can reach only by seaplane and where you must spend a week (each river) at a VERY expensive lodge. This is not the way I like to fish for trout. My ideal stream is wading in clear running water in a mountain stream with no other fishermen in sight. Far far away from the madding crowd...

We camped at a nearby RV park Monday night. It is now Tuesday and we are driving to try to get away from the terrible smoke in Washington, Montana and parts of Oregon, from the multiple wildfires. It's really bad today. Heading home. We saw an interesting art display from the interstate--Wild Horse Monument, a large multi-sculpture of a herd of wild horses running across a distant ridge.

Smoke everywhere today. Hazardous air quality. Can't even see the mountains and the sun is a dim orange disk.

Wild horses: as we saw the Monument from the road.

Wild Horse Monument: A close-up from the web.